The Kitchen
Matt and I have different approaches to the kitchen. Generally I am a sidekick, but sometimes I do get ideas about what I want to do. Warning, I'm feeling a bit tangential....
The first major way we differ, is I can be a bit of a kitchen gadget sucker. And in all honestly, they do mostly end up being crap things I don't use more then a few times. Matt is a kitchen equipment sucker. Two very distinct classes of kitchen clutter the gadgets versus the equipment. It means we have pans that reflect each stage of Matthew's thinking about the kitchen - cast iron, black steel (?I think), and stainless steel lined copper. Anyway I digress, I was saying this because I recently got a gadget that I have used more then once! A garlic zoom. It's awesome. Matt doesn't like the garlic crushed (unless you know you're doing it in some kind of paste like thing and you are using a pestle and mortar, but definitely frowns on the garlic crusher). Being the kitchen sidekick, I VERY frequently end up being the person finely chopping the garlic. Enter, the garlic zoom. Gives you the same result - chopped, not crushed!
Another thing that drives Matt a bit mad, I will get a bee in my bonnet about something I want to cook, go mad looking for the perfect recipe. Go to the shops, buy ingredients... Half way through the trip Matt will be asking why I'm buying all these things that aren't in the recipe and I'll explain why the recipe is wrong. When we get home I'll make a dish that perhaps follows bits of the recipes, but is kind of more what I had in mind. Matt doesn't mind that, he minds that I insist on having the recipe (that I will search an hour for the recipe), that I refuse to cook without one, but never ever follow it. He personally likes to read cookbooks, but just for ideas, and (with the exception of baking) just cooks things his own way, without a recipe.
Tonight what did we do? I love chorizo. Matt used to as well. Then we got gastro after a lovely chorizo meal, he still can't face it. One of our standard dishes was this chorizo and fennel pasta bake. So when Matt picked up a fennel at the shops, I was like "why don't we roast a lamb one night, and the next night make the chorizo/fennel pasta bake with left over lamb instead of chorizo?". Good plan. But as we were at the markets today I was all like, I think we'll have some vegies in the dish tonight, I think I'll put mushrooms in, and beetroot from our garden, and carrots from our garden and maybe some frozen peas.... Then when we got home I realised we had no chicken stock in the freezer to make the sauce with, so I decided to do a red wine sauce instead. Plus, I realised I had some proscuitto, and that would surely make the whole thing yummier. The end result? The dish had two things in common with the original - fennel and pasta. The lamb, beetroot, carrot, onion, garlic, mushrooms, proscuitto, peas, red wine, were yummy though! Xander picked out the pasta and peas at first (his usual choices), but by the end was eating some of the fennel as well. He took forever to eat and I was totally over it by the end!
The first major way we differ, is I can be a bit of a kitchen gadget sucker. And in all honestly, they do mostly end up being crap things I don't use more then a few times. Matt is a kitchen equipment sucker. Two very distinct classes of kitchen clutter the gadgets versus the equipment. It means we have pans that reflect each stage of Matthew's thinking about the kitchen - cast iron, black steel (?I think), and stainless steel lined copper. Anyway I digress, I was saying this because I recently got a gadget that I have used more then once! A garlic zoom. It's awesome. Matt doesn't like the garlic crushed (unless you know you're doing it in some kind of paste like thing and you are using a pestle and mortar, but definitely frowns on the garlic crusher). Being the kitchen sidekick, I VERY frequently end up being the person finely chopping the garlic. Enter, the garlic zoom. Gives you the same result - chopped, not crushed!
Another thing that drives Matt a bit mad, I will get a bee in my bonnet about something I want to cook, go mad looking for the perfect recipe. Go to the shops, buy ingredients... Half way through the trip Matt will be asking why I'm buying all these things that aren't in the recipe and I'll explain why the recipe is wrong. When we get home I'll make a dish that perhaps follows bits of the recipes, but is kind of more what I had in mind. Matt doesn't mind that, he minds that I insist on having the recipe (that I will search an hour for the recipe), that I refuse to cook without one, but never ever follow it. He personally likes to read cookbooks, but just for ideas, and (with the exception of baking) just cooks things his own way, without a recipe.
Tonight what did we do? I love chorizo. Matt used to as well. Then we got gastro after a lovely chorizo meal, he still can't face it. One of our standard dishes was this chorizo and fennel pasta bake. So when Matt picked up a fennel at the shops, I was like "why don't we roast a lamb one night, and the next night make the chorizo/fennel pasta bake with left over lamb instead of chorizo?". Good plan. But as we were at the markets today I was all like, I think we'll have some vegies in the dish tonight, I think I'll put mushrooms in, and beetroot from our garden, and carrots from our garden and maybe some frozen peas.... Then when we got home I realised we had no chicken stock in the freezer to make the sauce with, so I decided to do a red wine sauce instead. Plus, I realised I had some proscuitto, and that would surely make the whole thing yummier. The end result? The dish had two things in common with the original - fennel and pasta. The lamb, beetroot, carrot, onion, garlic, mushrooms, proscuitto, peas, red wine, were yummy though! Xander picked out the pasta and peas at first (his usual choices), but by the end was eating some of the fennel as well. He took forever to eat and I was totally over it by the end!
posted by earthkissed | 6:05 pm
2 Comments:
I think I take your approach with recipes, I'm always hunting down multiple recipes and then modifying them anyway, whereas Gam sounds more like Matt. I like the security of having a recipe there... I don't know that you could really be sick of watching Xander pick out peas, could you? He's so cute!
You just need two kitchens! :-)
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