Cooking : BHG Deep-Dish Chicken Pot Pie

There is little I could write about cooking that hasn't been put to page before.  Though I doubt that "love" needs anything new to add and people have managed to write about it since the written word was born.

Cooking seems a lot like running to me.  I know many people who get some sort of runners high, I don't get that, and I know just as many people who won't cook.  People love running or just put up with it, and they love cooking or just put up with it.  I love to cook.

While I have never taken a single class on how to cook I am the proud owner of a 4H Club gold medal in cooking for my pot stickers I made one year at "regionals." I have always really loved to cook, and can't imagine that changing.  My mom was my first teacher when it came to the kitchen and she imparted one thing on me that enabled me to "learn" to cook, and that was to follow a recipe.  By following a recipe I have now become pretty adventurous in the kitchen and am self taught.  This also means I have very little idea what I am doing in the kitchen so when it doesn't go to plan it sometimes bombs.  Granted the point of a recipe is that just about anyone could do it by following it step by step.  So I do just that, step by step, one at a time, I bake, grill, poach, sauté, and when all is said and done I think I succeed 75% of the time.

To make matters worse I make the biggest mess imaginable when I am in the kitchen.  If my food wasn't decent most of the time I think my wife would kill me for the dishes I dirty just to prepare food.  Being a novice as I am, I misjudge size of bowls I need, so I dirty 2 or 3, I misjudge how much food will really be made, regardless of what the recipe says for servings.  Granted this does mean my in-laws get the benefit of getting tons of food for dinner which I do think they appreciate.

Lately I have been cooking more than I have in the past, I seem to go through phases a lot, but I get so much out of preparing food for my family.  I just love watching ingredients transform into something completely different and more incredible then they are on their own. Sort of like a piano, it seems there are infinite possibilities what those 88 keys can do, watching what I can do with flour, water, salt and butter always seems to amaze me.  Creating food for me has given me a better appreciation of the past as well.  Perhaps there is a connection with a 90 minute prep time for dinner and family time.  By forcing me to slow down on my days off and cook, I have time to think a little, listen to some music that speaks to me, and even interact with my kids.  The kitchen at 4pm at our house is the heart of the entire house, where everyone is coming and going where electricity is in the air.  It is also known as the witching hour so it is either a hellish chaos, or like today, a energetic and life giving that is fun to be around.

Perhaps this cooking phase will pass, and I will look at cooking once again as a chore that can be fun, but tonight I made a Chicken Pot Pie that was awesome.  My kids and my wife all ate it and while our dinner routine is a mix between being a referee, a speed eater, and a nurse, occasionally I make something that works with our family dynamic and my kids eat and I eat at the same time and we all enjoy a good meal.  When it all works that 90 minute time investment seems more than worth it, and I feel like I have taught my children a little about nutrition, family, and value of doing something yourself (perhaps that is a bit ambitious but I can dream right.)