My Love-Hate Relationship with Cooking Blogs

I have a love/hate relationship with cooking blogs. 

I love them because they offer hope: what I could be, if I just tried a little harder, applied myself, and got over my fear of cooking fowl.

But I also hate them because they all look so calm and lovely with their high quality photographs and pastel colors with plenty of white space. They don't show the angst that someone like me goes through on a daily basis when it comes to cooking. I mean, seriously: The color of my blog should be blood, sweat, and tears. Think vomit (for food poisoning) and charred-black for burnt dinners. No white space, because nothing about my literal or figurative cooking life is clear and uncluttered.

Listen, I'm not a happy person, and I don't find this fun. Even the people who have blogs where they're learning to cook—these people are not like me. They're married or have boyfriends and are young and chipper and many have kids. They're not this single, sad, 44-year-old chick living in a studio apartment and who doesn't even have a cat anymore because the cat is dead.

But I go to these blogs anyway.                

#emotionalcutter

Often, I'll find recipes that look good and doable, but then I'll encounter this One Step or Sneaky Ingredient (or both) that throws me off and then I'm like, Hello, Papa Gino's. Come to mama. And don't forget the bread sticks either. No, they're not redundant with pizza!

Right now, I'm looking at Skinnytaste.com, which is a great website. It's all about healthy recipes. They have their 25 Most Popular Skinnytaste Recipes of 2016.

I'm going through the ones that sound good to me, like this Thai Basil Chicken. I do like my chicken, even though it stresses me out to cook, but this looks good. The one ingredient I don't have, though: oyster sauce. This is not something I keep on hand. Is this something that should be in a well-stocked pantry? I don't even know what aisle to find the oyster sauce in. I'm assuming ...  Actually, what am I talking about? LOL. I have no idea.

Oh, and it calls for one Serrano chili. I don't know what that is or where to find it.

#googlewasinventedforme

Moving on...

Five-Ingredient Chocolate Cheesecake Cups. OK, I'm not looking for dessert recipes, but only five ingredients? 

AND CHEESECAKE??

Here's the thing. Just as Joe Pesci warned in Lethal Weapon 2 that they always fuck you at the drive-thru, too often these "hardly any ingredients!" recipes call for ten million steps. In other words, they try to lure you in with the short ingredient list and then they fuck you with the instructions.  

One of the steps says, "With a spoon, fold in the egg, always folding under."

What does that even mean? I actually stopped after I read that line and tried to picture folding in the egg under. What happens if you fold it over? Is there a knock on the door and someone arrests you?

Not to mention the rest of the gazillion steps. You have to bake these suckers for 50 minutes. THEN, you leave them in the oven for 30 minutes longer. THEN, you remove them from the oven. THEN, you have to let them cool completely, which takes two hours, or you can do it overnight.

Again, it might just have five ingredients, but it also has way too many THENs for this chick. I'm passing on that one.

Chicken Curry with Coconut Milk. MMM. The only question I have… See, they make the assumption you have all the things you need. One of the steps says: "Heat the oil in a large, deep skillet."

Okay, well, I have a skillet, but I don't know—is it deep? Like what's considered deep? Is it deep enough? I have no idea. It looks like it's probably deep enough, but what if it isn't? *Sigh.* Still. Might be doable. It requires chicken, but I'm trying to get over my fear of fowl.

Honey Teriyaki Drumsticks. Now, you can do this in the skillet or the Instant Pot. I have no idea what an Instant Pot is. This is the first time I've heard of an Instant Pot. I know what a skillet is. I know what a slow cooker is. I don't know what an Instant Pot is. We will just ignore the Instant Pot reference.

"You can cook these in honey, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger until the chicken is tender and the sauce thickens." 

MMM. This sounds yummy. I love the taste of ginger and soy sauce, and ... Yeah. This is probably going to be something I might need to try.

Oh, she has a video!

GOD BLESS THE COOKNG VIDEO GODS.  

And it requires rice wine, which I have in my well-stocked pantry, I believe.  

<CHECKS WELL-STOCKED PANTRY>

No, I don't have rice wine. I have rice vinegar. Is there a difference between rice wine and rice vinegar? I'm sure there is. Okay, something else I don't know. But regardless…this might be the next thing I need to try.

Confession: I used to hate chicken drumsticks. NOW I WANT THEM ALL TO MYSELF.

I'll report back if I decide to make them.

Side note regarding the store-bought, cooked chicken from last week. I think it might have made me feel a little ick, which is kind of funny. My mother and I were debating the definition of irony the other day, and this might be it: girl who's scared of cooking fowl due to potential salmonella gets pukey on store-bought, cooked chicken.

Onward, Idiot Cooks!