For most of my adult life, my philosophy regarding cooking has been: If it takes more than ten minutes to prepare, it takes too long. Where the attitude came from, I'm not sure, but I could probably blame it on a young family. Like the day I made shepherd's pie and took the time to put it neatly in layers then stick it in the oven for a few minutes to brown the top. I carefully served it up for my boys only to have them stir everything together until it looked like three bowls of gray slop. That was the first time they'd ever done that. Needless to say, I never went through all that trouble again. Just cooked everything, mixed it all together then put it in smaller bowls for them. It seemed the messier the meal looked, the better they liked it. Go figure.
As time marched on, I graduated to casserole dishes with their nice heavy glass covers. They were still kind of messy, what with the water evaporating and clinging to the inside of the cover until you removed it and the moisture condensed. I don't recall making an actual casserole but whatever I did make in those dishes (had, and still have two of them) it usually came out decent but it was still too easy to end up with it slightly burned.
Along came the slow cookers. I love a slow cooker. Plug it into an outlet on the kitchen counter, put it on simmer and leave it for a few hours. What I don't like about it is trying to clean the earthenware pot that goes inside. Those things are heavy. Add to that the fact I'm short and the kitchen counter is thirty-six inches high. Makes it hard to remove the pot from the cooker but I did find a solution. There are cook-in bags you can stick into that pot but the best part is when I store the left-overs. I let everything cool a bit, then twist the top of the bag, fold it over and put the whole thing into a large storage bowl and into the fridge. No fuss, no muss.
All this has gone one step further and I'd say it's my all-time favorite. The pros have taken dumping to include side dishes, soup for one, and desserts. You can even collect ingredients, place them in a coffee mug with instructions and give them as gifts. I like the idea of making desserts in a coffee mug. The single serving eliminates the temptation of wanting more without doing the work, as opposed to just cutting another slice of cake, for example.
Cooking shortcuts have come a long way. Chefs have gone so far as to endorse sets of pans that do just about everything and have minimal clean-up. (I've got a couple and they're everything they claim.) There's hope for us yet, whether we lack the knack for food prep or just don't have the patience for it. This "part-time" cook may not get dumped after all, but she's going to be doing a lot more dumping in the future.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Green Or Black?
Two choices in thumb color present a challenge every year and this year's challenge is just getting started. No matter how the season turns out, I look to the next season to try again. The last few months have been a learning time and it isn't over yet. My apartment faces north which means no direct sunlight, (but it can be bright on sunny days) and downright cold winters. The windows might have double-pane glass but they're set in met frames which means there are some terrific drafts.
By early winter I moved the small plants to a table in the living room where they wouldn't catch cold, (especially when their little roots were watered). The ceiling light isn't the best idea but it's better than nothing on those cloudy days where little light came from the windows. I'd say 90% of the winter days were overcast. The spider plant and devil's ivy were too big to put on the table with the others. That didn't leave me much choice but to keep them in the windows and hope they made it through the winter. They not only survived, but thrived.
The spider plant produced three runners but keeping it on the window sill isn't exactly idea because those runners can't dangle naturally. Hopefully they can hang in there until I can get them settled into a bigger pot and set it on a barstool near the window. Have you ever seen pictures of large pots with spider plants in them, in a Victorian setting? The leaves seem to go every which way and the 'babies' like to 'hang around.' That's one of my goals this year, to see that plant get huge and have all her little ones clustered around her. Like the old woman who lived in a shoe with all those kids around.
Mom was something of a frustrated gardener. She spent years studying houseplants, reading up on everything she could find about specific ones, their care and feeding. Plant food was organic, fish emulsion, which was supposed to be good for plants. I don't know about that. I only knew when she fed them. The house smelled like fish on those days. (Even cooked fish smelled better.) She got plants that were supposed to be easy to care for. Iron plants were dubbed as being almost impossible to kill, but Mom found a way. Three of them.
She told me several times, "My thumbs are black. I read all I can about plant care and my plants die. You don't do anything besides water your plants and they thrive." I never told her I liked Miracle Grow plant food. She hated that stuff. I felt kind of bad for her and often thought she tried too hard to be successful. After she passed away I was able to keep her last two plants. One, a Z-Z plant, began growing like crazy when I switched it's menu to Miracle Grow, and so did her geranium. Unfortunately, the geranium died recently, as did my two geraniums. I think the apartment had a lot to do with it since it's quite different from the one we had for ten years.
Having gained some plant experience over the last few months, I'm ready to start again for this summer. I have to wait a month longer before doing anything but that's okay. The wait is worth it. To me, a house (or apartment) isn't a home without at least one plant around.
By early winter I moved the small plants to a table in the living room where they wouldn't catch cold, (especially when their little roots were watered). The ceiling light isn't the best idea but it's better than nothing on those cloudy days where little light came from the windows. I'd say 90% of the winter days were overcast. The spider plant and devil's ivy were too big to put on the table with the others. That didn't leave me much choice but to keep them in the windows and hope they made it through the winter. They not only survived, but thrived.
The spider plant produced three runners but keeping it on the window sill isn't exactly idea because those runners can't dangle naturally. Hopefully they can hang in there until I can get them settled into a bigger pot and set it on a barstool near the window. Have you ever seen pictures of large pots with spider plants in them, in a Victorian setting? The leaves seem to go every which way and the 'babies' like to 'hang around.' That's one of my goals this year, to see that plant get huge and have all her little ones clustered around her. Like the old woman who lived in a shoe with all those kids around.
Mom was something of a frustrated gardener. She spent years studying houseplants, reading up on everything she could find about specific ones, their care and feeding. Plant food was organic, fish emulsion, which was supposed to be good for plants. I don't know about that. I only knew when she fed them. The house smelled like fish on those days. (Even cooked fish smelled better.) She got plants that were supposed to be easy to care for. Iron plants were dubbed as being almost impossible to kill, but Mom found a way. Three of them.
She told me several times, "My thumbs are black. I read all I can about plant care and my plants die. You don't do anything besides water your plants and they thrive." I never told her I liked Miracle Grow plant food. She hated that stuff. I felt kind of bad for her and often thought she tried too hard to be successful. After she passed away I was able to keep her last two plants. One, a Z-Z plant, began growing like crazy when I switched it's menu to Miracle Grow, and so did her geranium. Unfortunately, the geranium died recently, as did my two geraniums. I think the apartment had a lot to do with it since it's quite different from the one we had for ten years.
Having gained some plant experience over the last few months, I'm ready to start again for this summer. I have to wait a month longer before doing anything but that's okay. The wait is worth it. To me, a house (or apartment) isn't a home without at least one plant around.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)