Kitchen-y

[mrissa]

I really miss the times when I would spend all day in the kitchen because we were having people over and I wanted to make something elaborate. Often those days would result in other kitchen tasks being done along the way -- a whole head of cauliflower being cleaned and chopped for later use, for example, as long as I was in the kitchen and wielding the knife, or a batch of entirely gratuitous muffins for the next day's breakfast, or a batch of cookies in case the main dessert was not somebody's cup of tea. (Nobody should ever have to suffer mediocre dessert. This is a rule of life. It is also, however, what a good stash of sorbet and ice cream in the freezer is for.)

So...I'm doing some of that today. Not the extra side tasks, and my choices of food have been somewhat influenced by what needs the least help. But the cream pie for with porphyrin's homemade gooseberry preserves is in the fridge, and there has been substantial progress on other fronts. I bought organic cream from a local dairy instead of the usual paper carton kind, for whipping and putting in the pie, and we have an abundance of whipped cream, since I wasn't sure how the volumes would translate. The top of the bottle was clotted solid. It's really lovely cream, and I hope it makes really lovely cream pie. (If it doesn't, hey, we'll have well-adorned peaches or hot cocoa or whatever with the remainder. I don't really have the time or energy to make Guinness gingerbread just to properly set off the cream I've already whipped; we'll have to get more cream once I've made Guinness gingerbread, I guess. Or pumpkin bread. Or both. I love fall so much.)

The rest of the menu is beef stew, broccoli diablo, and biscuits. I've already harvested and cleaned the herbs, prepped the aliums, and done the root veg from a kitchen chair. I'm trying to take frequent breaks. I can already tell tonight's PT is going to be a beast, but I don't care, I need to do this. I'll head down and do some more prep in a few minutes, probably start the stew pot going so it can have a good long simmer.

I'm trying to be careful and not fall on my sword knife, but it's fall here, people, and there's only so much I can do to keep out of the kitchen, vertigo notwithstanding. Not standing with vertigo. Whichever.

Comments

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

Guinness gingerbread! Want!

(While I am thrilled to be having a Winter Wedding, this whole thing of having to behave diet-wise during the beautiful Fall with its pumpkin bread and goblin bars and gingerbread and etc. is just silly.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You know the recipe (http://www.marissalingen.com/stoutginger.html), right?

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Yay! I will so be making this after the move.

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

I did not, but now I do! Thank you so much!

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

1. Amen.

2. Gingerbread.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

lovely. i'm glad you're enjoying some kitchen time :)

[tacithydra.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think I just actually gained nourishment from reading your post.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about kitchen tasks-- it seems like the only way to get the dishes done is to bake something. I only recently got a kitchen timer and the oven is somewhat unreliable, so cakes used to mean hanging around the kitchen, checking clock and thermometer every five or ten minutes, and at least a few of those minutes were occupied by soapy water.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

When I made beef stew the other week (crockpot) I didn't bother browning the beef first. I always have in the past so I was curious to see if there really was much difference. Nope ... though pre-browned onions might have been nicer. One less potentially hazardous step to do.

I was trying to think whether making stew in a crockpot might be easier for you. Advantages: no stirring. You start it earlier so you're not having to do three things at once. Disadvantages: You then have to do all that chopping and cuting earlier. The pot part is heavy and would break, possibly into shards, if dropped. Probably no advantages overall. (And quite likely something you've already thought out and with better information.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I've made crockpot stew before, and this was the right way to do it for how I wanted it to taste and when I was able to do things today. Early is generally better than late for me -- morning person! -- but today we had plans just when I would have wanted to get the stew going if I was to do it in the crockpot.

Also, I'm not eating by myself, so there's no reason for me to carry the crockpot anywhere at any time in the process, not even as far as the sink.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Oh, right. I was thinking of my tiny kitchen, where the first step is to wrestle it out of a corner cupboard, and letting another person do it involves backing all the way out of the kitchen first. It's possible to do real cooking in this kitchen, which makes it a big improvement over our last one, but it does take some finagling.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You had such a nice kitchen in Phoenix.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Yup. Lots of space. Then in the Netherlands we had one that was beautiful but not very functional. Now we have one that is functional but not at all pretty. (You can say that about a lot of modern stuff in Taiwan.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Icelandic brown bread is pretty moist. Do you want the recipe for that?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Um, it's my most difficult bread recipe, actually. The dough tries to consume one's entire family.

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

Yes. Cooking and its mix of non-demanding creativity and short time to satisfaction, has really helped me stay balanced in grad school (which is demanding with a very LONG time to satisfaction).

I'm glad you got to do some successfully!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Writing novels ditto, on the very LONG time to satisfaction front.

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

So I figured!

[moiread]

Here, take this. It's the Domestic Goddess pin. I think it belongs to you, and I just had it by mistake.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't inherited that yet!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I can think of a few cases where goddesses' offspring also got to be goddesses. The other alternative seems to be to become a Hero. (Or a Victim, like Leda, but let's ignore that one.)

Domestic Hero?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But in most of those cases, the offspring got to be goddesses of something slightly different. So my choices are either Domestic Hero or Baking Goddess?

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I think your choices are somewhat wider than that; baking is hardly the *only* thing you do well. But in this context, sure.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you're back in the kitchen.