Recipes 1 & 2 in Retrospect

Cooking with Rachael Ray

I kept a week long promise to Kate yesterday and took her to Olive Garden for dinner last night. She insisted on bringing along a couple of coworkers and I insisted on bringing along Jeanne, so it turned out to be a very enjoyable and festive evening. Good company, good food.

As I was sitting there eating my spaghetti and meatballs, I thought back over my last two Rachael Ray dinners. The first one, the scramblewiches, was the first time I'd ever cooked with hot sauce. I didn't taste it at all, it just made the eggs a bit more palatable and interesting. To me, eating eggs is usually like eating rubber.

The second dish, the turkey shepherder's pie was a lot of work, a whole lot of ingredients. I think you'd need two people working in synch in the kitchen to produce it in 30 minutes. I also think it had too many vegetables.

Tonight's dinner will be an off shoot of that "master recipe". Ms. Ray instructs you to leave out certain ingredients, like the peas and potatoes, and *voila* it becomes a beef goulash. I intend to leave out more than that - the red peppers, for one ... and also all of the spices except the paprika (all goulash recipes have paprika in them.) I can't wait to add the sour cream and see how that goes! Should be yummy. I'll bet Kate & Jeanne won't even realize they're eating a new version of Monday night's dinner.

We all talked about budgeting yesterday - a New Year resolution. All of us agreed to having a weekly allowance. Cooking with Rachael Ray every night will help make that a reality. It's the spontaneous going out for dinner that kills us - especially since Kate likes her cocktails.