Adventures in Cooking

I may have mentioned before that my housekeeping skills are less than stellar. For some unknown reason, my mom and dad never required me to do chores. In fact, my room was such a disaster area that they would just close the door.

Similarly, I was never taught to cook. When The Gearhead and I got married, it was a big joke among my friends that he'd be doing all the cooking, since I didn't even know how to boil water. I even got a little plaque at one of my showers that someone had made that said "Gearhead's Kitchen." Except, it said his real name. :-) He proudly mounted that sucker in plain view in our apartment's kitchen. It was a little demoralizing.

Eventually, I did learn to cook. And now? The Gearhead says I'm a good cook, and my mom says I'm a better cook than she ever was. I beg to differ, but I do know my way around the kitchen now.

So, a few weeks ago, I found a really awesome book called The G.I. (Glycemic Index) Diet by Rick Gallop, via my bloggy friend, Mel. She has had some success in the past with the diet (which is really just a healthy way of eating), and I really needed to get back to my weight loss efforts. Then, I got Living the G.I. Diet, also by Rick Gallop. Half of that book is a cookbook. I've been cooking up a storm since then, and everything so far has been really good. The Princess and the Gearhead have been eating everything I make. The Prince is so darn picky, so I never count on him to try new stuff. My friend, Cherie, has joined me in doing the diet. She had the fantastic idea to cook up some of snacks and trade half of them so we can try more things and have more variety.

I'm getting away from my original intent for this post.

So, last night, I cooked up two batches of soup: Navy Bean and Southwest Chicken and Bean. The Navy Bean isn't my favorite, but it's very filling. Again, per Cherie's advice, I let the soup cool a bit, then separated it into serving size freezer bags, and put them in to freeze. The Princess had the Southwest Chicken & Bean Soup before heading to the theater tonight, and LOVED it.

A little while ago, I decided to have some Navy Bean Soup. Only problem? I had put the bags on a steel wire shelf in the freezer, and the soup had frozen around the wire. The soup bag The Princess had was lying on top, so it wasn't affected, but the other seven bags were frozen solid onto the shelf. I had to laugh. It's so like me to not think ahead on stuff like that!

The Gearhead went to work, trying to pry the bags off the shelf.




That was not a fun job. It was as if they had become one with the shelf. I tried using a butter knife, but that was obviously not going to cut it (hehe I made a pun).




















He finally had to take the shelf out of the refrigerator. I kept giggling my silly head off. He just shook his head. And sighed. And wondered how in the world I get along in life.













It finally came down to running warm water on the soup until it de-thawed enough to pry it off.









The soup is esconced in the freezer again. This time, I placed it in a metal pan, so it won't adhere to the inside of the freezer.

And that's how it's going here!!! How are you?