Anyone Can Cook

A great debate has been going on in our household as of late. The great canister debate, in fact. We managed to furnish our entire apartment with giftcards to Macy*s and Target, and we still have a copious amount of cash stored up on those giftcards. Too many gift cards, and no room to put anything.

Our tiny kitchen:

One of the items I have been considering purchasing with our leftover money (and while the crazy sales go on) are canisters. 

I was raised in the camp that says canisters are for flour, sugar and some other miscellaneous substance. Perhaps granola. They are quite useful and pretty to boot. I am also under the belief that they should be wide mouthed enough for you to fit your measuring cup into. Or a sifter into the flour.

My husband could care less about canisters.

That is, until I proposed that we buy these:

Apparently I missed the memo that he has some sort of moral opposition to polka dots. This came as quite a shock to me, who has a very strong affinity for the dot look. These come in black and red, our kitchen colors (+ Tiffany blue), are wide mouthed enough to accommodate a measuring cup and are just plain freaking adorable.

I also like these:

And they would go quite nicely in the kitchen as well. We have a collection of vintage French advertising hung on the walls and scattered about the living room/kitchen, so these would blend in nicely. He doesn’t mind these ones, but my main concern is their narrowness. The smallest one is only about 4.5-5 inches wide. That won’t do!

I kind of like these too:

But I’m afraid finding cute canisters is the least of my problems. Where do I put them in my tiny kitchen!? So, I need your help.

Do you have a favorite kind of canister? Any suggestions for ones that would work in my kitchen?

Also, where (in my kitchen) would you put them? How do you solve kitchen space dilemmas?

Need a quick and easy recipe for a LIGHT dessert after eating all those Christmas cookies? I made these last week and they were SO simple to put together! They are delicious and bite size so you don’t feel quite so bad about indulging in more than one. Enjoy!

Prep Time: 1 hour, Total Time: 1 hour 15 min, Makes: 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

½ cup powdered sugar, small bowl set aside to cover baked cookies in

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ¼ cups flour

¾ cup finely chopped almonds

¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Heat oven to 400 ºF

Mix butter, ½ cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in a large bowl.

Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls.

Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 10-12 minutes until set but not brown.

Remove from cookie sheet and place on cooling racks.

Roll warm cookies in small bowl of powdered sugar.

The popular Disney children’s movie, Ratatouille (one of my favorites), is a charming look at the idea that “anyone can cook.” Even a rat! Though my inspiration to find recipes I could manage was probably motivated more by the fact that I got married than the movie itself, I was inspired to start this blog to add recipes that would be simple, but also make you feel like you have prepared a gourmet meal! I hope you will join me on my journey to find easy yet impressive meals and perhaps share some of your favorite recipes along the way!

As Chef Gusteau says, “Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell.” So let’s get cooking!