Wow....long time 'eh?

So it's officially been over a year since I last posted in this blog. I still have been cooking a lot, but I quit my job at Vito's in January. I'm now working at a restaurant called Cimi's Bistro. It's in a golf clubhouse, so we do a lot of banquet stuff too. Right now I wash dishes, but I get to do some prep cooking on Sundays. It's fun, but I'm going to have to go on leave while I go to school. I'm going to The Ohio State University to major in Computer Engineering. Woo, that should be fun. I don't think I'll be able to cook very much during school, but hey, that doesn't mean I'll stop loving it. I have a few recipes I'll be posting in the future. Mmm.

Lack of Updates

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I just got a job at a local italian restraunt called Vito's Italian Pub. It's a great place to work. The staff is friendly and I get paid well. Right now I was dishes and help with prep cooking. It's a great experience and I hope I learn a lot. I think this will be a long-time job for me, at least until I'm out of school. I hope everything works out.

Chicken Curry Salad

This is a recipe I developed out of boredom one day. It was around lunchtime and I had a craving for chicken salad. I looked at several recipes and none of them appealed to me. So, I made my own. You can add more or less curry powder to suit your taste.

Ingredients:
12.5 oz can of cooked cubed chicken
1/8 c of shredded parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
4 minced green onions
1 minced celery stalk
1 tbls mayonaise
1/3 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Drain the chicken and chop finely. Add chicken to a mixing bowl and add remaining ingredients. Stir and store in an air-tight container in the fridge for an hour before serving.

The Italian Recipe without a Name

Well here I am posting my first recipe developed solely by me. If any of you have suggestions on what the name should be, I'll be more than happy to consider your suggestions. Well, here we go. I hope you enjoy.


Ingredients:
2 cups of cooked tortellini
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp butter
~1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (more or less according to your taste)
1/4 c minced onion
~2 cloves of minced garlic (more or less according to your taste)
1/3 c of your favorite wine (I like to use red wine)
1 c of chopped tomatoes, no juice (I like to use cherry tomatoes)
Handful of fresh chopped basil.

Method:
Add oil and butter to cold saute pan. Heat on med-high heat until butter is melted. Add crushed red pepper and minced onion and saute for 3 minutes, or until onion is transparent. Add garlic and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Take pan off of heat and add wine. Return pan to heat and reduce wine to half. Add chopped tomatoes and tortellini. Heat for 2 minutes, or until heated through. Toss in the basil. Garnish with parmesan cheese if desired and enjoy!

The Beginning

It's the beginning of this blog and I'd like to say welcome. This is going to be my place for individuals to come and read about my cooking experiences and hopefully share some of theirs.

I started cooking when I was 11 years old with my Aunt Ruth at our summer cottage in Michigan. She helped me understand that a recipe is just a guideline. Make the recipe work for you, not the other way around. You can't call it your own if you just copy a recipe and use that all the time, can you? She and I would sit and flip through cookbooks combining different recipes and substituting ingredients to make them our own. Don't get me wrong, we don't take all the credit. She and I like to impress our family though.

So this is my quest. I want to have others help me, and I want to help others. If you have any good info or recipes, feel free to email me at captaincheeno@gmail.com

I'll be posting some of my favorite recipes and techniques to help anyone looking for it.