I'm Learning to Cook

It's been a long time (long time). I shouldn't have left you (left you)
Without a dope beat to step to (step to, step-step to, step to, step to).

Alright, enough lyrically-relevant 90's jams. I haven't blogged in forever, and I'm not sure I'm going to try to catch up. I think I'll just start with right now and only provide backstory if it serves the blog.

So what am I up to right now? Well, today I slept 'til noon, went for a run around the LSU lakes (I love to run now!), and then I got groceries and cooked myself dinner. And THAT'S what I'm talkin' 'bout.

I decided today that I want to learn to cook for real. No more Lean Cuisine, no more pasta and canned veggies for every meal. It's going to be a trial-and-error process for sure, and it may not make the most interesting blogging. But if you'd like to follow me on this journey, you are more than welcome.

Tonight I started with something fairly simple: basmati rice with lentils.

(The asparagus came from a frozen steamer bag, so they don't count. And yes, I need to work on my portion control. One thing at a time!)

I cooked the rice and lentils in two separate pots. I was surprised at how easy it was to cook rice on the stove. I don't have a rice cooker at the moment, so I had to make do. I let them both cook for about 15 minutes, and then I just combined them on the plate and added a tiny bit of soy sauce.

Verdict: Not bad. Pretty tasty, very filling. I didn't quite mix the soy sauce evenly, so parts of it were a little dry. The parts with more soy sauce were great, though!

I want to explore new ways to cook this meal. Soy sauce is pretty heavy on the sodium, so I'd like to find a way around that. Next time I might try sautéing the cooked rice and lentils together with some olive oil and maybe some onions. I bet that would be fantastic.

So that's meal #1. This should be fun for me. For you, maybe not so much. We shall see.

In other news, I'm going to see John and Hank Green in New Orleans on Wednesday!!!! I'm pretty psyched. I'm about 2/3 of the way through The Fault in Our Stars, and I love it so much. I'm going to do my best to finish it before the event, so you may not hear from me again in the next few days. If you happen to be at the NOLA event, please find me and say hi!