No shame, Just Skills!

I think my weakest spot in the kitchen is my knife skills. Knife skills effect everything! My chopping shame haunts me daily. The way the food cooks is affected by how it’s cut, the final look of the dish and presentation suffer. The importance of cutting things uniformly can’t be overstated. (Great.) I’m not afraid to bake a cake but I’m embarrassed by my salads!

And of course the way life goes is the thing that we are most likely to avoid is that thing the universe puts directly in front of us to address. When I started my cooler than cool America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School blogger scholarship -before I dove into Apple Pies at Bridget’s suggestion, I started with cooking fundamentals. And there was–right in front of me knife skills!

I watched the video instructions a couple of times and decided that my knives were not ready for me. (procrastination?) So I called Precision Sharpening here in Houston and had them come over and sharpen all of my knives and talk to me about how to take care of them. I’d already looked at the cooking school’s blog regarding knives and sharpening also had communicated with the author about it, but I thought I would start with a professional sharpen and vow to take care of them properly from now on.

So, with my newly sharpened knives and my wonderful laptop in the kitchen on the counter I got started on my skills, and I give this to you my before and after.

Chop an Onion:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dice a carrot:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mince garlic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chop parsley:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also included are the instructions on how to cut on a bias, but that’s pretty easy peasy. My before and after were the same.

There it is. Knife skills. I’m not done with these by any stretch. I know that these skills are ongoing, and I shall challenge myself to use these new skills in my everyday cooking. Practice makes perfect (or at least better) and these techniques transfer to many other veggies. Soon my shameful salads will be works of art!