Cooking without fear anymore

I have a love-hate relationship with cooking. I love the way Jack tucks in when I prepare dinner. Some days I feel a fraud, adding a garnish to a pre-packed or pre-marinated meal I stuck in the oven. Other days I beam with pride when a recipe I followed, one I made from scratch, turns out lovely and true to the picture/photo/video I got it from.

We got married in July so I'm just coming out of new bride euphoria. My ring still sparkles and the wedding ash blonde highlights have long been redone back to a more everyday hazel I can more easily maintain. 

How do other women do it? We want to lead strong independent lives on one day then we walk down an aisle and suddenly I take on a new name, I'm now Mrs Martin. Yeah, I could have stuck with my own last name or gone with the hyphen but seriously, who does that anymore?

Anyway, back to my love-hate relationship with cooking. I'm a klutz in the kitchen. I've tried Jamie's quick meal ideas and Heston's low and slow techniques but handling cold raw meat hasn't got less icky. My one pet hate is getting the garlic and onions chopped. Who knew almost every dish calls for chopped aromatics. I've tried the pre-chopped versions from the supermarket and they work relatively well but something's missing plus I feel less authentic in saying I made it all from scratch. Why that's important beats me but it is. I want to serve my family fresh and organic as much as possible.

Which brings me to a fabulous find I discovered last week. It's called a Finger Guard from this online shop www.epicstore.nz. You just slip it on your middle finger and it protects the fingers that hold the food while your knife slides right off.

Ingenious! My manicure lasts longer and my manic fear of slicing my knuckle is gone.

Now all I need is a cry guard....oh wait, that's just my goggles which have gone missing since Murphy, our cat, got hold of them.....so in the meantime, I chop onions in Prada shade....what could be cooler?? Ahem......

Coffee time before I try my hand at Nigella's puttanesca sauce.