I'm just full of blogginess recently, no?
(Probably because I feel so damned isolated from everything. I'm at least 50 miles away from any human being who cares about me and who is not related to me - and they have no choice because if Kevin stopped caring about me, I'd beat him with something large and heavy for dragging me down here in the first place, and Jess has no choice because I'm the Mom and she's not old enough to develop angst yet.)
In any case....
At the moment, I've found very little to like about my new apartment. I'm trying not to bitch about it too much because I don't want to be partially responsible for having to beat my husband to death with a cast-iron skillet.
But there is one thing I do like: my new stove.
It's a Whirlpool and it has all the bells and whistles of a brand-new stove. It also has two large burners and two small ones. I can't tell you the last time I had a stove that did that - instead I've been dealing with stoves for years that had 1 large burner and three small ones. Which really sucks when you're trying to make Thanksgiving dinner, let me tell you.
It's also spotlessly clean (and I'm trying to keep it that way. By the way, orange-oil packaged kitchen scrubby wipes are just about the nicest thing in the world for that. They even cleaned out the inside of my microwave really well!) and hasn't yet accumulated that blackish crud at the bottom of the burner pans.
It has a digital display for the oven temperature (and it's accurate, even. Kevin thought it was the height of cooking geek-dom when he saw that I'd put the candy-thermometer into the oven to check that.) and a little timer that counts down the pre-heat.
Very cool.
When we moved into this apartment, it didn't take me very long to realize there was absolutely no way I could go back to my normal habits of rather indifferent cleaning. In the old place, we had a whole spare sofa to toss shit on, and we'd still have someplace to sit. Here, space is at a premium (a very expensive premium at that) and any inch lost to random clutter was going to be a very costly.
(As it is, there's not much space in here, and if Kevin and I are both at our computers it's very difficult to get into and out of the apartment, a fact the rather large maintenance guy made PERFECTLY clear when he came in yesterday to replace the disposal. He made this clear, not by politely asking us to move, or saying excuse me or anything, but by huffing loudly and with great exasperation, turning sideways to squeeze between the two chairs. I don't know if Kevin didn't notice this or if we decided by mutual telepathic awareness to ignore him until he was nice about the whole thing, but he never did say "excuse me", just kept huffing at us while Kevin and I ignored him. Since he left my kitchen an abolute disaster, I didn't feel the least bit repentant about this, either.)
So I've been trying to keep things clean. There are two key words in that sentence (I and trying) but as that's not what I intended to post about, I'll save my snerkiness for that one snide remark and get back on topic. (I had a point around here somewhere, have you seen it? Oh, thank you!)
Cooking! I wanted to talk about Cooking!
In addition to trying to keep the apartment clean, I've been trying to make home-cooked meals at least twice a week. For the last year or so, Kevin's been living off pb&j sandwiches and microwaved corn dogs and the like because I was on a gestationally diabetic diet and just about everything that I could eat, Kevin found personally revolting. (well, so did I, but he had a choice and I didn't, so...)
Every week, I've been flipping through my cooking magazines and recipe books and whatnot trying to find New and Interesting things to make. This would be because although I somehow feel like I've turned into my mother without really meaning to, I refuse to cook the same 8 dishes over and over and over again. (How my mother can continue to be a good cook after 24 years of cooking almost nothing but pork chops, baked chicken, cube steak, and meatloaf, I have no idea.)
So I've been trying a lot of new recipes. Some are keepers. Tangy Lemon Rice and Peas - keep. Some are... not so good. Simple Spinach and Ricotta Pie - YUCK. For one thing, it didn't set. Spinach and Ricotta Soup in a Pie Shell doesn't really cut it. For the other thing, it was the blandest thing I've ever put in my mouth on purpose, and this from someone who has an unholy obsession with Wensleydale cheese. Poached Salmon with Strawberries Salad, great presentation, easy to cook... my kitchen still smells like fish. Not a selling point. Last night's dish, however, was a definate keeper.
Hoisen-Peanut Satay Grilled Steak
1/2 pound thin-cut steak (or beef for stir-fry, which is what I bought)
1/2 cup Hoisen Sauce (a sweet chinese food sauce, you can find it in your grocery store in the asian cooking aisle)
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon Seseame Oil (also found in asian cooking aisle)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon rice vinegar (ditto asian cooking aisle)
1/4 cup ground peanuts
mix hoisen, peanut butter, oil, juice, and vinegar together in small bowl until creamy.
Skewer steak strips and place on a baking sheet covered with tin-foil (for easy clean up)
Paint strips with peanut sauce (reserving about 1/3 for dipping sauce)
place oven rack about 4-6 inches away from broiler rack and grill steak-sticks for 5 minutes per side. Turn once and coat again with sauce.
Sprinkle steak-sticks with chopped peanuts and serve with remaining sauce as dip.
YUMMY!
Posted by tisfan at April 09, 2004 12:31 PM