My cooking skills. Or the lack thereof.

I wish I was a good cook. I wish I was the kind of cook whose dishes are praised at potlucks and sought after at family gatherings. Alas, this is not the case. If I were ever to be famous for any kind of cooking, it would be for being really handy at opening cans and reading directions on boxes. That's what I'm best at. When it comes to cooking from recipes, my skills are a bit lacking.

This is not to say I don't try. I love cookbooks and own quite a few. I enjoy looking through them and dreaming about the day I'll have the time, ingredients and skill to cook this or bake that. I recently decided I would try to make a new recipe that I got out of this cookbook:

I decided to make the "Mini Cheeseburger Puff Pies". It sounded simple enough. It was just miniature cheeseburgers wrapped in puff pastry. It was the puff pastry that threw me off. I had never made anything that required it. Therefore, I made a mistake. I bought Phyllo dough instead of puff pastry. In my defense, it did say "Easy-to-Use Pastry Sheets" on the box. It was all I could find in the frozen food section, which is where I assumed it would be. Anyway, this mistake pretty much ruined the whole recipe. We could still eat the cheeseburger part (and J even ate cheeseburger with some of the Phyllo dough...ew), but it wasn't good. But now I know and I'd like to try it again, after I locate the puff pastry at Kroger. If you know where I might find it, feel free to share your wisdom.

Occasionally, I do make something that tastes good and even resembles what the end product is supposed to look like. For example, from the cookbook above, I have also made "Brooke's Homemade Meatloaf". I've made it twice and it's quite tasty, although in the future, I'll leave off the glaze it calls for. It's not as good as my mom's meatloaf, but I don't have that recipe. I should probably get it.

I also recently  made "Banana Pudding" from this cookbook:

I'm all about the Deen's. Anyway, it turned out pretty well, too. So I'm not always a terrible cook. And at least I aspire to be great at it one day. For now, my husband kind of groans when he finds out I'm trying out something new for dinner.