Michelle Tsai Photography

it was like my birthday in the mailbox today! little known fact about me: i love reading cookbooks. i read them like they’re novels- cover to cover. strange, yes. but when have i ever claimed to be normal? ha ha. so i recently ordered two rachael ray cookbooks from overstock and they both arrived today. great prices on both books and only $1 shipping for my entire order! i love a good deal.

so lately, i’ve seen a few episodes of 30-minute meals on food network and even tried a few recipes out. both phil and i have really been liking the food. i love that she uses a lot of fresh ingredients that are inexpensive and easy to find (even here in the midwest!), many of which i already have in my kitchen, and they really can be done in 30 minutes- that’s KEY for me. mikey now has 2 blocks of ‘alone time’ upstairs going back and forth between his playroom and bedroom. one block is used in the morning after breakfast for me to get some housework done (i’ve been finding it to be so much easier to keep the whole house clean on a regular basis if i just do a little something each day. way easier to be ready to have people over, too. finally! i’m learning!) the other block is used in the early evening for me to get dinner ready. he seems to enjoy the time and i get just enough time to pull dinner together before phil gets home. (that’s the goal, anyway).

so, being that i don’t have a huge block of time to make a fancy, gourmet meal every night, these 30-minute recipes have been right up my alley. i’m FINALLY out of my cooking rut! yahoo!!! (that was for phil’s benefit since he’ll be so glad to know that!)

i’m no martha stewart (it cost me $45 the last time i tried to make ONE of her recipes!) so i figure we’ll eat good, healthy, inexpensive meals regularly at home and if we get in the mood for the fancy schmancy, why then, we’ll go out!

and hopefully now, phil will have a better answer than ‘spaghetti’ or ‘hot dogs’ whenever he talks on the phone with his mom and she asks what we’re having for dinner. mortifying! she must think i’m a HORRIBLE cook! why doesn’t she call on the nights when we’re having mapu tofu and veggie stir-fry, or spinach-stuffed manicotti, or broiled parmesan cheese tilapia? thankfully, she’s great at never critizing me, but i’d still like her to know that her son eats better than what he tells her! and i feel i must defend myself about the hot dogs- i was making grilled bratwurst and burgers, sauerkraut, avocado salad, and tomato-mozzarella salad that night. but all i hear phil tell his mom is, “hot dogs.” kinda deflating, no? he says it’s because he doesn’t know how to say all that in taiwanese and his mom wouldn’t know what a bratwurst is anyway. there’s a real case of ‘lost in translation’ for ya.

10 Comments

greantea71

July 30, 2005 at 9:13 pm Reply

haha. maybe everytime she hears “hotdogs” she assumes he’s eating at a hospital cafeteria. At least it’s better than my answer when my mom asks me what i’ve eaten in irvine. thirty minutes after eating the answer is “i forgot.”

mrsstellalee

July 30, 2005 at 10:12 pm Reply

peter and i like her recipes too! although peter isn’t too fond of her tv personality. i’m always so wary about buying cookbooks because i’ve been let down so often, but it sounds like this one is great! i’ll keep it in mind. btw, i’ve made peter plain hot dogs many times!! with the canned baked beans too! how ghetto am i ? so don’t feel bad at all!

ChristineSong

July 31, 2005 at 1:15 am Reply

$45 and you still had to cook! crazy! Does this 30 minute lady have a book out? I have a book called “Desperation Dinners” that has meals under 20 minutes. Minna cooks out of it more than I do, but it’s pretty simple hearty meals that are easy and they all end up pretty good (not gourmet, but good enough).

If it makes you feel any better, I remember my uncle asking Dan what his favorite meal was that Minna made, and Dan answered, “Manwich”. hahah. We all know Minna cooks a lot better than Manwich!

I didn’t know about your rash story! So CRAZY! How come you never mentioned this when it came to your birth story! yikes!

mrssjlee

July 31, 2005 at 2:33 am Reply

you have to pass on some yummy recipes. i’m totally in a cooking rut myself…. for the last 4 years….

oh and i have “desperation dinners” too. i’ve made some stuff from there and it’s okay. it’s hard finding a good cookbook so i’d much rather stick to recipes i collect that are tried and tested….

ohmobile

July 31, 2005 at 12:52 pm Reply

yeah…what’s wrong with plain ole hot dogs for din din? it’s a treat in the oh household! heh heh

didja know that most all of her recipes are on-line at foodnetwork.com?—i’m so cheapy, i’ve made my own cookbook by printing them out, sliding them into clear plastic sleeves, and organizing them into a binder. voila!

MominIreland

July 31, 2005 at 3:05 pm Reply

I love the cooking magazines called Quick Cooking and Taste of Home. No advertising, and all the recipes are well tested and good and not requiring fancy ingredients. Most of what I cook comes out of those. My mom gets me a subscription every year.

MNah

July 31, 2005 at 11:53 pm Reply

I love reading cookbooks too! (Whenever there’s an entry without a paragraph that goes with it, I get dissapointed).

I like Rachel Ray’s cookbooks too (well, I only have one, but it seems good). You know what else is a really great cookbook? Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything”- it’s not necessarily a quick-cook recipe kind, but we’ve never had a recipe from there that didn’t turn out well.

Oh, and as far as the embarrassing Dan & my cooking stories, don’t forget the one when a relative asked him at Thanksgiving (in front of everyone) what I cooked for him, and Dan replied, “Macaroni and cheese”! Aggghhh!