These two food items have nothing to do with each other, except that they were both cooked in my kitchen this evening. To some success, I might add. We have been on a quest around my house to explore new recipes and we are finding some good ones. The Pasta Ponza was no exception.

Ok. What is Pasta Ponza? Here is your answer (Courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis).Yellow and red grape tomatoes (2 cups of each) spread out over the bottom of a buttered 8 x 8 dish (the recipe called for capers as well, but I didn’t have them). On top of the tomatoes goes a tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper, and half a cup of Italian bread crumbs. Drizzle olive oil over the top of the bread crumbs and bake for 30-35 minutes at 375 degrees. While that is going cook penne pasta (1 pound) al dente. Reserve a cup of the noodle water to add to the dish at the end. Strain the pasta, put in a bowl, cover with tomato/breadcrumb mixture. Toss with 1 1/4 cups of Romano or Parmasean cheese. Add the cup of noodle water for good consistency. It was very tasty. A much better attempt than the blog post previous to this one…

So, where do the jalapenos fit in? I went to my favorite Mexcian grocery store the other day for a bit of retail therapy (which usually involves spending about 10 bucks on produce and other authentic ingredients) and came out with a bag full of jalepenos. The were 2 pounds for a buck, so I got more than I needed. They were sitting on my counter this evening going bad and I had a brilliant idea. I sliced them up like pieces of Okra, breaded them, and fried them. I used Paula Deen’s awesome fried okra recipe for the breading. I took one bite and whoa! I sounded like Homer Simpson finding a long lost donut. The savory element of Paula Deen’s seasoning added to the spicy of the jalapeno was awesome.

These two don’t really belong on the same plate together, but they can hang out in my kitchen on the same night again any  time they want to. Sometime trying new things is like this though. One form of creativity leads to another. And sometimes necessity demands creativity. Either way, it was a good evening in the kitchen. It makes me look forward to getting back into the kitchen tomorrow.

You win some and you lose some the old saying goes…then you completely bomb some too. That was me in the kitchen this evening. It was so bad I couldn’t even finish eating it. Seriously. How did this happen?!! I apologized to my cookware this evening for subjecting it to the food I prepared (I also apologized to my wife and son too).

The bad part is I had made the recipe before. Last time I made it it was awesome. So much so that Marixa (my gorgeous bride) requested that I make it again this evening, even though we had it last week. So, I fired up the stove and got after it. I expected it to be just as good as the other day, but I hit a few snags.

First, I didn’t have all the ingredients. So, like I have done many times in the past, I improvised. This was not my fatal flaw, but it didn’t help in the long run. Next, I pulled out the recipe for Pasta Carbonara and glanced at it. Since I had made it the other day, I thought I knew my way around it. Wrong-o. When I made it the first time, I read the recipe all the way through, pulled my ingredients, prepped them, and then started cooking. I had the stove fired up this time with stuff a cooking before I got into the first paragraph. That was the beginning of the end.

Now, I have to admit, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly the first time. Here is the original recipe. I didn’t change the recipe much, but I did omit the Italian Sausages as we don’t care for them. The recipe calls for Panchetta, but I had to use bacon (I have read that bacon is a suitable substitute for Panchetta and it worked awesome the first time). I also didn’t have as much Parmesan as the recipe called for so I added some Gouda to supplement. Now, that I have written all this I see I did make some major changes…ok, that isn’t the point…the point is that it really worked well the first time. The picture below is what it is supposed to look like.

Now we get to my second try. I didn’t follow the directions and I didn’t have the same set of ingredients. The recipe calls for linguine. I used angle hair spaghetti. Call it a brain lapse, because those two noodles and only similar in the fact that they are noodles. Not a good choice. I also eyed the ingredients this time…and tried to cook it from memory. This is why the meal just plain sucked. I got the ingredients way out of proportion. I don’t even want to be near lemon zest right now. I am not going to post a picture of this one. No way, no how.

I am going to reference the movie Julia and Julia again. There is a scene where Julia Child’s character (played so amazingly by Meryl Streep) corrects her friends when they state that measurements don’t matter. She reminds them that they do matter and that cooking is a process of scientific workability. That phrase stuck with me. There is a science to cooking. It is really part science and part art, but the structure of the meal has to be in place before you can get creative with it. You also have to know the elements that you are trying to be creative with very well, or they will not do what you expect them too.

I told Marixa that I was embarrassed for what I had cooked. She is so very gracious and loving. She told me I have cooked worse. I don’t remember when I did. Thankfully it hasn’t been for a long time. I expect better of myself. I expect to eat better too! To get better though I am going to have to keep at it…and I MUST read my directions…

For a long time I gravitated toward traditional comfort foods. Steak and potatoes. Hamburgers. Fried Chicken. You get the picture. I attribute much of this to how I grew up, but also to a general lack of creativity and know how in the kitchen. The food I was used to was generally bland and not always the best for me.

A few years ago I had a paradigm shift. I was completely bored with food. We were fixing the same six or seven meals over and over and over again. We supplemented this with a heavy dose of eating out. My taste buds and my wallet were suffering. This was a recipe for disaster. Then I saw Chef Rick Bayless‘ show Mexico: One Plate at a Time on our local PBS station. I can state with certainty that this is the time my love for cooking started to take shape.

Not only was the food I was seeing on TV not bland, it was colorful and looked delicious. The first episode I watched was about making salsa. He made a few different recipes that were just awesome. I went straight to the grocery store and spent at least 40 bucks on produce. I had a blast, and after a few tries some of the salsas started tasting right. I eventually got a copy of his Authentic Mexican cookbook and have really enjoyed cooking from it. (One of my goals for the year is to cook from it much more!)

I have branched out further still. I got the iPhone app Food Network: In The Kitchen. Every time we see a recipe being made on the Food Network I search for it in the application and then save it to my online recipe box. I found a recipe by Guy Fieri called Bacon and Tomato Pasta. (Whoa. That one is good!) Every time I find a good recipe it makes me want to push on further still and find more. It is a never ending hunt that has been extremely fun.

I also turned another corner when I saw Julie and Julia last year. Julie Powell’s journey was interesting enough because I blog, but the parts of the story about Julia Child really captured my attention. She was nearly 40 years old before she learned to cook. It was  years after that before the world would know her as we do now. It is not too late to learn to cook and to cook well. I was left with no excuses.

I still enjoy a good steak. I have gotten much better at making them over the years. I love a good hamburger as well, but that is because I don’t eat them that often anymore. There are many other foods out there that have found their way into my home. The list that initially had less than ten items on it now has over 40 and continues to grow.

I am on the journey away from the ordinary (in this and other areas of my life) and I am really enjoying the ride. What about you? Where are you on your cooking journey?