Fun in the kitchen!

I'm a passable cook, or so I'm told. I maintain that Bam is far better in the kitchen than I am, because she really does make fantastic food. I can't remember what she made, but a few weeks ago I ended up leaning over to the belly and yelling "This is why your friends will want to stay for dinner!" - Once our little one starts to get a taste of her mom's cooking, she's going to be set forever.

When I cook, I have a few terrible habits. The main one is that I cook for me - everything is seasoned to my taste. On the upside, it means I'll eat anything I've cooked. Literally. Even if it's burnt and crunchy, I'll eat it. Used too much spicy stuff? (Bam has a magic Chinese chili sauce for making sushi with, it's like flaming death in a bottle... and I *always* use too much) I'll eat it. I'm totally indiscriminate when it comes to my own cooking.

The other terrible habit I have is kinda related to that. I'm a taster! I have to taste anything I'm making whenever I judge it "safe". Obviously not if it's raw meat or something like that, but once I judge it ready for sampling then anything goes. Not just the dish I'm making either, I'll liberally sample the ingredients. I've drunk soy sauce and Tabasco straight, if we get new seasonings or spices I have to taste it "raw". My theory is that I need to know what that specific taste is so that my brain can file it and I can pull it out when something I've made needs *just that* taste. It's a good thing. Really.

Last week we ordered Chinese. We don't do it very often, but Bam needed sushi and we had some spare cash, so we ordered some dinners. American Chinese comes in much bigger food portions than British Chinese, but oddly the rice is a lot smaller portion. Swings and roundabouts! Anyway, Bam had sweet and sour chicken, and they forgot the sweet and sour sauce.

She got a nice little tray of chicken nuggets!

Of course, she'd nommed sushi so we didn't find out until the next day. I rummaged around, and found a simple enough sweet and sour sauce recipe so I thought I'd give it a go... and it was delicious! That recipe is now safely in the recipe box-which-is-also-currently-a-genealogy-box-because-I-lost-the-proper-one.

On the other hand... I wanted potatoes and onions tonight. I think it's the Irish in me, but when we get to the end of the month and food is running a bit low, I demand potatoes. so I chopped up a couple and decided to fry them off as cubes... and promptly made them crispy but near enough raw inside. No problem! Little more oil, dropped the heat and covered the pan... now they were cooked but soggy... No problem! Crank up the heat and take off the lid...

And they burnt. Those potatoes were sullen and insolent!

But not severely enough to bother me, and I'm eating them anyway. They're not too bad, but need more salt and spices... a little Tabasco... some Tony's... a little bacon....

Another day :)

Comfort Foods

Comfort foods are an odd thing. I'm always facinated by what people eat to make themselves feel better (and why!). Boyfriend dumped you? That's a pint of ice cream and a cry on the sofa with the girls. Sad in winter? Hot cocoa. Foot gnawed off by green mice? well... I don't think that one has ever come up.

I always think I don't have comfort foods. I'm not really a comfort eating person. But then every so often I get a craving for my Special Sammich. It's only usually once or twice a year, but when I get it I *have* to make it. Nom!

Quick background - all through high school I ate packed lunches. Nan made me 4 ham sammiches every day, and I ate them every day. The once or twice she wasn't in a sammich making capacity, I had to make my own... and I made the Special Sammich. It's a fearsome beast, designed to keep lesser mortals (and most other things) at bay, and I *loves* it.

Prepare as follows (in the style of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster recipe from HHGTG).

Take two slices of brown, wholemeal bread. Relish those seeds, those tasty little morsels, as you relish the stars in the night sky. Each one is a hope and a dream.

Add some thickly sliced cheddar cheese. Delicious cheese, made of old pressed milk. No need for butter or spread to make the ingredients stick to the bread, the cheese sticks firmly out of love for the seeds and fear of the next ingredient...

Slice an onion. More usually half an onion. This adds the essential vegetable component that all sammiches need, and the bite represents the fear that people feel at the very mention of this delectable delicacy. Opinions vary about the best onions, I'm partial to white onions to offset the dark orange of the cheese against the brown bread.

Finally, sprinkle with a little salt, in memory of those who will neger get the chance to sample this fine delicacy. People from long ago. Salt miners. Aliens. Salt mining aliens from long ago. You get the idea.

Add another two slices of bread to cover, press down *firmly* and cut into halves. Eat, relishing the delicious crunch and the wonderful smoothness. Mock the looks of disgust on your schoolmate/flatmate/significant other's faces. They can't withstand the awesome that is the Special Sammich... few can. To beat it is to experience it completely and grok it in fullness.

It's a magical experience, and it's my comfort food :)