4 posts tagged “cooking”
Cravings are wonderful, aren't they? They strike without notice and before you know it, you're at the grocery buying bacon and fontina. I know I didn't make the most traditional rendering of shrimp and grits, but I was working without a recipe and a clear need for bacon and fontina and grits. So I made creamy grits fattened up with butter, fontina and bacon. And I tossed some shrimp in lemon butter sauce with more bacon.
It was gorgeous and filling and tasty and I wish I were in the Low Country eating this at a real restaurant, but all in all...a success. *sigh*
I would have a picture, but I gobbled it up before I could snap it. No regrets. Until I'm gasping on the treadmill later.
i follow.
can i first say that i found a bar of Milka in my pillowcase just now? it wasn't even tricolade, but a 300 g bar of alpine milk chocolate. i wonder if i eat chocolate in my sleep now? i need sleep therapy.
digression.
so...
does anyone else cook out of boredom? i was finding myself at wit's end this morning. i didn't want to write. i didn't want to clean. i didn't want to read. i managed to get sidetracked by an episode of Make Me A Supermodel...which was awesome, by the by...but then when i was done, i was like, hmm, what to do next? my obvious solution? cook! i just bought some lovely pea sprouts, tiger shrimp and shitake mushrooms yesterday, so i decided to make it all for lunch.
the pea sprouts, i stir-fried with garlic, the shitake in oyster sauce, and the shrimp with ginger and scallions. i was mistress of the wok for lunch, and stuffed myself with my hard fought-for new crop of rice. WB can attest to me hauling home 125 pounds of it when we went out to dinner one night, and the other day i brought home 250 more pounds. you know, because i'm preparing for a nuclear fallout. i never questioned why my parents bought enough rice to feed us for a year...all at once. i just remember cutting some woman (one of our family friends) off at the legs when i heard a tip about some available rice -- it was arguably the best crop that arrived that January -- and bought it all out before she could get any. we didn't even let out a peep when she said she went the next day and it was sold out. i felt vaguely guilty because she's old enough to by my grandmother, but rice is rice. it's like going to an asian market on a saturday morning. it's hand to hand combat, and your mother isn't even your mother. not when it comes to produce and fresh seafood.
i'm thinking i have the energy for a steam boat tonight, but that just might be boredom talking. i find simple prep and knife work quite relaxing and fulfilling. am i alone in thinking/doing this?
I just tried my hand at making pad thai for dinner. I worked off of the recipe from chez pim. I think I did fairly well. Alas, I have no picture this round because I was too tired to remember, and too hungry to do anything but inhale my food.
It was basically fool proof, except I tended to wander and my mind drifted far too often. Example: I was watching a show while mashing up the tamarind pulp, and got so engrossed the show that I left my hand in the bowl long enough for the whole thing to go cold. That, by the way, is not something you want to lick off your hand. It's sour enough to make your entire face go concave. I like tamarind, love it even, but the tamarind of my childhood snack times is sweet tamarind like this:
They're about the size of a marble. They're sweet. They're tangy. They're a little bit spicy. And I love the rock sugar they're coated in. It makes it super healthy.
Anyhow, now I have one jar of tamarind sauce and one jar of pad thai sauce! Exciting! I'm likely to try again tomorrow, because I'm not sure that I know how to do anything in small measure. As a rule, I generally like to overkill most things to try to get over obsessions quickly. I doubt that it's a healthy trend, but alas. It's how we do.
You know that old wives tale about sex in the first year of marriage? How if you put a bean inside a jar for every time you have sex in that first year, then take one out for every time you have sex in the following years, by the time you die (or divorce), you'll about even out (or have beans to spare)? I wonder if the same holds true for blogging.
I just finished my savory bread pudding. It's one of those recipes I picked up from watching some show, and have just learned to make by rote. I change up some ingredients, but it mainly stays the same, and is a good comfort food standby. So I made it. I don't need comfort food, I just felt like using the loaf of homemade French bread I bought at the apple orchard.
I'm cooking because I'm avoiding work. I'm avoiding work because Botswana is depressing. Botswana is depressing because the bushmen are being pushed out of their land for diamonds. And I just read a ton of articles on conflict diamonds...which isn't too relevant to Botswana because they're not exactly engaged in a civil war, but that's beside the point. Developing nations are depressing! And it's a Saturday night and I'm playing catch up on homework because I relaxed this week. Well, it's either Botswana or global market competition. Decisions, decisions.
So instead, blogging! (I'm too guilt-ridden to actually leave my house. There is such a fine line.)
So Dancing Bear mentioned a Cowboy's game tomorrow. This brought me back to my side trip after school today to the grocery store. I am not a football fan, unless it's Superbowl time, or it's a college football game where I feel like watching my alma mater lose. It's just a fact of life. I can watch endless hours of gymnastics, figure skating, tennis, curling, golf, marathoning, and the like, but heaven forbid someone try to sit me down to football. I actually understand the basics. I know what a safety is. I know what first and ten means. I know that a field is 120 yards long. I know what an awesome touchdown dance can look like....now, I don't know how there can only be 11 players on each team on the field at any given time since there looks like there's a hot mess of more than that. That's not the point. I get it. And I'll tell you this: Australian rules football is a hotter mess. Much more interesting to watch, because there appear to be almost no rules, there is less protective clothing, and the guys are hotter. Score.
I got off-track, didn't I? Ah, the grocery store. Now, I traditionally, am a pretty masochistic chick. I tend to go shopping on the weekends. I go to the Asian market in the morning without a mouthguard and a helmet. I like competitive food shopping. Which is why I go to Wegmann's for simple needs. This shouldn't be a challenge for me. Wegmann's, is like Whole Foods + Bertucci's + Harris Teeter blown up on steroids and with better produce, but at almost no cost savings. The geniuses up north who came up with this chain plonk it in the middle of suburbia and set the masses loose upon it. Brilliant. Their prepared foods section is generally my morning saviour, because they have a decent fruit salad selection, and chocolate and almond croissants to die for. No joke.
Given this, I usually brave the market on Saturday afternoons on my way home. But this was no ordinary Saturday. It was game day. Why didn't anyone tell me? The only thing I suspected that was on this weekend was a golf tournament in the UK...the American Express Open or something? I don't know...I'm still smarting from the Ryder Cup. Still. As I was pulling into my space next to a car with Hokie decals and flags ablaze, a feeling of dread settled over me. When I got out and started walking towards the store, saw the matching burgundy and orange jackets, the gold, black and white GT swag, I started to panic. Damnit! The Georgia Tech v. Virginia Tech game! I'd heard about this! There was going to be a rumble! This was almost as bad as a real rivalry...it's different with big schools butting heads versus local schools butting heads. While local schools probably aren't as well matched, the grudges run deeper. Case in point: What does JMU stand for? Oh that's right, Just Missed UVa. I don't come up with this, I just learn it.
Armed with this fear, I enter into the battle zone with glasses on, and purse tucked against my side. I thought I was going to use a cart, but no, no cart for me. This would have to be a basket day. No dawdling for me. Indeed, it was like I was an ill-equipped contestant on American Gladiators. These people had carts that were stacked. Stacked. And they were darting everywhere.
That's when I went into turbo robot mode. I grabbed all my items; cut one guy in a jersey off, accidentally hit another in the knees and barely got out a sorry before almost hitting another person. The place was crawling with BBQers! I barely made it to the checkout in one piece. And then I demostrated what it is to be a pro. Some people would have passed this checkout by, seen the man sticking out of the lane, saw the gigantic cart, observed the kid dangling out of it and whizzed by. No sir. Not me. That conveyor belt was empty! It had like two trays of meat and some other random crap. The women had wisely sent out their two men and the tiny male spawn out to forage. They, knowing nothing, had simply grabbed the gigantic cart to amuse the child (disregarding the slowdown time pre-game), not because of high volume of food! Success!
Not so successful? The fact that he didn't know how to use a credit card to pay for his food. Seriously? If your groceries exceed 25 USD in value, you must sign for it. Hell, most grocery stores require you to sign for anything. I told him this. He appreciated it. But then you know how after you sign, you hit the 'accept' to complete your transaction? He didn't. He left it at that, and the cashier boy just stared at the touchpad, as though it would miraculously complete the transaction by itself. I glowered, and hit the button for him. The man looked over and was like, 'Oh gees. I'm sorry. What would I do without you?'
Here, I would have suspected sarcasm, but he genuinely looked befuddled and appreciative. He confirmed this with the follow up, 'Usually my wife does that. She never lets me come grocery shopping so I don't know what to do here.'
Not a proper excuse, but I let it slide. I had kale. And it was wilting. Okay, maybe it wasn't, but I felt like it was going to if he didn't get to scooting.
When I reached my car, I felt a Hokie fan look at my car askance. He noticed the school sticker. I was about to shout out, 'Dude, we're not even playing until November!'
Football fans. Ya'll scary. ;)
Worth noting?
I applaud GT spanking VT. Suck it, Hokies!
I applaud Virginia killing Duke. You may rock us at B-ball, but we shut you out today! I don't care that you haven't won a game this season and weren't really a threat. It doesn't diminish the amusement. Huzzah!
I knew I wore orange for a reason today...
