Learning to Cook

I grew up in a house with a great cook.  I never really paid much attention to how my mom actually cooked though, and I feel very limited in my abilities.  At the beginning of our marriage, Chris did most of the cooking.  But as we transitioned to me staying home and him working full time after he finished school, it seemed that I should take over this area.  Over the past few years, I've stolen a lot of recipes from the good cooks I know.

Thankfully for me, my sister in law Katie and her husband moved here around the time I was starting to learn.  Katie is a great resource for me.  She answers all of my really stupid cooking questions and gives me great ideas for recipes.  She gave me this book for Christmas.  Last night I finally got it together and made my first recipe from the book, at her recommendation, called Beef Tamale Pie.  It was GREAT!  And it wasn't very hard either.  This book is designed for making things ahead and gives directions for refrigerating and freezing.  I was able to bake half of this recipe and put the other half in the freezer!  I'm going to get going on a real plan for making and freezing ahead.  I think the 30 day option is a little much for us, but I'm going to work on a 2 week make ahead schedule.