I have been trying to learn how to cook. All this time John and I have been married, I would make a dinner here or there, but usually it was the same dinner as last time or not very different from the last time. My dinners consist of chicken and noodles with sauce. There is always a salad and a fruit dessert, but the entree is always the same. Through trudging communication with my new husband, I have Finally heard that he likes to have dinner at home, especially now that he works at a camp where dinner consists of hotdogs or peanutbutter sandwiches. Now here is the problem: you can only eat chicken, noodles and sauce so many times in a row.

My first dinner for him was chicken alfredo. Pretty good change from the red sauce to a white sauce. Different flavor. Then I went for chicken, plain noodles and cheese. Yeah, now I am bored with the chicken. So I reach into the bowels of the freezer to find a roast. I pulled out my crockpot that Aunt Melody gave me a hundred years ago that only ever gets used for Christmas wassail and put stuph in with the pot roast. Yeah, we ended up having left overs that night. The potroast as it turns out was...old. It was two years old. Please, do not try this at home. Luckily, I have a kind mother who sent me a recipe to follow for the next time around that will allow me the ability to have a tasty meat treat for my hubby sweet. Thanks Mom.

I am determined to find things that are different on a regular basis so as to add to the health and well being of our meals and our relationship. On Sunday, I made homemade applesauce. While this is not a meal in itsself unless you are 90, it wore out all my cooking muscles for dinner. So there was no exercising the dinner prospects. In the process of cooking the fresh apples from the Orchard, yes, I live in the country and there really is an apple orchard, I had to go to get two sweet apples because the Orchard apples are mostly cooking apples with not a whole lot of taste which meant another trip to the grocer. Whilst there, I was able to conjure up more ingrediants for tonight's experiment: lasagna. I haven't made this since I was drunk, however, I have a really good recipe and I am good at following directions as long as you have my attention.

We shall see how it works. I am throwing this out to the culinary artists in my life: please send me (via email) recipes of something other than chicken to feed my husband dinner. For example, what are beef tips for? How do you make a moroccan dish? How do you cook bbq ribs without a grill?

I have a 1958 cook book from BetterHomes, but as it turns out, the food in that book is REALLY from 1958. Nothankyou, but the book is cool to look at. What is your favorite dish and how do you make it in a regular everyday kitchen?

CYBER CULINARY PEOPLE: help . . .






ps the applesauce that i made is AWESome.