Saturday, September 27, 2008

Grocery Store Sunday

It's Sunday morning and, even though the newly unemployed one could take a list to the store any day next week, I kind of...here's the rub...like going to the grocery store. Now laundry and dishes? Those are things I'm happy to leave until the weekdays. After two days of pizza. baguettes and this morning pumpkin waffles, flour is the first thing making the grocery list. After that, it all depends on the menu for the week.



Monday: Pot Roast and Panzanella (didn't I tell you I made baguettes)
Tuesday: Garlic and Lemon Tilapia w/roast potatoes
Wednesday: His Mom's Chili
Thursday: Chicken Satay's & Peanut Dipping Sauce
Friday: Ham w/mashed potatoes
Saturday: *
Sunday: Bacon Wrapped Sirloin Tip Roast

*my parents haven't let us cook seven meals in a week ever...ever...so I try to leave a day open for visiting others and, if all else fails, we'll make pizza or break out some of the lasagna I made for the freezer.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Farmers Market Day!


Saturdays are a good day around here. It means that the many farmers in our area share some of their wares with us at local markets. Today, it was raining, which was great news for me because I love walking in the rain. (My joints, on the other hand - not big fans.)

The other great success of farmer's market day was running into my mother by the Lettuce Lady and finding myself the proud recipient of some almost-past-their-prime-but-still-good-enough-to-slow-roast-and-jar peppers, a ton of overflow grape tomatoes and a few garden fresh onions.

All in all, it was a good day.

Friday, September 12, 2008

An Introduction

My mother always said, “If you need to follow a recipe, you can’t really cook.” My mother also always burned the potatoes and made dry pork chops, so there is that.

See, wasn’t that better than a “Hi! My name is…” opening statement?

My personal philosophy lies somewhere in between t0-the-letter-recipe-following (even with baking) and throwing the rules to the wind. I prefer, rather, to work with guidelines. I buy yeast by the 1lb bag and store it in the freezer for months. But I still at leas try to proof it. I turned a basic pizza dough recipe into a sour dough recipe by making too much and forgetting it in the fridge for a week. (It was, as it were, delicious.)

My name is Kay and I’m a 23-year old Customer Service Associate. Yes, I work at the bottom of the proverbial hill and, you know what, I enjoy it. The intermittent phone calls and generally dull days drive my co-workers absolutely bonkers, but they offer me a golden opportunity to spend time doing something I truly love. Or, rather, preparing to do something I love – cooking. I cannot begin to tell you the number of hours and days I have spent sifting through hundreds if not thousands of recipes online looking for that perfect thing to keep a Tuesday afternoon meal from tasting like something my mother-in-law whipped up. (Though her chili…now that I would kill for the recipe for.) The internet is replete with foods that I must-cook-right-now…no, you don’t understand – I must cook them right-now. And this is why I joined a 24-hour fitness center. Still, it is with a heavy heart that I admit I have food allergies. Not the cool kind that land you in the hospital because you ate a cookie. I have the crap kinds that are bad enough to make you completely miserable, but not actually bad enough to make anyone careful about inadvertently slipping you a piece of fruit.

Because this blog was started with Daring Bakers as it’s impetus, it seems appropriate to share my numerous allergies so that when you encounter a DB challenge of mine that seems entirely unlike anything that was assigned…well, at least everyone knows why.

The rundown as it stands currently. (This list changes from time to time. Kiwis and Plums have been added in the last six months. I expect it to grow to include the rest of the stone fruit family. Which is a bummer, because I love apricots.)
  • peaches
  • pears
  • plums
  • nectarines
  • pineapple
  • kiwi
  • cherries
  • vodka

I have transient and varying intolerance to:
  • eggs

So, for now, I'm looking forward to sharing a few of my own recipes and trying a lot of new ones along the way.