Not Exactly Living Up to My Dreams, Am I?

We like good food around here.

I mean reeeeally like it.  And I like to think that I'm a pretty good cook.  I used to be horrible (ask Chris, it's sad but true.)  But I feel like I can attempt pretty much anything these days and have it turn out not just edible, but possibly delectable.  Lack of time and money (mostly money) has put a damper on this passion to some degree, but I would love one day to run a bed & breakfast, or a tiny little mom & pop diner, or something fun like that.

Here's our recipe book collection:

We have the basic and essential Betty Crocker cookbook.  Actually, we have two.  But we also have two HUGE cookbooks (both of which I realized are not in the picture because they were on the counter, having recently been consulted to find the best vinaigrette recipe) that each claim to contain the very best tried and tested recipes.  And we have a cookbook specifically for appetizers, one of tex-mex foods, one for chocolate (mmmmm...chocolate), one for paninis, one for non-alcoholic drinks, one of British recipes, one from our Alaskan cruise featuring food from the cruise ship, one geared towards kids (it's called Pretend Soup), and many, many others.  We don't, however, have Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

See, last night Chris & I watched Julie & Julia.  The movie was good, not the best I've ever seen, but enjoyable (Meryl Streep was fabulous as Julia Child), but man, oh man, the food looked like it was to die for.

I went to bed last night inspired to cook great food and cook it well.

On Sundays, now that church meets at 9:00am, we fix a big Sunday dinner.  This is the one day a week you'll be guaranteed to find not just one, but two or possibly even three side dishes alongside the main course.  And homemade rolls.  Mmmmm...homemade rolls.

But this morning, after going to bed with visions of not sugarplums, but boeuf à la bourguignonne, coq au vin, pear tarts, and poached eggs dancing in my head, I got up, slapped some chicken breasts in the crock pot, and dumped two cans of cream of chicken soup and a packet of onion soup mix on top.

Yeah, not so much with the Julia Child-esque cooking there, huh?  (that sentence came out really Sarah Palin-ish, didn't it?  Well, I do read all the newspapers...)

I did make rolls and mashed potatoes and a salad with spinach, pear, feta, and toasted walnuts (okay, Chris made the salad, but still...)

My going-to-bed vision was somewhat crushed by the crock pot meal, but everyone ate it, which I suppose is more than I could say for, say, aspic (which, honestly, doesn't sound all that to-die-for anyway.)

But we did have a dessert that would do Julia proud.  I can't take credit for it, but Chris did make crème caramels that were rich and creamy and really, really good. (I just realized that the reflection in the shiny top of the crème caramel is pretty much a mirror image of the picture at the top of the post.  Weird.)

One tasty treat at a time, I guess.  One at a time.