Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I finally got around to doing some cooking I'd meant to do, uh, a week and a half ago. This post was going to be about that, but the "brief digression on dishes" turned into a whole post on its own, and I figured that it just didn't flow well thematically for anyone who bothered to read the cut-tag, so I'm going to post this now and then start on the entry I meant to write.

I also finally got almost caught up on dishes, though I wound up throwing away a bunch of the plastic stuff (re-used margarine tubs, cottage cheese containers, etc.) that had been sitting long enough to get pretty yucky. I'll gradually rebuild my collection. (Hey, those come in handy!)

( The Aforementioned digression about dishes )

Of course, the kitchen itself is still a mess and a little gross. The stove got beyond what I'm physically able to correct a while back (I'm seriously considering removing the top and taking it to Bowie so my brother can hit it with the power-washer he got for the deck and driveway there), I've got clutter all over the place, and (*sigh*) I still have mice. Which means I have mouse-poop. Which is gross. (I haven't considered countertops "safe" surfaces to set utensils on in quite a long time.)

( Mouse sighting )

Anyhow, I manage to cook in my dirty kitchen by being very careful where I set things down. Nothing touches a countertop -- or the table -- except the underside of a plate or the bottom of a glass -- I even protect the underside of my cutting board from the countertops, unless I've just done a Big Cleaning, with scrubbing followed by Lysol, and haven't been gone long enough for the mice to come through again.

Someday, here or elsewhere, I'm going to have a pretty, sparkly, magazine-photo-like, clean kitchen that's a delight to work in, easy to keep clean, free of vermin, and safe-feeling. Someday. And in my dream house, it's big enough for two people (three, if they're lovers or just a really good team) to work together in, with the windows and lights in just the right places, and room to have all the pots and pans and utenils in easy reach. Oh, but I'm re-digressing again.

Okay, I think I'm done. Now to write about the food.

"You know you better than anyone. Do what you gotta." -- ororo (in a comment to a locked post in someone else's journal, but I thought it also sounded useful out of context)

I know what I'm having for breakfast. Or for lunch (or both at the same time) depending on when I wake up. And maybe for dinner if it tastes as good as it smells.

Sweetly spicy vegetable stew.

As I mentioned, I finally got around to doing some cooking that I just hadn't had the energy to tackle for a while. I got around to making the vegetable stew I'd been planning. It's sitting in the crock-pot now, mingling its flavours and softening the peas. I just hope I still have enough margarine-tubs to ladle the leftovers into for freezing after I've eaten my fill. (Hey, I did say those come in handy.)

( The details of the stew )

Right now it's somewhere between a soup that's really heavy on chunky stuff and light on broth, and a stew with a really thin broth. I wanted to leave extra liquid in there as long as it's going to be heated-but-not-stirred. After I wake up but a while before I eat it, I'll check the amount of free fluid and add bulgher wheat, couscous, or more red lentils (I haven't yet decided which) if needed, to turn it into either a thick stew or a really chunky porridge. It'd work pretty well as a soup (much more so if I'd had the coconut milk), but in general I'll take stew over soup, so quite often what I start as a soup turns into a stew by the time I finish. (This one was planned as a stew; only the thought that it would make a good coconut-flavoured soup tempted me to leave it soup-like.)

The interesting thing was that I realized as I was finishing up that it hadn't needed any salt at all. I mean, that makes sense with the sweetness of it, but the original plan had been for the parsnips to make it tangy rather than sweet, so suddenly realizing that I hadn't added any salt was one of those "Well whaddayaknow" moments. (Hey, it was sleepy and I was late.)

Now I just need to find time/energy to get out of here and pick up some groceries. I need toilet paper, milk, CHOCOLATE, bread, sodas, laundry detergent, light bulbs, and a few other things, but this week I've been bouncing between "wehaveadeadlineanditstakinglongerthanwethought" and too tired to think straight or move. Tonight I did come up with the energy to wash dishes and cook (because I was too brain-fried to work on this project but still vertical), but I wasn't up to wrestling my car to the grocery store. That'll be my Saturday project, and if I fail Saturday, then it'll be my half-time plan. (I wanna watch the Ravens. I really want to see the Redskins as well, but I don't think their game is being shown on any of the stations I can tune in.) Sooner or later I'll actually get to the grocery store.

Here's something that was posted to s.s.b-b that I found interesting -- both my own reaction and the reactions of others who posted followups. So I figured I'd spring it on a different audience and see what pops up:

Coyote asked:

[...] if I say "capital of the world", what city comes to your mind? First thought, no fair pondering politics and finance, sociology or anything else.

I wound up adding flour instead of bulgher to that stew when I got up, per donnad's suggestion -- left it stew-like instead of turning it porridge-like. Tasty, but it was interesting to note the flavour change overnight. It would've been better with a slightly lower turnip:potato ratio, and the turnips seem to have sucked up some of the sweetness from the carrots, onions, parsnips, and onion, and hidden it somewhere. (As aliza250 pointed out, sweet potatoes would've worked well. A "heavier" type of sweetness, but they would've worked.) It's still got a definite sweet note, but at this point it could go either way -- a bit of salt would make it a perfectly reasonable more conventional stew, but without the salt it's still sweet, just no longer "gee this would make a good coconut-based soup" sweet. More basil would've been good, along with that serrano pepper I was wishing for last night. Wouldn't take much serrano; just enough to add that "nose" that's such a distinctive component of the serrano's flavour.

Anyhow, a healthy and filling breakfast ready for me as soon as I got up. I really need to do this sort of cooking more often. And I need to make a batch of my ought-to-be-famous vegetarian chili, if I can keep it down to the size of this crock-pot.