Recipes for the Jaded Cook

Fried Chicken
Get out the tallest, most sturdy pot you've got and fill it with four bottles of vegetable oil. Ignore the fact that this is probably one of the biggest food wastes ever because that would infringe on your self-image as a food-conscious individual who eats responsibly. Dredge the shit out of that free range chicken in heirloom flour and 120 ASTA paprika, and the buttermilk you got for $9 at the Farmers Market. Debate whether it's worth it when it doesn't taste as good as the fried chicken from the market deli. Spend the next ten minutes Windex-ing oil off of the counter, stove top, floor, and - somehow - the ceiling. You tried at least, right?

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Everyone tells you to age the cookie dough in the fridge for a week. Even two weeks. Hell, let's aim for a month for that dough. Those caramel notes will be buff motherfuckers. Realize that when you want chocolate chip cookies you probably want them now. Age them for about half of an episode of House of Cards. Good enough. Eat half the dough before baking the rest.

Trendy Cocktail #1
Have a Happy Hour cocktail for $8 that's served in a highball glass and has a sprig of rosemary sticking out of it. When you get home convince yourself that you can totally make that shit. Why pay $8? The next day be sure to spend at least $60 buying liquors. Make the drink once for five friends on a Saturday night before a Netflix binge. Forget about the mostly unused liquor and let it spend the next five years in a dark cabinet corner until you give them to a friend for an 80's themed party. Toss the rosemary in a month when you find it's gone bad.

Green Curry
Tell your partner you're making curry tonight. Sigh with conviction as you remind him that it takes you back to when you made it every single week when you were a poor student. Allow him to comfort you that it's a nice trip down memory lane to simpler times. Accept that "simpler" is delicate code for "impoverished". Add frozen chicken breast strips and wonder when your tenant's rent check will finally come in and you can go buy groceries.

Trendy Cocktail #2
Make a martini. Realize there's no gin and decide to use the lemon vodka that's been in the freezer for, what, two years? Maybe you got it for that barbecue back in 2011? Only sweet vermouth in the house because no house doesn't have a neglected bottle of it somewhere. Garnish with a slice of lemon and serve it in the only unbroken martini glass. Tell yourself you'll keep it classy next time.

Jam
Fruit, sugar, lemon juice. Boil. Right? What can go wrong? Get nuclear-hot jam on your skin requiring skin grafts. And, goddamnit, the jam burned on the bottom of your new Le Creuset French Oven. That thing isn't even a week old. The ceramic is surly stained and you'll be scrubbing it clean like you're Cinderella. A Cinderella who can't make jam.

Something in a Crock Pot
Throw meat, veggies, spices, and stock (or water, you plebeian) and set for 10 hours. Come back from work and feel like you've accomplished some legitimate cooking for once as you delve into what is likely one of the best meals you've had all week. This is assuming you wake up early enough to get everything prepped and in the crock pot before you realize you're going to hit traffic and be late for that meeting with Mr. Lavinson. You'll be so screwed if you are.

Kale
Ignore it when your friend Kyle says how he's just so over this kale fad. Continue to massage your kale and wonder if he's right as the smell of Braggs Liquid Aminos fills the room. After all, the blogs are just obsessed with cauliflower now.