Less of Josephine.

I don’t cook. Well, I do cook, but I don’t COOK in the way that most people talk about when the word takes on the meaning of a natural Emeril-like talent in the kitchen. I regularly assemble sandwiches, fry eggs, mix up tuna salad, heat soup in the microwave, and throw together salads. Those things I can do and that is what usually passes for cooking at my house. Which is why I’ve been surprised to find myself experimenting a bit more in the kitchen recently.

Last week I whipped up homemade tzatziki sauce (to go with the falafel) from fat free plain yogurt, cucumber, and garlic. This endeavor required the purchase and use of a cheesecloth. Does anything make you feel more chefly than using a cheesecloth? In my admittedly limited experience, the answer is no. A whisk has always made me feel as if I suddenly possessed some amount of culinary talent (even if I was only whisking water into a can of Campbell’s tomato soup), but that feeling was far surpassed by the cheesecloth (all hail the cheesecloth!). I was so enchanted that once I finished making the tzatziki sauce I looked desperately around for something else to do with the darn thing. I couldn’t think of anything. But I bet it will be great as general decor when Halloween rolls around. Oh and the sauce turned out delicious. Maybe not quite as good as the full-fat, olive oil-enhanced version of the recipe, but plenty good slathered on top of all sorts of stuff.

I also made homemade baba ganoush, which required me to locate then assemble the food processor parts of my two-in-one blender for the very first time ever after owning the thing for 4 years. It was fun to make. It was not fun to eat, however. I think I over-cooked the eggplant and I was unwilling to add the amount of tahini and/or olive oil required for me to lust after it the way I’ve lusted after restaurant versions. I just can’t afford a gazillion-calorie-packed version of baba ganoush and the low-fat version just tasted funky. Still, I learned out to use my processor so the effort wasn’t a total waste.

Today’s dish (which unfortunately required neither whisk nor cheesecloth) was teriyaki tempeh with zucchini and asparagus. Since I didn’t get to use my two favorite cooking implements during the preparation, I treated myself and used chopsticks to eat it. Yum.