Experimental Cooking

Every month, I anxiously await the arrival of two of my favorite magazines…Food Network Magazine and Every Day with Rachael Ray. Their glossy pages pull me in as I pore over the pages and strategize about which of the new recipes I will attempt to make.

“Attempt” is the key word here, because even though the titles shout things like “simple” and “weeknight cooking”, they seem to be addressing someone other than me. There doesn’t seem to be many articles for a very average cook who still can’t cook rice to save her life.

But all of my past disasters seemed to fade as I wrote my grocery list last weekend. I found myself picking out ingredients to make chicken with tarragon cream sauce, chocolate peanut butter sandwich cookies, and a new stir fry recipe that involved me tracking down rice vinegar at Meijer. (It was even on sale.)

My glowing optimism on Sunday faded somewhat by mid-week, when I was forced to either attempt the new recipes or resort to macaroni & cheese. The magazines sit on the counter, the marked pages taunting me to toe the line and pull out my mixing bowls. I can only withstand the pressure for so long; the fresh ingredients wilting in the fridge force my hand, and I step up to the counter.

The first recipe I attempt is a chocolate peanut butter sandwich cookie recipe from Rachael Ray. The kids help me with the dumping and the mixing, and even though the dough looks suspiciously runny, I plop it on the cookie trays and toss them into the oven. 15 minutes later, I find…

Yeah…completely flat. How does that happen? Plus, half completely stuck to one of my cookie sheets, so the whole thing went right in the trash. Surprisingly, they still taste okay, especially after dipping them into the peanut butter filling, but instead of being soft and chewy, they are flat and crunchy.

After that monumental disaster, I am more than a little worried about dinner. Stir fry was on the menu, which isn’t that unusual, but I am trying a different marinade, sauce, and garnish. I’m a little obsessed with trying to find a stir fry recipe that I really like…maybe tonight is the night.

I mince the garlic, chop the peppers, marinate the chicken, go to get my trusty box of Minute Rice out of the cupboard, and to my horror, it is nowhere to be found! (Did I mention that I’m not good at cooking rice?)

Now the pressure is really on as I throw on a pot of rice and start to cook the stir fry. Everything looks great, until I pour in the sauce and it refuses to thicken. The picture in the magazine shows a beautiful thick glaze on each veggie, but mine just makes a soupy mess in the bottom of the pan. Maybe my corn starch is defective, because this happens…every time.

I don’t even check the rice because I’m too scared it is going to be crunchy like my last attempt, and I just serve it up. The stir fry with runny sauce goes on top, and voilà…

No, it does not look like the picture from the magazine. But…it’s edible, and the sesame seeds add a nice crunch. We top off our meal with sharp shards of my flat cookies dipped in sugared up peanut butter, and call it a night.

That’s what I get for experimental cooking…shock, stress, surprise, and once in a while…success!

— Rachel