What's cooking? part 4

my ideal house would be a giant kitchen with a bed and a toilet in it

My kitchen is big enough, but it has two doors and a window off it, and is terribly, horribly, very badly laid out. I fantasize about remedying that but haha no way in a rental.

I wish there was a way to switch from having wet hands to having dry hands really easily

my kingdom for a bigger ktichen, with a dishwasher! layouts are so key, too. my kitchen in seattle was only a little bit bigger, but had way more cabinets and a lot more counter space. it just made more sense.

our last place was even worse in its layout - it had a sort of huge dining room opening up from the kitchen (in a 1 bdrm aptmt!?), that contained the oven and the fridge, which meant traipsing half way across the house to those two objects and back to the actual kitchen.

oh wow, that's ridiculous! my current kitchen has ONE wall outlet (aside from whatever the refrigerator's plugged into) and it's on the wall opposite my tiny counters, which is half the reason i had to buy the rolling cart/storage thing - otherwise i'd have nowhere to put anything that needed to be plugged in!

the teaching institute I worked at had some industrial kitchens for teaching cooking in, we cooked thanksgiving dinner in there once and it was nice have like 4 ovens to use

when my parents redid their kitchen and got double ovens i thought it was super silly and unnecessary...until thanksgiving!

my current kitchen has ONE wall outlet

looool my kitchen also has one and it's...below waist height on a wall that doesn't have a counter. Wtf is that??

when I bake cookies I think I want to have two ovens

I miss the open floor plan of our house in Redding so much. The kitchen, dining area and living room were open to each other, but separated by a low bar/countertop between the kitchen and dining area, and change in flooring/positioning of the sofa (dining area to living room). Would have been a fantastic socializing space if we'd had any friends there.

i would like to have double ovens and i would like an industrial-type gas range

This is my tiny kitchen: what you can see here, thats allll it is.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/20337_280495872756_726857756_3871479_7809886_n.jpg

where's the butcher block you mentioned upthread?

It wasnt in the pic at the time, but it would be just to the left, poking out of the botoom left corner(which is a wall).

So as u can imagine, Im bumping into everything :(

ahh, i wasn't sure what was on the left side and i was trying to figure out where it'd fit!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7178/6933553641_a0e314534b.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7060/6933552945_12fccba0d7.jpg

excuse my dirty floor

first pic: butcher block, not visible is ytth's moutain bike behind it (hence the tool box in the wall)

second pic: note the head-protector taped to the cupboard corner

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/431510_10150592203686589_506836588_9341992_1803526971_n.jpg
fridge is to the right of this shot

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/425750_10150592204921589_506836588_9342003_877465428_n.jpg

so sad.

Ooh is that one of those fancy wine storage devices?

Also yike you do have v little bench space!

yeah, the bf came with a wine fridge. it's nice bc you can store other bottled items in there to make extra room in fridge, etc.

If owned one of those I'd just use it as an excuse to buy cases of wines, and be even more of a drunk than I am already lol ;_;

WANT. our kitchen is big by the absurd standard of nyc apts but i can't figure out where to fit a wine fridge

It's actually really useful as a place to put the microwave and toaster oven!

I feel like my kitchen is ruined by the fact that the large space is on its own, away from the sink. I've kind of trained myself to do all my vegetable/meat cutting next to the sink for the sake of cleanliness and it's not really convenient?

What I really want to do is replace double sink with large single sink, put a dishwasher under the counter where the second half of the sink currently is, then use the space above a dishwasher as new counter space next to the sink!

i think that should keep you busy for a while

unfortunately kitchen is project #3

I can't wait til he raises the ceiling. Think how much cupboard space that'll add!

is it a bad sign that after having my enamelled cast iron pan on high heat while blackening some tomatoes, the bottom is all fucked up? i noticed it sort of stuck to the element when i tried to remove it while hot, came off fine once it cooled down. the bottom has black ring marks on it (the enamel is red), but i can't tell if the enamel is damaged or the element is damaged - there doesn't seem to be any trace of red stuff on the element itself.

j i don't know! mine is a little black on the bottom but not marked. if it didn't chip off i would think it's fine.

i made black bean soup today that tastes good but i messed it up because i soaked the beans first contrary to instructions, then added the amount of water it said to, so there's too much water. i gotta put a can of beans in the food processor and add them tomorrow. i am making baked white fish with fingerling potatoes and some sauteed broccoli rabe. and white wine.

You can burn the enamel off a cast iron pan - it's only good to around 750 F. The high setting on an electric stove can melt aluminum (around 1250 F). If you need a pan to be really hot, just leave it on medium heat for 15-20 minutes to heat up.

oooh that is good to know, thanks jaq!

i made a vegan quiche the other day - surprisingly, it was the crust, not the filling, that was disappointing.

the hottest and spiciest chicken enchiladas ever accidentally made with beans

pumpkin cheesecake with an almond flour crust just came out of the oven and the whole house smells delicious

Lunch was half a leftover roast chicken, deboned and chopped, casseroled with broccoli in a sauce of heavy cream and reduced-to-jelly chicken stock, topped with parmesan cheese - baked until bubbling and the cheese was melted.

jaq; is that gluten free pumpkin cheesecake? Yum, can I come over?

It is, at that - stop on by! :) Be warned though, it's also low carb (sucralose). When I started doing all this low carb baking, we became a gluten free house by default.

That is awesome!

I tested positive on a Celiac test in 2010 and have been gluten free since. I have not made much from scratch though. Christmas cookies sucked but I have not played with almond flour or combos of other flours. I basically have stuck too Bob's gluten free flour and then there is the electric stove. I do so much better with a gas stove for everything.

I've had the best success with almond flour in short crusts and coffeecakes (these made with huge amounts of egg) - I've got a recipe for sandwich bread I'm sadly not even tempted to try. If you ever want to play with coconut flour, it's strange stuff. Works well in one recipe for brownies, I think because the cocoa behaves somewhat like wheat flour, but has the weirdest texture in pancakes and other batters. It's used in south Indian cooking, breading for pakora, a component in dosa - things like that. I still have to try these.

I am still on my 'fit in last of the plausible winter cooking in Arizona' marathon, so I made oxtail stew today.

Have to try them out when I get a kitchen of my own one day.

i made gluten free mac 'n cheese last night for my sister using quinoa macaroni. (it's really quinoa and corn, they act all quinoa power! but corn is the main ingredient). i had a rack of ribs from salt lick in the freezer left over from a family gathering a few months ago. also made collard greens. god, i love collard greens.

Quinoa and corn pasta are the best. Anything else just turns to creamy mush. Tried some rice and tapioca blend, ugh! Threw it away. Big Lots has had a few gluten free items at considerably lower prices lately. Bought great pasta there. It was al corn. The whole GMO thing bugs me, really does, but I don't eat GF pasta that often and try to cut down on the amount of corn chips. GRRRR GMO corn.

I love collard greens too!

Cooked up some sliced king trumpet mushrooms, which have to be my fave mushrooms ever, w/some baby bok choys and some tofu (stuff I needed to use up) w/mirin and soy sauce and garlic...yum.

Sauteed shallot & garlic in OO and butter, with some rosemary, then chicken broth, and a shitload of grated parm. Dumped in half-cooked handmade orichette pasta and finished it in the sauce, topped w diced tomato. Woah. Roasted broccoli & chicken sausages on the side, but the pasta is the thing here.

Oh, because if a little is good, more must be better, I stirred 2 forkfuls of pesto into the sauce too.

i made this mee goreng recipe a couple of days ago and it was SO DISAPPOINTING. i really miss malaysian food, i had high expectations, but it was just bland and boring, nothing like the stuff back home.

now i have a jar of bean sauce - what else can i use it for?

i also made a lentil walnut loaf that was completely diastrous - the recipe didn't specify what kind of lentils and all i had were these tiny red ones. they turned to mush and the whole loaf just never set, tasted like nothing, was kind of gritty from the oats and made me feel like i was eating prison food.

arroz con pollo, as we speak