It's no secret that although I can cook (not bake), twenty+ years of cooking family meals day in and day out has left me a little, well, BORED OUT OF MY SKULL. For a few years I found a great young lady who would cook four meals every two weeks for me, and that helped (my sanity) a lot. Then she very selfishly moved to Seattle and although I tried to think of a way to get her meals to me in one piece, I finally accepted that this wonderful phase was over.
Fearing that the moody, kitchen-hating, knife-wielding wife of old was about to resurface, the Ball & Chain started to chip in with the cooking. "Oooh, good", I thought. "I don't mind doing all the laundry, vacuuming etc. if it gets me out of the kitchen".
But then I got greedy; pushed my luck, in fact. I bought him what looked like a fairly do-able Rachel Ray cook book last Christmas. This one -
The idea is that you make your week's dishes all in one day. And he does. All day Sunday. Like a fiend. This new hobby is second only to golf. That's how hooked he is. The 11 year old is his sous chef and the two of them practically salivate as they leaf through the recipes, picking out the delights for the week ahead. Seriously - it is the most dog-eared book in the house. We haven't had a "dud" meal from it.
The other night I re-heated a Rachel ratatouille he had made, and apparently I forgot to crack eggs into it, as per the recipe.
"I've never had ratatouille with eggs in it before", I said, attempting to defend my grave error.
"Rachel says to put them in."
"Oh indeed. Rachel says to put them in does she. What else does Rachel say?"
"Hey - it was you who brought her into my life."
Hmmmm.
Anyway, if you're looking for a cracking recipe book (see what I did there), you can't go wrong with this one, and I'm not being compensated for saying this.
* Rachel Ray is a well known chef in the USA.