The Young French Chef

I am thankful for the fact that my Mom cooked with my brother and I in the kitchen when I was growing up. She allowed us to help out when we could without causing too much of a mess. I will also freely admit that I am closet chef. My high school career test had Chef as number one followed by Artist and then Teacher. I discussed this with my counselor Mrs. Boros (God bless you Dorothy, you were such a grand influence on my life!) and she discussed the pluses and minuses of Chefdom and we decided that it probably wasn’t in my best interest. I knew at an early age that I didn’t want to work weekends, and I loved holidays, so being in the restaurant biz would put a serious damper on those proclivities.

So I gravitated towards education, specifically art education and I have never been happier. However, I still get culinary boners (thanks for that Top Chef Chicago’s Andrew) when I am around cookbooks and I love to whip up grand meals for my friends and family when time permits. It still amazes me that my parents were surprised that I was Gay, as I loved cooking from an early age and remember being entranced by a certain Julia Child when I was just a child and would voluntarily sit and watch her on PBS. When I was 11, my folks gave me “The Young French Chef” for Christmas, as well as a kid’s cookbook from Betty Crocker. I have been working with Anna in the kitchen for some time and she loves to don her Dora apron and get into it. She is proficient in pudding making and knows how much milk goes into the mix and how long we have to use the beaters.
I had a craving for peanut butter cookies after having some stale and rather dry ones from our Farmer’s Market on Saturday. I have a variety of recipes committed to memory and this super-easy but delicious peanut butter cookie mix is one of them.
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
Mix and roll into small balls and use a fork to put on the crisscross pattern on the top of the cookies and flatten onto the un-greased cookie sheet.
Sprinkle with sugar and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Watch em, they burn quick with all the oil in the peanut butter. Move to a cooling rack and wait for them to firm up. Yum.
I was inspired by Adam at Bloghungry and will be posting some of my favorite quick and dirty meals for busy households.
Enjoy.