A Recipe for Living in the Moment

I am happy to say that I am doing pretty well with my goal to cook once each week. I've only missed one week, due to the mishap with the dogs. So I've tried new recipes, enjoyed some time to myself, improved my diet, and learned a lot (mostly about spices).

Most cooking and baking comes pretty naturally to me. I grew up around it, with my mom being an EXCELLENT caterer. Cooking doesn't really intimidate me since it really comes down to just following the instructions. Plus, if I have any questions, I have my mom - the walking encyclopedia on cooking - just one call away.

Not that it is all going perfectly. I would definitely be sugar-coating the situation if I didn't mention the fact that I am a complete scatterbrain. COMPLETE. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am an obsessive list maker, wiping out my need for any memory, thus creating a perpetual scatterbrained state. But that is another post.

This week I decided to make meatloaf. I only needed to buy the meat - which is thrilling to me, seeing as I am trying to build up the "pantry" that was previously completely bare! I actually have cooking basics in the house now! If you came over unannounced, I might not have to send you to the Tom Thumb to scrounge up some dinner! Yay! But I digress....

I bought the meat, rushed home, and put the meat on the stove. 15 minutes later, once the meat was browned, I realized my mistake. You don't brown the meat before you put it in the oven to cook into meatloaf! DOH! I figured there must be something I could make with 2 lbs of browned meat, but I didn't have the energy to look anything up, so I just called Mom. Of course she knew right off the top of her head that I should make Sloppy Joes, and she told me the recipe right then and there. Again, I had all the ingredients, and these are the most DELICIOUS Sloppy Joes ever (it's the brown sugar...)! I had forgotten how much I love Mom's food.

So now I'm tweaking my plan a bit. I will still cook once a week, but I am going to start with Mom's recipes. I want to know how to cook the standards I grew up with. And the best part is that my aunt wrote two cook books (like totally-legit-sold-millions-of-copies-cook-books), so I know exactly where to find every single recipe.

Plus, I'm really trying to live in the moment and not be living in a state of waiting for something to happen. Like "when I get married, then I'll (fill in the blank - "start cooking")". I do that a lot, and I can't always be waiting for something to happen, because I just don't know if I'll get married, or get a raise, or live somewhere else. I am single, living in this place, right now, with this job, these friends, going to this church, so I need to make the most of it.

And I'll start by mastering Mom's recipes. Married or not.