Recipe for Disaster

I consider myself a utilitarian cook. What I cook is edible, but not memorable. And since I’m a huge food fan, I’ve always wished I was a chef. I dream of owning the perfect recipe book that solves all my meal preparation problems. I do have a couple books but most of the recipes seem impossible. There are three things that rule out a recipe for me. The first is time – I try not to spend more than a half hour cooking dinner. The second is amount of ingredients – if there are more than a handful of ingredients it seems too much of a bother. And the third is the kind of ingredients – if it’s got cheese in it Mark won’t eat it and I’m funny about a handful meat types. But occasionally I’ll make something that I think turns out okay and then I’ll make it a million times until I never want to eat it again. I definitely know how to beat a dead horse (though I certainly wouldn’t eat one.)

So as I mentioned yesterday my cousin and her husband are coming to dinner next Saturday. At the moment I’m planning on making a fruit and gorgonzola mixed green salad, chicken cutlets with a lime sauce, curried braised cauliflower and egg noodles in a spicy sesame sauce. The meals got a kind of Thai theme and sounds fancy but may turn out to be as bland as dirt because I’ve never used any of the recipes before – which is why I’m doing a dry run for dinner tomorrow night. I’ll let you know how it goes.

The rest of the weekend plans consist of cleaning, organizing, baby proofing – all the stuff we put off every weekend. And hopefully a visit from Ms. Tracey.

But my question to you folks is are you good at dinner parties? What do you make? Do you have any signature recipes? Can you hook a sistah up? That is if they aren’t too complex for my very limited cooking ability.