Blog 30 - Can't Cook, Won't Cook!

Challenge 35 was to cook 12 new recipes. Anyone who knows me, knows how appalling I am at cooking and am a fan of the Popty Ping style of cooking (Popty Ping is Welsh for Microwave!). Not only do I have few culinary skills but I also have the fussiest family in the world to cook for. I am a pescatarian (I don't eat meat but eat fish), my husband eats meat, doesn't particularly like fish and doesn't like fruit or vegetables, my children are equally fussy and do not like like the same things and hate most veg!

Although a poor excuse the difference in our likes and dislikes in food means that I rarely cook just one meal that we all eat and quite often have two or three varieties of a meal to please everyone. There is in fact only one meal that we all sit down and eat and that is a roast dinner (although I don't eat the meat). So the aim of this challenge was to gain a few more skills but also try and get a wider list of family meals that we all liked.

I quickly realised how poor my knowledge is of basic cooking skills but in particular when it comes to meat. To help me out and to avoid me poisoning my family, my husband bought me a fantastic cook book that explained basic meals and had lots of pictures!!

These are the twelve meals that I cooked and prepared from scratch...

Meal 1 - Chilli Con Carne  (meat and veggie versions)
Meal 2 - Fish Pie
Meal 3 - Chicken in Tarragon Sauce
Meal 4 - Cauliflower and Broccoli Cheese Bake
Meal 5 - Chicken Schnitzel and home baked wedges
Meal 6 - Savoury Pancake with goats cheese, sundried tomatoes and spinach.
Meal 7 - Veggie Quorn Cottage Pie
Meal 8 - Veggie Quorn Lasagne
Meal 9 - Garlic and parsley prawns with halloumi and green pepper skewers
Meal 10 - Pasta with hidden vegetable tomato pasta sauce
Meal 11 - Pork chops with home made apple sauce and mashed potatoes
Meal 12 - Home made beef burgers and home made chips.

                                     

     

                                 
I did complete this challenge as in, I made 12 new meals that I had never cooked before, but the challenge didn't have the result I hoped for. I didn't end up with any meals that we all liked and ate as a family. The majority of meals I made ranged from disappointing to average. As I can't taste the meat meals, I have no way of checking what it tastes like and most of the veggie options resulted in tears and tantrums at the table and that was just my husband! The most successful were the basic meat options, pork chops and chicken meals. The fish options were flat refused and to be honest it hasn't really changed our family way of life at mealtimes at all.

I didn't really enjoy the actual cooking, hated touching and preparing raw meat and didn't enjoy the food that much or the reaction by the rest of the family! I think I will unfortunately be forever cooking a couple of different options at meal times and relying on ready prepared options, and carry on looking forward to meals out and the regular Marks & Spencer special Dine in for 2 offer! This isn't just food, this is M&S food!!