cooking

Today I cooked my lunch by myself. It shouldn't be, but it is a milestone for me!

To be honest, I did attempt to cook some vegetables last night. But it was so horrible I had to trash it, so I choose to not let that be my milestone attempt! And let me just clarify something, I have cooked before, just never by myself. Ok, I've cooked noodles and omelets by myself, but that doesn't really count does it?

Anyway, I was talking to my friend about how living costs ate into the money I could use for traveling. But comparing costs, he seemed to be saving so much more by choosing not to eat at the Mensa (the university cafeteria). Moreover he pointed out how it had also helped his cooking skills.

So I decided I needed to try that out. I'm an expert on instant noodles but sadly this skill has become so common it's a non-skill. In the US I have helped cook chicken numerous times so I'm pretty confident about that, but that wasn't something I wanted to tackle on my first time by myself. We also had a friend who cooked delicious pasta and we always left the task to him. But I remember most of how he did it and I've seen pasta being cooked other times too and it doesn't seem all that difficult. So I chose pasta.

I had already bought the spices yesterday to cook the vegetables. They were supposed to be sauté-and-add-spices sort of vegetables. But apparently, I didn't have the skill necessary. The mushrooms tasted so bad, and incredibly saulty! I don't rule out the possibility of the mushrooms being ruined beforehand. I had cereal for dinner because the Mensa was already closed by then.

In any case, back to today. I decided to try my cooking at lunch. I got the spiral pasta, fusilli and some fresh mushrooms. Also got a can of tomato purée because I didn't find any pasta specific sauces. Or perhaps I didn't understand the german translation of it! In any case, I had enough ingredients for a simple pasta. The first one need not be too fancy.

So at about half past 2 I set out cooking and was impressively done in less than half an hour! I'm prone to adding too much salt but was careful this time and what do you know, the pasta was delicious! I loved it! This is exam review time for me so I have ample time for some cooking. I should get more adventurous with the pasta and cook two meals at a time. Though I'm sure when exams are near, I'll probably just switch back to Mensa and good old german food!

I'm off then. Will be a boring friday night for me. No plans, exams suck out all the fun. Especially exams that are extended for over a month for no reason but to torture you!