Thursday, August 06, 2009

Om nom nom


(a.k.a. I hope my potatoes don't explode! :) ) A variety of circumstances have been conspiring to make me start cooking again. A boyfriend who works the same hours as me, the weather in Seattle cooling off, finally going to Trader Joe's in Seattle, and looking at how much money I spent on restaurants last month (YOUCH!). It also helps that Jeremy seems to like my cooking, no matter how unusual or haphazard it tends to be. :)

Last night was Corona garlic lime steak and fingerling potatoes. The idea for the steak was a combination of Jerome's explanation to me that beer or soda is an integral part of any marinade and me seeing a recipe for garlic lime chicken on the back of the garlic powder container. Since we had Corona and lime juice on hand, I was game. :) It turned out great, though I need to remember to go for thinner cuts of meat when shopping. As it was, I took everything out of the pan and sliced it up when I discovered I was about to have black outsides and red insides on the steak. No good!

The potatoes, I think, are my new favorites. They seemed to cook up a lot faster than normal potatoes (probably because they're bite sized!), and they were perfectly yummy with just some melted whipped butter. Plus, we could eat the skins (something I won't do with russet potatoes)! Steak and potatoes are not what we eat regularly, but I think I'm going to get a request for that meal again very soon. :)

I've also noticed that I'm getting better about using leftovers and things we have around the apartment. I scavenged leftover kalamata olives for our tacos on Monday night and leftover Havarti cheese for garlic bread on Tuesday night. Not remotely traditional, but delicious nonetheless. I think I got a bit aggravated when I realized how much stuff in my fridge and how much stuff in Jeremy's fridge needed to be tossed because it was expired. I'm even planning to figure out what to do with the random cans of beans (and dried... lentils, we think?) that are the remnants of Jeremy's ex's stocking of the pantry. It's sort of a new realm for me, because I don't even know what some of this stuff is, let alone how to cook it. Hurrah for the intertubez! :)

Next step after I figure out cooking from relative scratch? Baking. We have a plethora of frozen bananas and a banana bread recipe, but I am terrified of trying to bake from scratch. That's why the good people at Betty Crocker et al. made mixes!

(Oh, the alternate title is what I thought right as I put my container of leftover potatoes into the microwave at lunch. The potatoes did not explode!)

2 comments:

' said...

Try making some chili - it's pretty forgiving and it uses lots of beans.

Dawn said...

Ooh, that's not a bad idea! Definitely some of the canned beans would work for that, but I need to figure out how to cook the dried stuff. And also how to identify it. :)