I'm Back...Again

I feel like my head is all over the place lately. I'd tried to return to my other blog, about life, but when you're not going off on European adventures, and you don't want to get super personal with the great wide world about people and feelings and such, it's hard to think up anything engaging to say. Historically, I'm guilty of starting things that I don't finish. Often. You may have guessed that about me. It's one of the things I like least about myself. Honestly, I'm afraid to publicize in any way that I'm considering re-starting this blog, because who would even believe me anymore? I've come and gone so often! It was just a few months ago that I'd announced I was re-starting Mandatory Fun, and then let it fizzle out. Again. Oy.

The kitchen is still my happy place, and I miss having a little writing space, even if it's "just" a cooking blog. I REALLY miss the sense of fellowship that I had with the French Fridays with Dorie crew, back in the day. Dorie has a new book coming out in the Fall. Who knows? Maybe the band'll get back together to cook through it.

Batman and I have our own side project of working through Dorie's Cookies, so I don't intend to follow the Tuesdays with Dorie group's schedule for that, but I thought the other day, "Oh, I'll catch up with what they've made from Baking, Chez Moi." Ha! Hahahahahahaha!

This is how many recipes I've missed. Unattainable goal, at this point.

Too much time has passed since I last kept up with them. I'll never make up the ground. I think I'm just going to look forward, and try to bake future recipes with the group. The problem with this is that I've been really tight with my nutrition and exercise lately, and weekly bake-alongs don't really jive with that. I MISS baking, though. I've been doing mostly Whole30 and paleo eating since June, and I feel like I need to figure out a way to bring things into balance. I have a history of compulsively inhaling all baked goods in my path, which Whole30 has given me much greater control over. We'll see how it goes. If I can't have a piece of cake and be done, I'll have to step away from the Doristas again. If I CAN, then awesome!

I'd tried in the past few months to cook along with the Food52 cookbook club, as well as the club from Tasting Table, but my efforts to eat primarily paleo (because it makes my body feel good), kept me from participating much. In case you're wondering, Mastering the Art of French Cooking is NOT paleo friendly. So much cream. So much cheese. Lovely, lovely cheese.

I'm rambling. Like I said, my head is all over the place. 

So here's my plan. I'm going back to how I started this blog. I'll cook as much as I can from one particular book for a month, and see if it wins me over. The books I pick will be ones that support my current nutrition goals. So, first up, after an exceptionally long hiatus:

This book has a comic book type format that's kind of cute to begin with, but when I actually used it to cook a recipe yesterday, it was a little hard to follow along. Maybe I just have to get used to it.

For the record, the Yankee Pot Roast smelled bomb while it was cooking. It was different from other pot roasts I've made in that it goes heavy on the balsamic vinegar (no complaints here), and calls for dried porcini mushrooms. I busted out one of my last bags of dried porcini that I packed when we moved back to the US from Italy, so I was a little sad that they were unnoticeable in the finished product. In general, I'd have preferred a load of more carrots in there. The flavor of the meat was really delicious, though, and both kids ate it.

Have I even mentioned on this blog that I've had a second kid? He's almost 2 now. LOL We'll call him Nugget, and he eats everything in sight. Literally everything. He was licking the dog's bowl a few days ago. Nasty. And Batman still won't eat anything. That's not true. He's actually getting a lot better about being willing to try things and admitting if he DOES actually like something. He's still the slowest eater to ever walk the earth, though.

As far as the pot roast goes, Conclusion: Liked it. Charlie Approved.