Recipe (Remix)

I have no idea how to tell which knife is the correct one to use. I couldn't tell you what the difference is between cutting and dicing or what the hell cubing is.  The only kitchen equipment I have is from my bridal shower, over five years old and still in boxes on the shelf. So the idea of cooking something from scratch was very intimidating.
Last year, for Thanksgiving, I bought gluten free stuffing and all the trimmings.  This year, I decided to brave the kitchen. Because my schedule is pretty much booked until the actual holiday, I had to make it this weekend and just freeze it.  So I did what anyone who's in denial and refuses to buy a gluten-free cookbook would do.  I googled it, searched on twitter and basically came up with a recipe I thought I could handle.  I picked the lovely http://www.glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/ gluten free stuffing recipe with a few changes to make it vegetarian.
Now full disclosure here, not only do I not like to cook, but I cannot follow a recipe. Instructions on how to setup a computer program, how to build a bookshelf or any home do-it-yourself guide I can follow. Anything to do with food, I instantly become illiterate. I once put a frozen pizza in the oven forgetting to remove the cardboard from the bottom.  I also once made one of those pre-cooked pasta packets and simply glossed over the step that said: Drain Remaining Water.  When I say that I am hopeless in the kitchen, I am not being dramatic.  The first meal I made for my husband involved crunchy rice and burnt scones (store bought mind you, I was just warming them up). It worked out though, because he is a fabulous cook.
So the first step towards our Thanksgiving dinner, since my husband is also a vegetarian and the rest of my family is not, was the main course.  A gluten free nut roast. Since I had never even heard of something called a nut roast until I met my husband I decided to let him make this one and I would help.  We ran into our first problem when we realized we had nothing to - what would be the technical term? Pulverize? - the brazil nuts. I tried our smoothie maker (the one thing I am good at making) and it did an okay job, but that was the first sign that this was not going to go well.
Hours later, I was still in the kitchen by myself with my husband's nut roast cooling on the side teasing me with my ineptitude. But, pen in hand to check off the steps as I completed them, I moved forward.  Everything was going really well, I was in the middle of sauteing when I thought I'd get creative and throw some mushrooms into the mix.  That was all it took, one break from the rules and suddenly everything started to unravel.  I forgot the rosemary and decided to saute it on its own, then after soaking the bread I saw the word toasted.  Whoops. My bread was soaking everything up and looking like one giant lump of dough. I forgot the salt and the pepper and made a mess of the egg.  Honestly, how do you get the egg yolk not to scramble?  In the end, since I had used up my only gluten free bread loaf (yep only bought one, even though the ingredients list called for two), I had to make do with the lump in the bowl in front of me. I threw it in the oven, without the aluminum foil - because yes I forgot that too - and waited.  It took longer than the 20 minutes it said to bake it for, but when it was ready, well, I'm sure it would have tasted fabulous had I followed the recipe to the letter, but it was actually pretty wonderful.
So my first venture into the kitchen was trial and error, but I managed to make something delicious.  Not a bad first step to conquering my kitchen fear.  Of course, I won't know if it will still taste as good after it's defrosted until the actual day, but I did buy enough gluten free gravy to drown it in if it doesn't.  And of course there's always the gluten free pecan pie from Whole Foods for dessert.  Maybe next year I'll  be ready to make my own pie, but knowing me, it'll be a walnut loaf by the time I'm done with it.