I just finished watching the movie Ratatouille on TV. It was a really cute, feel-good movie. The on-going theme in the movie was ‘Anyone can cook’. In the movie it just happened to be a rat who was the cook. After watching the movie, I started thinking about cooking (that was a stretch). There are people who just love to cook and then there are people who are overwhelmed when it comes to cooking. I think the key to cooking is to cook at the level that is comfortable for you. Not many of us are at the Julie Child level of cooking but that shouldn’t stop someone from cooking. Using some good quality ingredients and preparing those ingredients in a simple way with some seasonings is something that most of can do.
My philosophy on cooking is that I know the food that I am capable of cooking at home and the food that I am not comfortable cooking is the food that I would order at a restaurant. One of the foods that I order in a restaurant is sushi. My son and I did once prepare sushi at home and it was very good. The only problem is that it was very time consuming. I just don’t have that amount of time to prepare sushi. Preparing sushi is a dish that I like to leave to the experts. On the other hand, I wouldn’t order crepes at a restaurant. I use a basic crepe recipe that I actually received from Gale Gand except that I use wheat flour instead of white flour. Using my crepe pan, I can made crepes with the best of them (its all in the wrist action).
Over the Christmas holidays I was hosting a dinner and couldn’t decide on dessert. I didn’t want to spend much time making dessert and didn’t want to buy a dessert. Then the idea of making crepes for dessert popped into my head. I made the crepes earlier in the day along with a chocolate sauce and then assembled them just before serving them. To prepare the crepe, I first spread sauce down the middle of the crepe. The sauce consisted of yogurt with a little agave and some banana liquor. On top of the filling, sliced bananas were placed. The crepe was then folded and then some chocolate sauce was place on top of the crepe. Then to guild the lily, some whipped cream was placed on the chocolate sauce.
Sometimes you just need to use your imagination to put together ingredients you are familiar with in a new way. Just remember, Anyone can cook.
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