I hear that whenever I bring a dish to an event, or dinner party.

 

But first…

 

I started adding the element of food to my blog one because I love to cook, and apparently according to my mom “I’m a natural”. Two I used to be intimidated to cook certain things from scratch. Meats I had no choice, but sometimes I could doctor up pre-seasoned meats, or fish filets that came already frozen. That was back in my heavily processed food days. I’d even figure out a way to put own spin on things like powdered potatoes (which i hate now) or even Hamburger Helper (which i still crave but can’t eat).

When I started finding food blogs, I thought, “pshh these are too perfect” or “I’m sure they tried like 3 times before getting their pancakes that perfect” or “why do through the trouble when you can just order it”. Then I  started looking up those restaurants nutritional values and the issue of salt came into play, oh and lets not forget my bad luck with finding random things in my food like a shiny rock mixed in my eggs (dennys) Lipstick on my coffee cup (iHOP), Old food under my pancakes (iHop), Hair (iHop) , Gum in my Burger (TGI Fridays or one of those places probably iHop), OR my favorite a women trying to drink the overspill from the cup and then serving it to me (random bowling alley in MD) after knocking the drink over and asking for another I was pretty much done and quite frankly I knew that maybe it just wasn’t meant to be and I had no business eating the stuff in the first place.  But alas top chef, master chef,  iron chef,and kitchen nightmares entered in my life with my Adonis Gordon Ramsey…(with cloudy eyes) I was addicted to learning how to put my own spin on things with the help of Gordon (swoon).

The Food Network had become my bible, and I was off. It started with making meals at home for myself, and my mom “hovering over my plate” finding managing to get a forkfuls of my creations, and then the idea of photographing my work came. I mean I had a DSLR for god’s sake. I couldn’t just take Style pictures with it, so why not. I want to stress that cooking was and still is very therapeutic for me, and when I’m not in the mood it shows. Whether its burning a cupcake, or under seasoning something, it was all about having fun for me. So when I hear people say cooking is hard, I have no idea how to confront that. I think cooking is easy if you are given the right tools and as you learn, and taste, and explore flavors you can move on to the next level. Then again there is nothing like having someone hype you head up to the size of a Hot Air Balloon when they love your cooking.

I’ve received about 4 emails, and a couple of tweets about cooking for beginners. All I can say is this, it really does make a difference to know how to do the basic’s even if you don’t care for cooking, there are so many things you can make with a couple of ingredients and stocked spice cabinet. Trust me, that Omelette Post was thought of merely 5 minutes before grabbing my camera and thinking it was pretty enough to post on here. I’ve taken the liberty of posting my favorite favorite cookbooks that I believe work well for beginners in the kitchen they are informative regarding techniques and kitchen terms, some even have step by step pictures, and they are full of non-complicated recipes. Listen, if my mother can make something taste delicious it’s because I brought her a lot of these cookbooks from Christmas last year. *sorry mom*. But as she lets them collect dust I turn to them for a lot of referencing and ideas! I still consider myself a beginner to intermediate and these books are the best!

How to Boil Water

Don’t let the title fool you! This book is full of yummy, simple recipes. I think if you love eating out you will love this book. Simple flavorful salad, chicken recipes, and pasta!

Betty Crocker Cooking Basics

Very Simple, my favorite recipe from here is Alfredo, and the Chicken Recipes. It provides a reference to cooking terms, food storage tips, cooking times and nutritional information. Step by Step procedures.

Anyone Can Cook

This is  go to comfort foods go to book! mashed potatoes, tarts, burgers, lasagna.

I love this book, and it comes with a little DVD to watch that goes hand in hand with the book. It also has a great feature for substituting items as well.

How to be a Domestic Goddess

The best cookbook gets the biggest shine.

I LOVE this cookbook. This was one of my first cookbooks that I got when I was interested in learning more.

Hands down my favorite and most easy recipe Peanut Butter Bars.

Chocolate Brownies….yum.

I do have a Cute little Amazon Store with my Favorite Cookbooks. Click Here to see.

So! Are we going to try this?

Say it together!

*Cooking can be easy*

*Cooking can be fun*

_Elle