Cooking Process!

I sometimes have family or roommates compliment me on my cooking.

So, I thought I'd correct their thinking with this little bit of insight into an evening of cooking. Here are the steps to making an Ashley Tolman meal:

1. See an intriguing recipe while you're web-browsing at work and bookmark it on Pinterest (today's recipe: Creme d'Asperges soup)

2. Drive home with all sorts of ideas on what you'll make for dinner (Maybe pasta! Maybe a grilled cheese with tomatoes! Extent of ideas ends here...)

3. Open the fridge and realize you have crap loads of asparagus that need to be used (aha! You bookmarked an asparagus recipe this morning!)

4. Rinse off and discard half the asparagus that has gone bad. (looks like I'm making half a recipe)

5. Look over ingredient list. Realize you don't have half of the ingredients listed. Improvise.

Example: No creme fraiche? Google says you can use greek yogurt, or whipping cream mixed with sour cream. You mix together cream and yogurt (it'll work, right?)

6. Saute the onion (make sure you make the burner too hot so the onions begin to burn. Perfect!) Add the chopped asparagus and crap loads of salt and pepper. Probably more than necessary. Shrug it off.

7. Grab chicken bouillon (google how to spell bouillon) cubes from the food shelf. Eat a marshmallow. Measure out, meh, a little over two cups of water? Yeah, that looks right. But bouillon cubes back. Eat another marshmallow.

8. Put a lid on the pot. Don't have a lid big enough? That's fine. Use a bigger one. Or a plate. Are the steam juices getting all over the stove? Yup, that's a perfectly-too-big fit!

Also, realize you didn't check the time. Meh, you've been cooking for maybe 3 minutes? Maybe 8? Approximate remaining cooking time. Maybe 14 minutes.

9. Drink some club soda, stir your improvised creme fraiche, surf the web, wash dishes, and eat some more marshmallows while you wait.

10. Commiserate over the fact that this soup calls for blending. Curse the cooking gods. Pull out the blender. Turn on some Noah and the Whale to console yourself and power you through the remaining cooking process.

11. Check your soup at the time you estimated. Give it a couple more minutes. Worry that it smells a bit like clam chowder, and that can't be right...? Trust. the recipe. Wait more.

-Realize you turned the burner off at approximated time and soup hasn't been cooking for the last two minutes. Roll your eyes. Turn burner back on.

12. Pour (or splatter) the soup into the blender. Turn on the blender and be thankful that you put on the lid or that would have gone freaking everywhere! Be terrified of the blending process. Put soup back in pot and guesstimate the amount of improvised-creme-fraiche necessary.

13. Stir the soup. Get some on the stove top. Rinse out creme-fraiche bowl to use as a serving bowl. (You're cooking for yourself here. Don't get fancy.)

14. Ladle soup into bowl. Test it. Burn your tongue (Never miss this step! No matter how much you hate it!)

15. Marvel that the soup miraculously turned out delicious!

16. Make a piece of star toast. (the recipe calls for it!)

17. ENJOY your delicious asparagus soup ala Ashley Tolman

P.S. Realize you forgot to add that last tablespoon of butter. And then rejoice that you made a BETTER version of the soup because it's lower calorie! Go you (and your mistakes)!