Why I love cooking shows

I'm an OK cook. Not great, not bad. I can do some things great, and try to avoid bad at all costs. In the last year, I've only had one disaster. I accidentally turned the lemon pepper upside down on my chicken, and it WAS NOT on the sprinkle side. Blech.  I have had freinds comment that I am a very "messy" cook.  That does not surprise me.

I mainly watch the Top Chef series. I think the dessert one is dumb. I adore No Reservations, but that's more of a travel/food show, not a cooking show. I get a kick out of Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitchen. I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I even friended two contestants from Season 6 on Facebook. Amazingly, they accepted. I think the "contestants" are a hoot, and Gordon Ramsay cracks me up. Sometimes when I'm cooking I can hear him in my head giving his oh, so subtle input. "Don't burn the garlic you cow!"

All these shows post their recipes, but I've never made one. I'll do that sometime. Tonight is an excellent example of why I love cooking shows. I found a recipe for mini meatloaves, and it looked yummy and easy.  The recipe called for an indentation on the top to put ketchup in. Don't get me wrong, I really dig ketchup. But it just seemed so, blah. So I took a sliver of garlic, roasted red pepper strips and diced tomatoes and put them in instead. 15m until detante, so we'll see how that goes.

Hey, that was pretty good.  I'm going to add more spices next time, and not use as large a portion of wet ingredients that they did.  My idea for the top turned out great.  Here is my first food picture I think.  Produce doesn't count.