The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, with Giveaway

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School made me consider my own relationship to my kitchen. I have always made cakes from scratch rather than using mixes, but I was still used to many shortcuts in the kitchen, something I didn’t realize until I moved to northwest Africa (Mauritania and Morocco) 10 years ago.

I missed salad dressing. The only kind you could buy was a vinaigrette, and it wasn’t even a good one—full of preservatives and with a weird gunky texture. I had to make my own. Now I’m to the point where I don’t even need to measure—I can whip out a vinaigrette in no time flat, using whatever variety of vinegar or lemon juice, adding herbs or garlic or sometimes even sugar and mustard for a spicy-sweet version that’s really good on spinach. When we moved back last year, I was looking forward to buying salad dressings again, but I was sorely disappointed. Bottled salad dressings kind of suck. They don’t taste good to me anymore. I find myself, here in the Land of an Entire Aisle of Salad Dressings, continuing to drizzle olive oil and add a few splashes of lemon juice and a few shakes of salt and pepper.

Please read my full review of the very enjoyable Kitchen Counter Cooking School over at 5 Minutes for Mom today. You must leave a comment over there to enter to win.

Elizabeth loves to cook and you can kind of tell just by looking at her. She is raising kids who are fearless in the kitchen, and leave messes to prove it. Read more at her blog Planet Nomad.