What cooking does for me.

Please don't judge me for my cellphone picture. ;)

I love cooking. I love baking. I just love being in the kitchen. I love putting all the steps together, and coming up with something delicious. Cooking is therapeutic for me. It makes me feel calm and happy.

So, I think I'm going to start posting more food. Recipes I've made, all that stuff. Maybe eventually I'll start a separate blog just for food. We'll see.



And to start off, I made taco salad tonight. It was the best taco salad I'd ever had. So I guess I'll put the recipe here, even though I sort of winged everything. I'll make it for two people, since I made enough to have it for lunch tomorrow, aside from the shell.

Shells:
2 flour torillas
cooking spray or olive oil

Taco filling:
1/2 lb ground turkey
1 cup rice, cooked
1 can of black beans
1 T cumin
salt and pepper

Salad:
Romain lettuce
1 avocado
1/2 cup shredded cheese
Salsa
Optional, dressing

Heat oven to 400. Slightly warm the tortillas in the microwave, about 10 seconds. Turn two ramekins upside down on a baking sheet, and spray with cooking spray. Lay tortillas over ramekins and spray the top. Bake for about 10 minutes or until brown.

Brown turkey. Add garlic, cook another 2-3 minutes. Mix in rice, beans, and seasoning. Set aside. If you are going to be using dressing, toss that with lettuce, and add to taco bowls. I used a little bit of a garlic dressing. Top lettuce with meat mixture, and add whatever toppings you'd like.

So good.

In the kitchen.

I've been cooking a lot lately. There is something so therapeutic about it for me. It calms me. It's comforting. It keeps my mind off of everything else.

Mostly what I love is baking. I love to bake. Cookies, cakes, brownies, bread- anything really. It's funny, a big part of what I like about cooking is the order of it. You have to do the steps right. You have to measure right. Strangely though, another thing I like about it is tweaking the recipe. It is very common for me to change something. For example, last night I made zucchini muffins, but instead of cinnamon, I used cocoa powder, and then drizzled chocolate on top. Not a huge change, but it made it mine.

I guess that says a lot about how I am about most things. I tend to change things in some way that fits me more. I'd rather change other things than change myself. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. But it's me.