New Year's Resolution 2010

The is the Honey Vanilla Pound Cake. I now realize why it is called "pound" cake.

The finished product. This is Italian Wedding Soup.

These are my beautiful girls sitting down for lunch.

Ida Garten's book wide open for me to reference...and reference!

My finished Meatballs and the broth they swim in.

This year, I resolve to cook! After several take out, frozen and heat and serve meals in 2009, I thought what better way to make up for not being in the kitchen than to teach myself how to cook. Now, I've never considered myself a horrible cook. I'm an avid FoodNetwork watcher and love collecting cookbooks. The problem has always been.....time!

Now I'm not promising the most healthy meals. The resolve is to cook, right? However, if I do discover some healthy meals along the way, I will add them to my post.

So let's begin with today's cooking extravaganza!

Today's meal is based on the weather and a birthday. It's 55 degrees out and looks like it is going to rain. My youngest, Natalia, is turning 2 years old. So combine those both and you get... soup! (okay, maybe some may find that exciting.)

I decided to go with a recipe from Ina Garten's Back to Basics. A good friend of mine shared that the book has taught her how to cook the way she wanted to learn and it's simple. Simple is good!

Italian Wedding Soup - (Due to copyright, I dare not post the recipe; however, it can be found in the book). Here's my take. Yes. It was easy. Skillet frying is not my favorite and I usually burn anything the goes in. The meatballs are baked! Just make, roll, and turn the oven to 350. 30 minutes later, voila...MMEEEAATTTBBAALLLLS! Now I couldn't find ground chicken and didn't think to grind my own, so I used ground turkey from Raley's. It was still very good.

As for the broth, it was a simple chicken stock with veggies. The difference for me was the white wine. I don't think I've ever tasted soup with white wine in it.

Overall, I gave the soup a 4 out of 5. The higher part of the score is for the meatballs.

Now for dessert. I chose her Honey Vanilla Pound Cake. After mixing the ingredients, I now understand why it is called "pound" cake. The cake asked for lemon zest which was fun to peel (not) and lots of ..... butter!

I do have a confession. I lick the bowl. The cake batter was awesome. I could have ate the entire bowl, but fear all the raw egg would send me to the hospital. With that being said, all of the batter went into the oven for well over an hour even though the recipe said 50-60 minutes.

I felt the hour because my kids asked ever 2 minutes if it was finished and could we eat the cupcakes. What cupcakes?

So here they are! I'm proud of my efforts and look forward to another cooking day this week. I resolve to cook (but maybe not from scratch everyday).