I actually have a recipe that I have never tried called Resurrection cake. That would have been apt to do for today since I'm reviving an old blog to do this. However I don't have the ingredients for it. So for tonight since it is late I will simply tell you what I fixed and what I learned from it.
But first let me tell you that even after nearly 9 years of marriage I am still learning to cook. That is the reason for this blog. Well it and one other but I'll get to that in another post. I'm trying to become a better cook or at least have a more diverse menu to offer my family without having to go on the "Worst Cooks in America" show in FoodNetwork. I have lots of kitchen disaster stories which I will likely share over time, but my mother did try to teach me to cook - it is just that I didn't pay attention when it counted.
That is not to say that I don't cook for my family. I do. However we stick to the things I do well, which is about 12 dishes served over and over again. But there are gazillions of recipes out there and I have at least 3 or four dozen that I've torn out of magazines or gleaned off the internet that I have never once tried. So this is the year. And here's where you will read about it when I fix it.
This will also be a blog where I review children's books but we'll save that for the next post.
Tonight let me tell you that I fixed Meatloaf (which I have fixed before, but this time used as substitution) and I tried a new recipe called Roasted Winter Vegetables.
Which consisted of cutting up bits of sweet potato, parsnip, and butternut squash, tossing it with olive oil and thyme and roasting it.
This was my first time to ever try a parsnip.
Tonight's Lessons Learned should be labeled "Accept no substitutes" because that is the majority of what I learned tonight.
1. Do not try to substitute ground turkey when making meat loaf - or at least not my mom's recipe for meatloaf. You end up with a very bland meatloaf where the ketchup on top is the best part. Blech.
2. Do not substitute ground thyme for fresh - even if you can't find it at the grocery. The roasted veggies would have been better with just salt and pepper rather than the ground thyme.
3. One parsnip, One butternut squash, and one sweet potato cut up and roasted makes enough to feed about 6 people.
4. Parsnips taste quite a bit like carrots when roasted.
