Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged cooking
I Still Have All My Fingers
01334 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I promised I would post a picture of my couch, but I'm going to go back on that. That'd kinda be a boring answer to the Vox Hunt, so I decided to pass.
I do want to show off some new kitchen gadgets I received yesterday. In my quest to get off of eating so much frozen preprocessed foods, I've been consulting with my friend Wassy who's a much better cook than I and been making some necessary upgrades to my kitchen equipment.
The first thing I needed to do was to upgrade my knives. I had these little things that came in a package deal from wal-mart I believe, which served me ok for a while but really didn't cut anything exactly. Which makes it difficult to prepare food, especially to cut meat. Or well, anything.
So I scouted around and did some research and settled on a 3 piece set of J.A Henckles TWIN Signature knives. But then I got scouting around some more and decided that I only really needed the Chef's knife and a utility knife, so I decided to try to buy something in the Four Star series which higher quality and more expensive. But then I found this awesome deal on a 5 piece gift set from the TWIN Four Star II series, which is the newly updated version of the Four Star. It has an 8" chef's knife, a 6" utility/sandwich knife, a 4" paring knife, the sharpening steel and a hardwood block for storage.
I was a bit skeptical due to the amazingly low price (roughly $400 below MSRP and by far the cheapest price I could find for this particualr set anywhere), but I e-mailed the company asking why it was so cheap and they revealed some slight box damage. So keeping in mind amazon protection policy and the merchants return policy (it was a 3rd party merchant on amazon.com) I put in my order. They arrived a week later, exactly what I ordered, and genuine. So I pretty much scored the deal of the century on this one.
I made some chicken alfredo with them last night and…oh my god…how did I ever survive without them? Cutting the chicken was like cutting through butter, to overuse a phrase. And I've managed to still have all of my fingers left, so definite bonus. Now I can really start getting more serious about preparing fresh and tasty food for myself.
Kitchen Upgrades
01349 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I'm looking to try to get myself off eating a lot of the crap that I do for dinner, all the frozen foods and whatnot. It's not good for me and it's starting to get boring. So to that end, I'm going to need to buff up my kitchen tools a bit. Wassy was over last night and as cooking is her thing, she helped me do an inventory of the stuff I have and what I might need in order to actually cook some more stuff on my own.
I had most of the basics, as far as pots and pans goes. I know I need a better set of knives (ones that will actually…you know…cut stuff) and a hand mixer. She pointed out a couple of different pan things I'm missing, along with some baking supplies.
I'm going to start beefling up my kitchen tools over time (starting with the knives). I don't need anything pro quality or something, but I want to get something decent so that it lasts a while. And I'm finding that knives are really freaking expensive. I'm still in research mode at the moment as I won't have the money to do much for another week or two.
I Don't Totally Suck At Cooking
01601 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I decided while grocery shopping tonight that I wanted to have something for dinner that I don't usually have. And Wassy had mentioned a recipe for salmon to me last week (or was it earlier this week…I can't remember. The holiday vacation kinda screwed up my concept of time) that looked like it was simple enough that I could tackle it with my limited cooking skills.
So I wandered around the grocery store trying to find where they put the stupid soy sauce. I also had to talk to somebody at the seafood counter to get my salmon (which, if you know me you'd know that was a big deal. I hate talking to people). Brought it home and started marinating.
An hour later I'm enjoying some salmon that isn't half bad. Definitely some room for improvement, but, well…I wasn't expecting to get it perfectly the first try. The next time I do it it'll be better. And there will be a next time because I have an awful lot of garlic products and soy sauce that I'm probably not going to be using otherwise.
I've been trying to branch out a little bit in regards to the stuff I eat for dinner. I'm trying to get away from pure frozen type stuff and try to move towards things that involve more than one step. Although one step is nice sometimes too.
QotD: I Was The Sous Chef
01931 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Who taught you how to cook?
Submitted by Donna.
Mostly, my limited cooking skills were given to me by my mother.
That’s not to say she’s not a good cook or anything (she is). It’s just that I’m the one without talent. As mentioned before, if it doesn’t have directions on the back of the package, I’m pretty much lost. And sometimes, even if it does have directions, I’m still lost.
Geeky Success! (And Other Stuff)
02049 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
Only a programmer would be super excited about this but just as the clock struck 5, I finally figured out how to send an e-mail with an attachment by connecting directly to the server. Woo! I’ve cracked the code that is MIME and mail headers.
Anyway, I went over to my parents house to pick up my netflix movie (The Italian Job, specifically) and I found that she had bought me all kinds of pots and pans and kitchen implements of which I’m currently in serious need. I’m getting all sorts of good stuff as a gift today. This goes back to my discussion with her the other night about wanting to branch out my dinner eating habits a bit, and I mentioned in passing how I didn’t really have a fully stocked kitchen when it came to pots and pans and containers (as she was suggesting stuff I kept saying “Don’t have one of those…” I guess she got fed up). So…she sprung this on me today. Handy.
Expanding My Dinner Choices
02051 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been getting a little tired of the items I’m able to cook for myself for dinner recently. Last night I decided to take some action, so I went over to my parents last night before hitting the grocery store to inquire about additional food items which I might be able to cook that tasted good. My Mom gave me some good ideas such as Au Gratin potatoes and tips on how to cook rice.
So I get to try some of this stuff out now.
I’m such a food preparation newbie.
Trying Not To Burn The Kitchen Down
02088 days
by Jason
in Uncategorized
I woke up this morning with the strange desire to improve my cooking skills. I’m not sure why, really. I’m kinda getting tired of my limited ability to heat up frozen foods, I suppose. The way I work is…if I want to learn how to do something, I see if somebody wrote a book on it. Well, I’ve come to realize there’s like eight thousand books on the subject.
So I came home from the bookstore bookless, since I wanted to make sure I grabbed the right one. I seems to be something hard to find anyway…I’m looking for something that’s aimed at beginners (people who’s only previous experience was boiling some water and dumping a box of noodles in), and also aimed at someone who doesn’t have to cook for an entire household. I just need to feed myself really…
I’m sure there’s something out there. I just haven’t been able to find it yet.
Recent Comments