Ain't love grand?

For years and years and years, my diet has been pretty "plain Jane," consisting mostly of sandwiches (wheat or rye bread only, thank you, and never ever with mayo or ketchup), I have eaten lots of tuna mac & cheese, or I'd throw a can of kidney or dark beans on the stove.

When Wes lived here at home while he attended  Notre Dame, I cooked a bit more. And after he moved on, I found cooking for one difficult, and a crashing bore, actually.

Occasionally, I make a crockpot of homemade chili or nice salad and every once in a great while, banana bread. My idea of adventurous cooking was spicey chili-parmesan popcorn. 

It wasn't so much that my diet was unhealthy, in fact, quite the opposite but it was insanely bland (no salt, almost no spices.

Since I have been dating since last July, my love of cooking and baking has been rekindled. 

One thing I have always detested was certain canned vegetables. Store-bought canned green beans are the worst! They taste like sterilized wet waxed cardboard... okay, they just remind me of wet cardboard. 

I grew up cooking for eight. I recently mentioned I still struggle with cooking for one. If you saw my fridge, pantry, and freezer, you'd think a large family lives here, so when I get the opportunity to cook for us on movie-dinner date, I am in heaven... or a basket case when I am trying something new (like last Friday).

I like experimenting in the kitchen. Tonight I bought a large batch of fresh green beans. Traditionally, I almost never eat them since I have this bad mental image of them but this time I tried something different. I steamed them and threw them in a "cold bath." Afterward, I cut them up and threw them in a skillet with melted garlic (another new item in my cooking repertoire) butter, cooking them on high heat. I added three or four heaping teaspoons of diced white onion (I just lost my friend Shane 😁 there) and fried them--sort of--for about five minutes. I then threw them in a bowl and sprinkled parmesan cheese on them.

All I can say is... O M G! 

If I keep this up I am going to have to start up a youtube cooking show ala Chef Mappín. Ha!