Not Quite Crafty

A Fear of cooking

21 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment

by notquitecrafty in Family, Home Tags: baking, Books, Cooking, home, Loo, Noos

I enjoy cooking and I enjoy eating the results of my labour.  I have a cupboard full of cookbooks and keep buying more, always looking for that elusive book that will turn me into a great cook.

I buy a new cookbook filled with enthusiasm to try out new recipes and seem to find lots of recipes I want to try.  And then I bring the book home and it sits in my cupboard.  I pull the book out, flick through and it all seems too hard or will take too long, or have too many ingredients, or ingredients I don’t have, or it seems to be something the boys won’t eat.  And so the book goes back in the cupboard.

I have a fear – if something looks to hard I won’t even try it.  If the recipe seems complicated I get scared of it.  If I see things like egg whites (what if yolk gets into the white?), knead dough (what if it sticks to everything and makes a big mess), blind bake (what if I don’t put enough rice in?  The rice will make a huge mess and end up everywhere or burn) or sautee, reduce or any other tricky things I convince myself I won’t be capable of doing this.    I roasted my first ever chicken earlier this year – the first one worked OK and the boys enjoyed it.  The second one wasn’t so successful.  And I did not like doing it at all – handling a chicken carcasse was not appealing, nor was breaking up a hot chickem to eat.  Think I will stick to buying them!

At the end of a working day I also want to make things quick and easy.  On weekends I also want quick & easy as I generally have the “can’t be bothereds”.  I love having dinner over and done with & being able to sit down with a clean kitchen to veg in front of the tv or collapse on the floor to read the paper.  Spending hours cooking & preparing for the 3 of us all seems too hard.  Hence tonight we are having hot dogs for dinner.

But Noos has informed me he would like a pavlova for his birthday cake.  And I really don’t want to just buy a prepared base.  So this afternoon I have started making my first ever pavlova.  I am really really hoping it works.  He is having his birthday dinner next weekend, but I figure a practice run won’t hurt.  So fingers are crossed that the sticky blob I have put in the oven will somehow resemble an edible pavlova base.

He has also informed me that he needs 26 small cakes for school on Monday and that everyone brings cakes in for their birthdays!  So tomorrow afternoon I am going to have to conjure something up – I have suggested meringues or mini muffins.  So far not a terribly overenthusiastic response.  He would like me to make cupcakes, but they are yet another thing I am scared of making.  I have no idea why, but suspect creaming butter & sugar turns me off.  And icing them too.  Luckily Loo has told me that as he is not a baby he doesn’t want to take cakes to school for his birthday – going to keep him to this!

So I think I need to challenge myself to make something new once a week.  Expand the recipes the boys will eat and build my cooking confidence.  Also use some of those books.  Will report back on how I go with this.