Dinner Tonight?

Well, wouldn't you know it. It's the second week of January and I'm already putting off my NYR!
I mentioned last post that this is one of the things I want to keep up in 2014, and while that is true, it also falls under a larger category of resolutions, which is to expand my creativity. Being creative has meant a lot of things for me lately, everything from chalkboard art, to designing newsletters and websites (including one for myself!), reading books on many different things, cooking, trying to get better at storytelling, working on my sense of fashion (which is basically nonexistent)... So, tonight I thought I would try to combine a couple of these things into one post, like storytelling and cooking.

Here's a story about what I made for dinner tonight. :)

My uncle gave me a whopper of a gift card to Amazon for Christmas this year. When I went to spend some money there, naturally I went for the usual things like shoes, clothes, and books. I tried to be really good about waiting to spend anything until I was sure of what I wanted, so I waited a week and then bought a great pair of (cheap) oxford booties. They are painful but they are adorable, so it was worth it. It wasn't too long after that I remembered a cookbook that was stashed in G's upstairs bathroom that I looked at sometimes while I waited for the shower to heat up. It wasn't anything fancy, just a Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast 24/7 paperback edition. I've looked at it a million times by now and I've flipped through it thinking, "Yeah, I could make that. Ooh, steak and salad... BAKLAVA BITES YES!" If you know me, you know that I'm not much of a cooker. I wish I could cook, but I just haven't had much experience and things tend to go wrong for me in the kitchen. Like the time I tried making spaghetti and forgot to break the noodles in half before putting them in the pot. A pair of kitchen scissors and feeling like a prize idiot later, I was able to cook the noodles. But not after cleaning up all the bits and pieces that scattered around the stove as I literally I kid you not cut the noodles while they were in the pot.
I digress.
I'm not a great cook, so an easy cookbook was right up my alley. Amazon gift card? Bring it onnn. Bought myself two versions so I would have plenty of readily available recipes to work with. And tonight? Tonight I made BBQ Turkey Burgers with Mustard Coleslaw.
They turned out okay! Except for the part where the sugar in the bbq sauce burned the outside of the patties first, and therefore I had charcoal burgers that tasted okay, but filled the kitchen and my clothing with a burnt-sugar stench. The coleslaw was too mustardy, since I tried to use a variety of mustards to give it some good flavor. Turns out mustard has enough flavor to go around twice, so I won't be doing that again. Also, it wasn't a pretty dinner, seeing as I couldn't tell if the burgers were cooked all the way because they were BLACK so I split them in half... but we ate it and felt satisfied and as far as I know, no one in my family has vomited. Yet. ;)


Stay tuned for more cooking adventures? More creative adventures? Just more adventures in general? I sure hope so.

Peace and blessings!