An update on my cooking skills ...

Earlier this week my friend Lucinda posted this on facebook …

So proud of my friend Grace Anne!! She won BEST HOME COOK in Dallas on the Bobby Flay’s Dinner Battle on Food Network!! Proud of her for stepping out of her comfort zone, AND for winning!

I wanted to respond … “does she know you are friends with the cooking likes of me?”.

And seriously .. her friend Grace Anne stepped “out of her comfort zone and WON” which would mean she stepped “in to her kitchen and COOKED”.

Which has always been part of my problem.

But things are looking up.

I think, in fact, that you might be a little surprised.

Shocked, perhaps.

Now, no one has asked me to write a cookbook or anything .. but there has been progress. (Anyone remember the time I was kicked out of the elementary school cookbook only to be re-instated without my knowing because they said my recipe wasn’t really a recipe!?).

I’m also not claiming any Pioneer Woman victories.  (Anyone remember the time I tripled her cinnamon roll recipe because I wanted to make more than one pan … but didn’t realize the recipe made SEVEN pans so I ended up with TWENTY ONE pans of cinnamon rolls?).

I’m not saying I’m the next Giada or Rachel Ray or anything like that.

I’m just saying that I’ve had a few things happen lately that …. in my very unofficial “this is a great mom moment” book that I keep in my head … were was counted as a victories.

You see … Jacob came home from basketball the other night and said that his friend told him “your mom makes the best quasadillas in the world”.

Did you catch that?  In the WORLD?!?  The world includes Mexico where they invented them so I think I get extra credit for mastering a “foreign dish”.

And yes, because I know what you are wondering, it was only cheese and a tortilla.

It just must have been very good cheese and a very good tortilla … which translates to “whatever was on sale at HEB”.

As an aside … I had to google the correct spelling of quesadilla.  And it was then that I realized it is a ques-a-DILLA…. which will crack all of my friends who know me by my maiden name, (Dillahunty) and always called me “Dilla” for short, VERY HAPPY.  So, although I have changed the pronunciation of the word … from here to fore I will be making quas-a-DILLA’s!!!

So fun.

Then, AS IF that wasn’t enough good news on the cooking front … Brittany came downstairs the other night and said … “Maddie wants to know if you’ll make more of your chocolate chip banana muffins and send it in my lunch to school so she can eat them”.

And friends … that was the fastest batch of muffins I’ve ever made!

Last, but not least,  Brittany had a friend over Friday night.  In my usual … “oh no, it’s time for dinner and I forgot to remember than I’m in charge of dinner” routine I had a moment of panic.  Then I remembered a “too easy to believe it’s true” recipe a friend had told me about.  I rolled out a can of Grands biscuits.  I cooked them and melted cheese on top.  I quickly grilled some chicken on my (ever so handy and dandy) George Foreman grill, sliced it up and put it on the Grands and topped it with some barbeque sauce.

You want to know what Brittany’s friend said?!?

She said … “Mrs. Baerg … this is SOOO good.  My mom just opens up packages and puts them in the microwave for us to eat”.

If Caroline had been home she would have chocked on her chicken while laughing since she calls me the “queen of whatever they are selling on the prepackaged aisle”.

So rude.  :)

And you may be thinking to yourself … those are the lamest cooking celebration reasons ever.  But what you may not understand is that I had some friends over for lunch this fall and one friend asked me … “are you really as bad of a cook as you say you are?”.

The only answer for that was “yes”.

But things are looking up friends … even if ever so slightly.

Bobby Flay isn’t ever going to name me “best home cook in Houston” but I do make a good quesadilla!

Or so I’ve been told.