at least the wine is good...

Dennis always says "you never cook!" and I say "I cook all the time!" and he says "ha! throwing a frozen lasagna in the oven is not cooking!!!"


So today, I tried cooking. Like 3 weeks ago, I invited a bunch of people to go out with us to dinner tonight and people kept changing their minds on the evite and then eventually at 1pm today, it came to pass that NO ONE COULD COME. And Dennis' birthday is on Sunday. And he has been complaining about how he doesn't want to spend a bunch of money on dinner. So I had this great idea (it's an adventure) to cook him dinner tonight. I decided on two "traditional Chilean recipes", bread, and merlot. And I'm making him a cake on Sunday.


So these are the recipes:
"Chilean Potatoes" (psh. whatever.)
4 potatoes (I bought 2)
4 tomatoes (I bought 2)
1/2 cup of mozzerella
1 cup of sour cream

heat oven to 400, boil the potatoes and then slice them. lay them out on a baking sheet, put a tomato over each potato slice, then put on some cheese, then repeat. And then add a dollop of sour cream on top. Put foil over the whole mess and bake for 30 min.

I know that in addition to tomatoes, I should have added like a bell pepper or something. but neither one of us like bell peppers. And there wasn't a photo for reference. So this is what I got.






yeah, I know. it looks like a mess of glue on an old baking pan. I've got nothing to say for this. We ate most of it but that's because potatoes are not good leftovers.



"Pastel de Choclo" (Corn and meat pie)-
-2 diced onions (on one hand, yay I finally opened the food chopper we got for Christmas. On the other hand, this alone had my eyes watering so bad I couldn't concentrate on the rest of the recipe).
-1/4 cup vegetable oil (we didn't have this. we have olive oil. and I guessed how much to use).
-3 tbsp flour
1 cup boiling water
1 bouillon cube (what flavor? I chose beef)
-2 cans cream corn
1 egg
1/2 cup light cream (where is this? I ended up using half and half)
1/2 cup raisens
2 tbsp sugar
10-12 olives (i just used a can of olives).

Fry onions in oil, and meat (what kind of meat? I chose hamburger) and brown. Add bouillon cube dissolved in water. Add raisens and olives and mix well. Remove from heat.

Mix corn mixture (this is from my notes, as I copied this down at my office instead of printing, probably a fatal error). Add sugar and stir well. Place meat in casserole dish. Cover with corn mixture and bake at 350 until corn mix is firm and nicely browned.


Okay. Problem 1: It doesn't say how long to cook the casserole. So I had that sucker in for over an hour waiting for it to "firm". Problem 2: i forgot to add flour and didn't realize this until like 3 hours later.

Dennis came home and said "I don't like pastel de choclo..... but it's okay. it's something different." And when I gave him his plate, he laughed and and patted my head like a little girl and said "A for effort"

This is what I got (you can google if you want to see how it should look):



hahahaha. you can see the old teapot I have that refuses to get clean!

But yes, you can see the beef and the corn and you know, it wasn't "bad" (i mean, we have to eat this tomorrow for leftovers....) but it wasn't you know, like a corn and meat pie.



So here's the deal. I have decided to make Dennis a birthday cake. I am using a box mix. (How can I mess up a boxed mix cake??) But I am also ambitious. The Birthday Boy had his heart set on one of those cakes with two layers. TWO LAYERS!! So if anyone knows how to make the two-layered cake like on the box of betty crocker, let me know!!


(and now, by the way, Dennis will never be able to say that I never ever cook).