Rachel Ray Project

Well it's been 2 years since I've updated my blog. With facebook updates it's so easy to keep in touch that but I'm picking up my blog again. If you've seen the movie Julie and Julia then you may be somewhat familiar with my newest project. There are 2 things I have come to terms with:
1. I really don't know how to cook many things. I can follow directions and make most things that come out of a box but I was recently told by someone if they made it in college to survive then it probably doesn't count as a dinner plan for a family.
2. I am one of the pickiest eaters out there! But full disclosure: I say that I don't like many foods that I actually have probably never tried or at least haven't tried in the last 10 years.
So my plan to help with these problems is Rachel Ray. I bought her 365 No Repeats cookbook so I could potentially have a different dinner for every single day of a year. My plan is to at least try each recipe. I hope to go in order of the book that way I'm not tempted to skip over the ones that I don't think I'll like, because that is probably 3/4ths of the book!
Day 1: Scramblewiches
The first thing that I did was crisp a baquette in the oven and then hollow it out to make something similar to a boat. Next, cooked some deli sliced ham in a pan and then scrambled eggs in with the ham. Then I put the eggs and ham into the boat, topped it with provolone cheese and stuck it back in the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese. I have to say that it turned out decently. If I had it to do over again I would use yellow american cheese instead of provolone though and maybe even add some onion and green peppers into the eggs. It is something I would eat again, I'd give it a 6 on a scale of 1-10 but I think with american cheese I'd have liked it better.
Now, let me tell you what I've learned from this first recipe.
I've always considered myself very detail oriented, but apparently not when it comes to cooking and food, something I know little about. So I will pay attention to details!
1. I recommend reading the directions before purchasing ingredients.
I bought a baquette that was already sliced because the slices of bread were just perfect and I thought I was making sandwiches and would never be able to cut it as perfectly...then Ihad to go get another baquette because I actually needed it cut differently, into boats like I said earlier. I didn't want to start my first recipe trying to improvise so now I have quite a bit of bread left over!!! haha
2. Remember the details...well I decided as a side dish for the scramblewich I would slice up some fruit and make a little fruit salad. I purchased some grapes to put in the salad, which said like 1.99/POUND (details!). I grabbed a bag of grapes and moved on, not thinking anything of it. Then when I was ringing my fruit up the grapes came to like $6.50. I definitely did not want that many grapes! But they were already in bags, so can I just take some out of the bags and put them in the other bags provided? Or do I have to purchase ALL the grapes in the bag, otherwise they should price them by bag, not pound. Well, I'm not sure if this is acceptable supermarket practice but I cancelled my order, went back to the grapes and put about 1/2 pound of grapes into a bag and paid $1 rather than $6 because my mom and I won't eat that many grapes before they go bad!!!! If this is not acceptable practice, I won't do it again but don't tell Meijer it was me!
3. I want to make a formal public apology to my good friend Liz for laughing so hard as I watched her cut the largest scquash I've ever seen! It was quite commical, however I now realize that this is probably much more difficult than it looks. I purchased a whole pineapple and the 3rd thing I learned from today's adventure was cutting a pineapple is HARD!!!! I pretty much butchered that pineapple.
All in all, it was a successful meal though!