expariment 4: SAY HELLO TO MADAME INSTA-CHEF!

my ability to cook comes and goes. there are times that i could make food so good, so flipperin' delicious that it could quite possibly convert athiests to christianity, making them pray for their meal. other times, i could quite possibly destroy my house by doing simple things; making toast. boiling water. microwaving popcorn. scooping ice-cream. it's either an extream good or an extream awful. but i can usually feel when one or the other comes on, usually by how determined i am in other aspects, like cleaning and studying (yes this is summer, and i have no school. but i'm a big ole' geek, and i study random subjects for fun). this week, i felt the urge to completely redo my room, wash the dog, read my old stolen textbooks, and google everything there is to know about Lucy Lawless. so, i figured it was about time to don my red gingem jullia child apron and get in the kitchen. (p.s. the books aren't really stolen; they were obsolete and tossed out at the end of respective school years. i simply rescued them from the dumpsters.)

this week was my 19th birthday, by the way, so i made myself a three-course gourmet meal, all taken from an anonymously-published site.

first course: mesclun salad with stuffed rigatoni tubes

i love this stuff in resteraunts. it takes rigatoni, of course, as well as a plethora of steamed and saute` veggies, and loads of itallian spices, which i love, and french spices, which i can't pronounce, and a lot of patience, which i usually have, but not today. so i searched my pantry, and found a dehydrated insta-meal with the same essential ingreadients, added the spices and veggies that needed to be added, with only as much patience to get me throught the 4 minute cooking period. yes, i cheated, but it was delicious.

second course: twice-baked potatoes, just like mamma made

the title didn't lie. seriously EXACTLY like mama always made it. bake a potato in the microwave with a few slits in it. when it's done, slice out a bowl opening and scoop out the potato part into a bowl. add ranch dressing, and several of your favorite cheeses, a splash of milk, stir, drop back into the potato carcass, sprinkle more cheese on top, pop it back in the microwave. voila`! c'est magnifique! (that, and a few curses, is the extent of my french) flippin. delicious. oh. yes.

third course: dessert coffee

interesting, considering i don't really care for coffee. or so i thought. turns out, i don't care for coffe how my parents make it. not strong enough. and hot is not my bag. this stuff, the recipy called for sugar, vanilla extract, and a teaspoon of unflavored gellatin, all stired together, and either frozen as a slushy consistancy, or refridgerated. served with a big ole' squirt of whipped cream, which just makes everything better, in my mind. unless you're lactose intollerant. anyhoozle, by the time i finished the first two courses, it was deffinately too late at night for coffee. so i saved it and had it for breakfast this morning. now, i'm just the tiniest bit jittery. not used to the caffine, i guess. but, if i keep making it like this, i'll deffinately get used to it -- after all, i am going to college, soon, and a college student must be addicted to one of two liquid substances: alcohol or coffee. i choose the latter (actually, the recipe really did call for a shot of liquer to be added to the substance, but as i am yet two years underaged, i will forgo that bit).

for i am we and we are labrats and LABRATZ-R-WE!!!