@Fool for Food.
I love to eat. One way to get to eat good food is to be able to cook it yourself. I do a lot of cooking in the house. One of my favorite things to say about the best things I cook is “That’s good enough for a restaurant” The sad part is that we are spoiled and find that we can eat better at home, and for a lot less money. Each time we think we want to splurge and let someone else do the cooking, we end up saying that we could have had a better meal at home. The only exceptions have been when we eat at our local Carrabba’s ( our Carrabba’s is one of the very best in the chain of Carrabba’s). When we get to Orlando we eat at a Macaroni’s Grill. One of my goals is to make some of my favorite Carrabba’s recipes. I did that today with the Chicken Marsala. (Good enough for a restaurant) We made enough for a family of 4 for less than $20. That included the garlic mashed potatoes, and a vegetable. Ok, so there is one other reason to eat out, even if the food is only so-so. Nobody likes to clean the kitchen after having a great dinner. So we do go out when time is limited, or we just don’t want to mess-up, or heat-up the kitchen. Most of my cooking is done off the cuff. I don’t write anything down, and I don’t measure anything. The problem with that is when I try to share my recipes. I find that some things are better to gauge by circumstance. If I make salsa, I judge the salt and onion by the amount of tomatoes, and how ripe they are. The only rule for cilantro is to use a lot, and for HOT, I use a Habanera pepper sauce. It lets me control how hot the salsa will be with great accuracy. I stopped using fresh peppers a long time ago.