Can’t stop cookin’

I could give up chocolate but I’m not a quitter.
~ Author Unknown

It’s so difficult to stop cooking!!!

Made a modified version of spiced brownie this morning – recipe courtesy Smitten Kitchen.

This one has a lethal amount of chocolate (partially hidden in the photo), butter, paprika, cardamom, cinnamon, cocoa. Sweet and moist…

It’s still a little difficult to think about what to cook without a recipe to guide me, but I feel myself getting a little more comfortable slowly with cooking – able to modify recipes and substitute things to avoid massive grocery bills – able to judge better when a cake is done – always having fun in the kitchen, amidst a few inevitable frustrating moments.

I think I’m coming to trust myself a little more now with recipes too, with folding and whisking, letting things work themselves out – and I find that this attitude extends a little more into life sometimes… sometimes I catch myself being so calm that I wonder where the old jumpy impatient me has gone. I still explode in accordance with my natural crazy passionate self – but at least I have a little more calm in my heart, too.

Cooking then, I think, is so good like that – like dancing. It’s art and expression, learning, exercising freedom, tripping over, getting up again – and just laughing throughout the process. Sometimes alone, sometimes with others. But you practise more with yourself and once you’re ok with laughing and crying comfortably alone, you have alot more fun. Both cooking and dancing do so much for my soul and teach me valuable lessons on how to live.

Here’s to a good week.