Lesson 4: The Kitchen is Supposed to Be Used

In my continued attempt to at least pretend I'm domestic, I realized it's probably time that I use my kitchen. I've had some people over in the last month and a half and it usually has been for bbq'ing or grilling, but that entailed everyone bringing something, usually me mixing up my specialty (guacamole), and sitting outside. You may even say my kitchen is a popular place to be as it seems whenever I have people over we congregate in the kitchen but it's definitely not because I'm baking or cooking. I remember saying to my realtor and parents when I was looking for a house, "It'll be so nice to have a nice sized kitchen!" Ha! Apparently in my search for a house I had this grand vision of me cooking large Martha Stewart type meals for all of my friends and family and wearing an apron and saying things like, "Oh you like that glaze? It's just something I threw together that I thought would bring out the true flavour of the roast." Could you imagine?

So tonight I decided that I was going to actually use my kitchen and cook a real meal. Emerson is taking the GRE tomorrow and to ensure he has a lot of brain power I felt a good home cooked meal by moi would be a great idea! I called my mom this morning from the office (I was really busy apparently) and asked her for my Mama's (Grandma) meat loaf recipe. I always loved my Mama's meat loaf and I thought making it tonight would also be a great way to remember her and show her that I am not useless in the kitchen but actually quite the opposite. I mean who knows, I could turn out to be a genuine Rachel Ray! Anyway, I called mom and she gave me the recipe and I went to the grocery store after work.

Now, I didn't follow the recipe exactly... only because it called for a little bit of pork and I couldn't find any and I was just much too busy to ask anyone. I got home and got started. I took pictures along the way which you see here.

The ingredients. Don't worry, light bulbs are there because I have some burnt out ceiling lights!

Mixing up my ingredients!

Making it a "loaf"

Much needed throughout the process...

Okay, it's now 10:34pm and I have to let you ALL know that the meatloaf was a total success! It tasted delicious and the potatoes I boiled were fabulous (very tricky potatoes.. you just put them in water and boil)! Emerson told me that it was really really good! I'm going to take that and let you all know that I, tonight, had a domestic moment by showcasing my unknown cooking talent! Will I be making elaborate meals from now on? No. But now I at least can say, "Hey I cooked dinner last week so let's just go out".

mmmmm so good!

Things I learned from Lesson 4: 
- When the oven is on it makes my kitchen very hot and I felt like I was sweating... I didn't like that.
- Apparently meat loaf is kind of "juicy" and you need to put the dish on a pan because if you don't meat loaf juice will spill all over the inside of your oven and burn. It sucks.
- Buy a kitchen timer. I made blueberry muffins before putting the meat loaf in and was quickly reminded that I will forget what time I put things in the oven and I will get distracted by something and lose track of watching the clock.
-Wine... it just tastes so good.