So that's what it's like to cook

Well, what a change a year makes. Last year, heck, 6 months ago,  I never would have thought I'd be cooking half the stuff I'm cooking. You see, I lived alone, in an apartment that would take any opportunity to heat up beyond a level I was comfortable in (I had windows open all year round, this is Ottawa, it gets cold). So for my own comfort, my definition of cooking was heating things up in the microwave, and maybe occasionally cooking something quick on the stove.

Then, last August, my girlfriend and I moved in together, we now have a house, that does a much better job of handling heat (in fact, the walls actually get cold at times). And between unexpected expenses (vet bills) and buying stuff we need for the house, it seemed a good idea if one of us started cooking. Well, it was summer when we moved in, and one of the first things we got was a barbecue... that plus a propane tank and we had fire to cook meat, even though our kitchen was nowhere near unpacked. So I started barbecuing, after all, "it's not real cooking, I'll leave that for my sweetie to do when we get the house usable."

My first ever pulled pork, about to be shredded

Well, a funny thing happened... I had fun cooking meat over an open fire,  so I kept doing it, and eventually, I decided I wanted to try a pulled pork. No idea what's involved, or what I'm doing, but I have Google to help me, or so I think.

Well, pure dumb luck, it worked... in fact, it worked so well that we've done it two more times now. Including once this past weekend, in the oven, because even I'm not crazy enough to try an 8 hour barbecue session in January.

And with that, I think my addiction became official. I started searching for recipes and trying them (still not having a clue what I was doing). I'm sure my sweetie got sick of me getting half way into a recipe and calling out "ummm... what does this mean?" or "ummm.... HELP?!?!?!" (and I'm still not sure what that one recipe meant by "halved rosemary".

However, before my reader (that would be you) thinks I am always successful, I have definitely had my share of failures in the kitchen...

• The turkey breast dinner that wouldn't cook (or fit into the biggest pan we had)
• The cheese sauce
• The other cheese sauce
• Then there was this cheese sauce (yes, I cannot make a cheese sauce)
• Or... the barbecue hose  (see to the right)

But I'm having fun in the kitchen, making bread, cookies, muffins, whatever strikes my fancy and makes my mouth water. 

Slowly but surely we're building a collection of recipes we can use, some of them are surprisingly good (stuff we didn't think we would like) and over time we will be sharing some of them as we get them set for our tastes.