Cooking Fool

I love to cook. I love to cook for other people. I love to make salads and casseroles and pasta dishes. I am not a fan of stir frying but will do so if push comes to shove. I really love baking. If you could see my kitchen you would say "how in the hell do you cook in this thing?". My house consists of an upstairs open space and a downstairs open space with a bathroom off the living room and a screened porch. Anyway, my kitchen has a refrigerator, a counter top convection oven, an electric burner that caterers use, a microwave and a toaster oven. I am the queen of single-burner cooking and often make four course meals for my friends with my eclectic collection of appliances.

I love to read. I love to read cookbooks. I have a large selection of vegetarian cookbooks but make only a few dishes from most of them so I have decided to create my own cookbook of favorites and dishes I'd like to try but I get so bogged down in reading the cookbook that I revert to those tried and true recipes. I'm trying to decide how I'd like to arrange the recipes and have decided, for now, that I'll group them by menus instead of by dish type. I just love those cookbooks that have menus. I don't know why since I rarely ever create an entire dinner around the menus.

Now I'll share my very first menu, which I'll be making this Saturday, from my new shiny white cookbook.

• Szechuan Guacamole (surrounded by daikon, cauliflower and rice crackers)
• Cold Szechuan Noodle Salad
• Asian Frittata (this is a baked dish rather than stove-top)
• Peach Crumble with vanilla ice cream

Hungry yet?