cooking with oil

When I meet someone who is skilled in the kitchen, I am immediately filled with a mix of awe and envy. As it turns out, even though cooking and baking looks easy enough when I watch someone do it or I watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, as I go about my own adventures in the kitchen, my creations always come out either flat, dripping with olive oil, or burny. Not full-on burned, but just enough for it to replace the flavor the tiniest bit. "There's a nutty flavor with smoky, burnt overtones." Not so pleasant on the ol' taste buds.

I'm going to a potluck tonight. Needless to say, I've been wanting to mimic this knock-out sweet potato salad this girl made two Christmas Eves ago. However, as all my creations do, it morphed into something completely different. I decided to do away with the lettuce and replaced the hazelnuts with chia seeds, and roasted the shit out of these little cubes of orange yumza that I got fresh from the Farmers Market just yesterday. I coated the cubed sweet potato with olive oil, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, and sage. I roasted it at 400 f for about 35 minutes, until it was tender, transferred all of it to a new baking dish to get rid of the excess olive oil, tossed in a tiny amount of mustard, more brown sugar, and sea salt, then broiled it to attempt a crispy top. The crispy top never came.

I want to be one of those people that cooks like a genius. I feel like I don't know how to cook without using insane amounts of oil and butter. Sometimes, after I've eaten a meal that I've made, I can feel my arteries tightening up. That's an exageration, of course, but I am aware that the oil and butter consumption needs to stop or be greatly reduced. I also tend to go overboard with the sea salt. If I'm using nutritional yeast, same problem. Garlic too, which is kind of the worst. Working out after eating my over-garliced mashed potatoes is none too pleasant.

I can cook some things really well. I'm not a complete mess in the kitchen. I make killer popcorn, a mean lasagna, and delicious coconut french toast (even that gives me a hard time sometimes). But when I try to get the least bit creative, it seems that somehow, my dishes turn out schizophrenic... "what? you mean garlic, nutmeg, rosemary, cumin, and onion powder don't go together?" Is there a class I can take to teach about what seasonings go best with what? I wish there was a Cooking for Dummies class offered somewhere. I recently took a pie making class and actually did really well, but the teacher had the filling done for us and everything was measured out and we had all the tools, ingredients, and, answers right there within earshot or arm's reach.

When my roasted sweet potatoes were cool enough, I gave them a little taste test. To my delight, they were delicious... then I looked at them and realized that I hadn't made nearly enough for the six people that will be there. CRAP! I guess now I have a reason to pick up those cupcakes I've been thinking about.