Tacos

I have always loved tacos and they are really easy to make. The best part is that people think you put a lot of effort into it and you didn't. All you have to do is brown one pound of ground beef, and then add the seasoning mix(in the mexican section of your grocery store) and a half a cup of water and simmer them together for five minutes. That's it. The taco is just the shell, which you buy, and the meat you just made, and whatever else you want to put on it. I usually use cheese(you get it shredded in the package), lettuce, tomatoes(chop them up), and sour cream. Then I add a side dish, usually refried beans. They come in a can, just below where you found the taco seasoning mix. I have found that microwaving them is the best and easiest way to warm them. If you heat them on the stove, too often they stick to the pan and get burned. Microwave them for about three minutes and you are good. Serve it up and you have a fiesta. I can now do this start to finish in less then 20 minutes. It doesn't get much easier then that.

Sloppy Joes

Sloppy Joes are one meal that I absolutely love and fortunately are really easy to make. I have made them a couple of times and my wife loves them too. They take us back to when we were kids. All you need for Sloppy Joes are a pound of ground beef, the sloppy joe mix you get at any grocery store(it comes in a can and is usually next to the chile cans), and buns. All you have to do is brown the pound of ground beef(put it in the pan and cook it through, and drain off the fat). Once the ground beef is browned, add the sloppy joe mix, and let it simmer for a few minutes(a little above low heat and let it hiss a little) five is fine. That way the mix melds into the beef and gives it the sloppy joe flavor we are looking for. Then just serve it onto the bun and you are golden. I need a side dish to go with it, and I tried tater crowns last week. They were easy and delicious. They are the same thing as tater tots but round and flat, as opposed to tots, that are more like cylinders. Both are great but the tots have to be turned half way through and the crowns don't. All I had to do was put them on the cookie sheet and cook them for 15 minutes. No problem. The only hitch was timing the whole deal. I had to preheat the oven and put the crowns in and then start the sloppy joes when the crowns had about 10 minutes left. That gave me enough time to brown the meat and simmer the mix. Then they were both ready at about the same time. If you suck at cooking too, then this meal is a no brainer.

I suck at Cooking

This blog is about the fact that I suck at cooking, and am trying to learn how to cook. I would really like to be good at cooking because I love to eat good things, but I just can't make them. I have a stack of cookbooks at home and I read them and little makes much sense. I don't understand a lot of the terminology they use, and I never seem to have the ingredients that are needed. The books tell me to "blanch" something and I don't have the slightest idea what that means and they never explain it. The books always assume their readers are expert cooks who know how to do everything and they just need to give you the receipe. That's fine for my mom, who does know how to cook, but not fine for me. I have even scoured the library looking for books to help rookies learn how to cook. There are precious few of them. I did find one useful one which I will talk about that actually tells you how to do basic things. That book helped me get my cooking career started. This blog will be about the things I have learned to cook and about the things I am trying to learn to cook so the reader can learn with me, and perhaps offer me some advice on how to do it better.