Csquared Thoughts

kitchen appliances

I enjoy my kitchen appliances. A few years ago I decided I wanted the larger lift-bowl KitchenAid mixer to replace my old trusty but smaller tilt-back mixer. What I missed somehow, was that KitchenAid had been sold and the newer machines did not have the same sturdy makeup of the older ones. So I have the larger, newer but flimsier KitchenAid while my sister-in-law has the older sturdier smaller one.

A while back I was looking to replace our crock pot with a newer one with digital controls, but everything I read in the food groups I belong to said that new newer ones cook much hotter than the older ones. I kept the old one.

Sometimes older is better.

at two years: loving our kitchen

Labor Day weekend 2009 represents the second anniversary of the completion of our kitchen remodel. The contractor finished (with one small exception) his work the Friday before Labor Day, so we had the entire long weekend to start enjoying it.

Two years later, we love it every bit as much as we did then. A year ago we switched from non-stick to stainless steel cookware. That enhanced the experience even more. And of course we now have our kitchen mini netbook computer for recipes.

I've written about this before, but this is a good time to mention again how much I love getting into the kitchen and putting together a meal. So relaxing and therapeutic for me.

kitchen mini now in use!

After spending months transferring my recipe archive from two 2-inch binders (one vegetarian and one non-vegetarian) to my kitchen mini netbook, I've completed the process. (Really, the process is never complete, as there will always be more recipes to add, but the transfer from the two binders is done, and that is a major milestone.)

On Saturday I used the netbook for the first time to search for recipes (in this case scallops), select the one I wanted to use, and make the recipe.

So cool!

recipe project accomplishment

This past weekend I reached a major accomplishment in my recipe project. All the recipes that I wanted to transfer from my two 2-inch binders (veg and non-veg) to my kitchen mini notebook have been transferred. And I've made a good dent in the stack of current recipes.

Which means I now have to shift my thinking from entering recipes to using the mini to find and use recipes. I think that's going to be more of a transition than I originally thought.

But it is, after all, the whole point of the project.

the project continues

My project of computerizing my recipes continues. It's not going as fast as I would like, but I am making progress. I reached a milestone last Saturday when I put all of the scanned recipes on to the mini notebook's removable drive. Since I've already done all of the formatting, transferring them to my recipe software will be easy. Then it's just a matter of adding the new recipes.

I sometimes wonder why I'm doing this, and why I invested in the mini notebook. I'm such a improviser in the kitchen. When I recently took the "which Food Network personality are you" quiz on Facebook, I came out as Rachel Ray: "You don't believe in measuring cups or spoons - a pinch here, a palmful there or twice around the pan is fine."

True. But I can get into a recipe rut sometimes. When I check out a recipe that uses ingredients that are different, or uses them differently, from what I'm used to, I can get out of that rut. Even if I look at the recipe and use the ingredients but ignore the instructions (as I am wont to do), I think it will all be worth it. Having everything on the mini rather than using two bulky binders will make searching and browsing that much easier, and I suspect take me to recipes that have been there but which I have bypassed before.

I think it will work well. Will be fun to see how it goes.

kinds of cooking

Terry's sister and our nephew were here last weekend. On Friday Terry wanted to use their grandmother's good china (she died in 2001 and it now lives with us). So I fixed fish and took special care in the preparation and presentation.  Our nephew wasn't all that impressed, so I made the point that Saturday's dinner would not be so "fru fru," and that we'd have down-home fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

Maybe it's not that big of a deal, but it struck me that I liked the fact that I do both kinds of cooking and can distinguish one from the other.

I do enjoy my time in the kitchen.

new kitchen gadget

One of the Internet food groups that I belong to has had a couple of discussions about the FoodSaver. It's an appliance that allows you to vacuum seal leftovers, bulk purchases, and so forth. I went back and forth on purchasing one, but couldn't resist when Costco had one at a really good price.

I'm glad I did it. It takes a bit of care and requires following the instructions carefully, but it does a great job of sealing food. I am a bit torn, in that while I hate wasting food, I also hate using a lot of plastic. But on balance I think it's worth it for the food that will be eaten rather than tossed. And I've  ordered a bunch of reusable canisters that will cut down on our use of plastic.

One nice additional feature: it has a speed marinade function that works wonderfully. We used it on our fish last night and the result was very tasty. And it even looks nice on the kitchen counter.

It's definitely one of those purchases I'm glad I made.

polenta

It's been a long time since I've done something entirely new in the kitchen.

One of the restaurants we frequent has a neat dish that consists of polenta wedges, spinach, cheese, and marinara sauce.We thought it would be fun to try to re-create it at home. I've never made polenta before, but I had some polenta-style cornmeal that I've used in bread recipes, and the package contained a couple of recipes for making polenta. We decided to give this a try on Monday. I had my doubts mixing 1 cup polenta with 3+ cups water and putting it in the oven in the baking dish, but it turned out well. I used the result and put it together with the other ingredients, and the meal was quite good. Not your typical Memorial Day cookout dinner, but it was a much cooler than average Memorial Day, so it worked out fine.

Looking forward to trying polenta variations with different seasonings.

a new project

I often complain to myself about not having time to do certain things, like pull out my camera or work on my photographs with Photoshop. But the reality is, it's all about choices.

I've long struggled with the idea of how to best organize my recipe collection. I've wanted to computerize it, but it seemed silly to have everything on the computer upstairs, and then need to print out a recipe whenever I wanted to fix it. So I've ended up putting recipes into binders, either cut out of magazines or printed out from my computer, depending on the source.

The advent of the low-cost "netbook" made the idea of a small, single-use computer for the kitchen a logical and practical decision. I bought one (my own company's version, of course), and downloaded and purchased (after asking for recommendations) Living Cookbook.

Now comes the real work. I have two recipe binders: one for vegetarian and one for non-vegetarian recipes (reflecting my schizophrenia with respect to the vegetarian lifestyle). Recipes in my binders from magazines I can look up on their Web sites and copy and paste into Living Cookbook. Recipes from online groups which I have printed out I need to scan and then import into the software. The same for recipes clipped from the newspaper. That's what I've been spending a lot of time doing,

It's time consuming and a tad tedious. But the end result will be a recipe database I can search on any way I choose: ethnic cuisine, ingredients, preparation method, or whatever. And all this using a small computer on the kitchen counter without the need to print out recipes

It really is about priorities and choices.

home roasted nuts

I wrote a while back about the bowdlerization of the nut bar at the Safeway up the road. It occurred to me that I could make my own roasted nuts at home. I found a recipe that called for two cups of almonds with two tablespoons of melted butter, olive oil, and various spices mixed together and layered flat on a cookie sheet at 300 degrees for 20 minutes. I followed the recipe but did my own thing with the spices, as the recipe called for a tablespoon of salt (ARGH!). I've done this a few times now, with different seasonings,  and have been very happy with the results.

Makes for a healthy, tasty evening snack for which I know all the ingredients.