lose an hour...to cooking

When I tell people I don’t cook, I am usually greeted with disapproval. Apparently everyone needs to know how to cook. And though I’ve made it this far without learning much more than how to work a microwave, sometimes I do wish I knew more about cooking. Like when I’m staring down the options of another frozen Lean Cuisine or peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So one of my Lenten resolutions, in addition to blogging every day, doing stomach crunches every day, and abstaining from soda and chocolate, was to cook 5 new things for myself.

Tonight was my first attempt. After perusing several cookbooks checked out from the library, I decided to with a recipe for “Vegetable and Couscous Stacks,” as written by one Rachael Ray. As someone who doesn’t cook, I have often been told I should check out Rachael Ray, since she promises to get you in and out of the kitchen in 30 minutes. Well, I have one complaint off the bat about her cookbook. Instead of beautiful pictures of the finished dish that inspire you to push forward to your goal, the only pictures in this cookbook were of Rachael Ray. I did not like that one bit. If I wanted to see Rachael Ray, I could watch her on television; however, there is something to be said for a Rachael Ray image that cannot speak to you, because she is two-dimensional. She’s loud and perky, is what I’m trying to say there.

I picked “Vegetable and Couscous Stacks” because I’m deathly afraid of cooking with meat. I am scared it will turn out raw so I tend to overcook it. I will conquer meat before this Lent is over, but I figured I would start out with something that wouldn’t give me salmonella, as far as I could tell. I did have some problems in the grocery store, because I didn’t know how to pick out an eggplant. Also, I didn’t buy fresh herbs the way Ms. Ray suggested; there is a recession on and the Food Network is sadly not footing the bill for me to learn how to cook (though I would be amenable to discussions regarding that prospect – surely everyone would like to sit at home and watch someone bumble through something they already know how to do, right? Plus, I would cuss a lot).

Here’s what I came home from the store with:
All laid out the way it is on tv!

Trouble began immediately, when I realized I copied down my ingredient list for the grocery store without including the ingredient of zucchini. This made me sad because I love zucchini. There was also trouble when I realized I didn’t really know how to get into garlic. Rachael said smack it with the flat of a knife but that didn’t do anything. So I just kind of broke it with my hands and now I smell bad. I also only skimmed the recipe beforehand, and I didn’t notice that grilling was involved. I don’t have a grill, so I had to do that thing where it just sits in a skillet thing on the stove. Skilleting?

Making this recipe was a non-stop fun ride of cutting things up. Unfortunately, I am not good with knives so it really wasn’t a fun ride for me. First I cut eggplant. Then I was off to my onion; during the cutting of said onion I sliced into my thumb. So now I’m bleeding everywhere. I don’t have bandaids in the house. But I have to keep moving! Because now eggplant is roasting in the oven and if I don’t continue at a fast pace I might not be done in 30 minutes! It’s okay to consume a little bit of your own blood, right? I’m not saying I did but I feel some probably got in the food. Other things I sliced included mozzarella and tomatoes.

It was a pleasant surprise how easy couscous was, though I didn’t know if I was supposed to put in 2 cups dry couscous or put in enough dry couscous so that the finished amount came out to 2 cups. I still will never know, I guess. While the couscous was cous-ing, I was supposed to remove the bottom and top of the can that the chicken broth came in, because that’s how you made the titular stacks in this recipe. You kind of pushed everything way down in the can and then pulled the can up and voila! Stacks.

Except I couldn’t get the bottom of the can off. Maybe I just wasn’t strong enough, or maybe it was the weird rounded edges that I ended up blaming my failure on. Either way, I abandoned the can and decide to just use a plastic cup. It would yield slightly bigger servings than intended, but according to Rachael Ray, these stacks were merely designed to be a side dish to some sort of hummus entrée, so I figured that if it was my main and only dish, it could be a little bigger than normal. By the way, was the 30 minutes supposed to include making that hummus dish and the paired dessert? Because there was no way. It took me 45 minutes just to do these f’ing stacks.

Okay, so here are all the ingredients that go into a stack. From left to right: couscous, seasoned eggplant, basil, tomatoes, mozzarella, red pepper and onion.

I assembled the stack in a Jimmy John’s plastic cup and turned it over onto a plate. I had a stack!

As soon as I turned my back, though, it became this:

I made two other cups out of all the stuff. Tomorrow for lunch all I have to do is grab a stack in a cup! Portable party cup indeed!

Then I’m just going to dump it out into a Tupperware bowl, because what I learned from eating my concoction is that this dish is really impossible to eat as a stack. You kind of just have to mess it all up and eat it as a veggie couscous cheese salad. But it was enjoyable. Maybe, if I had an extra 45 minutes, I would make it again.

I didn’t take a picture of the kitchen mess, but it took awhile to clean up. Lots of leftover pieces of food from all that slicing and lots of bloody towels. This is why I don’t cook, people. But I shall persevere, four more times before April 12.