My version of food blogging

Back in September I was going through a hard time and decided to take up a new hobby, cooking, to occupy my mind.

I mention this because a lot of people in my life are chalking up this new obsession to the only-since-Thanksgiving boyfriend (who will from here on out be referred to as "I.C." or "The I.C." when I'm feeling formal) and as he already gets all the credit for how good people tell me I've been looking, I don't want him to get all the points for this too. He has been encouraging, of course, happily eating anything I prepare and always saying it's good even when I know it's not.

I am completely brand new to cooking so if I seem overly impressed with myself for making relatively simple dishes, that's why. Previous to this new cooking kick, I was able to make two dishes:

1. A spaghetti dish with canned (Prego original) sauce, ricotta and mozzarella cheese which was taught to me by a friend's mom in 2nd grade (Liza Young of Manhattan Beach, where are you? You are ungoogleable). This is my ultimate comfort food, my favorite thing to eat in the whole world.

2. Vegetarian chili, taught to me by sometimes commenter WZA. Also has a comfort food aspect. Despite the fact that I look happy and silly in the pictures last I cooked it, I most often make it when I'm sad and was in a pretty bad place that day too.

I haven't taken a cooking class as I had planned, though I still intend to, but I had a friend teach me to make "military style duck and apples" (I'm unclear what makes it "military style" actually, and as the friend claims to read my blog, he should let us know the answer in the comment section) and another friend teach me to make "provolone and prosciutto stuffed chicken breast."

This post is to update you all on my progress since you gave me good suggestions and encouragement when last I asked.

Last night I made 2 types of fish prepared two different ways and a side of asparagus:

Lemon Sole (link is to recipe, I used bread crumbs instead of flour)

New Zealand Bass (I couldn't find a recipe so I winged it with dijon mustard, light breadcrumbs, sesame oil and black sesame seeds, and baked it at 400 for about 7 minutes a side):

Soy Sesame Asparagus (not having a grill, I stuck them in the oven for 10 minutes):

Other recent attempts:

Butternut squash ravioli- I.C. liked it but I didn't think this one was worth the effort, honestly. It was ok, but required too much thought and work for just "ok":

Feta meatballs (recipe is for a version that includes olives and I used ground turkey instead of ground lamb)- these taste a lot better than they look. I was actually impressed by how tasty they turned out.

Brussel Sprouts in mustard sauce- I sort of messed up the sauce on this one. First it was too thin, so I added flour and then it got real thick. Still, they tasted pretty good:

Sticky sesame chicken strips- this was really easy and very tasty:

Scallops (dip in flour, then 2 minutes a side on the pan)- I've made scallops twice now and love them. Ridiculously easy and yet seems like you've worked hard on it because they taste so good:

I love risotto so early on I made two different kinds. First, the mushroom, asparagus and sundried tomato risotto:

And butternut squash risotto:

I don't have links to recipes for either of those because it was before I discovered Allrecipes.com awesome recipe box. By the way, as if I needed more social networking, you can now friend me on All Recipes.

For some reason, I didn't photograph my two proudest dishes. One was very basic but turned out so completely delicious I refer to it as "the dish I wouldn't be upset to get in a restaurant", Oven Fried Chicken breast. The other was Maple Walnut Pie. I turned it into individual tarts using premade mini pie crusts and used vanilla extract instead of the maple extract called for in the recipe. They turned out really good and it's something I plan to make again.

The food kick has actually been all-encompassing. I read food blogs now (my two favorites are Smitten Kitchen and Is that my buréka? though I've yet to attempt recipes from either.) The "I" in I.C. stands for Israeli so I'm planning to try to make more Mediterranean dishes for him.

As always, I welcome your feedback, suggestions, recipes, anything. You guys rock and I know it.