That actually turned out well...

[rolanni]

I don't do much of the cooking around here, which is OK, because Steve is a wonderful cook, and I really don't like to, yanno, cook. Mostly, I like to chop things up -- *quiet over there; yeah, that corner's not as dim as you think* -- and stir stuff. I used to like to make bread, but not so much since my wrists went south and punching the dough down hurts.

Being on my own this weekend meant I had to feed myself. I could, of course, have eaten frozen dinners, but...meh. Yesterday, I sorta compromised and had frozen fish and leftover veggies and rice for dinner. Today, I had to not only come up with something for today's dinner, but also for dinners-to-take-to-work next week.

So I made soup. Soup is actually my Best Trick, because, if done correctly, it involves both chopping and stirring. I happily chopped me a couple of potatoes, threw them into the bottom of the soup pot (already liberally coated with warming olive oil, Italian seasoning, parsley, garlic, black pepper, and allspice), added some onions and sweet peppers from the freezer, and stirred it all around until it looked right.

Then I added chicken broth, a can of mixed carrots and peas (because, really, canned carrots and peas are inedible except in soup), dried mushrooms, a can of cannollini, a couple pieces of frozen chicken. It boiled together for a while, then simmered; getting stirred whenever the mood struck me. I just finished a bowful of the stuff and my was that tasty. And, there's plenty (I always make too much soup, sigh) so lunch next week is pretty much solved.

And, now, back to Chapter Seven.

Comments

Nonviolent bread

[painoarvokas.livejournal.com]

There are ways to make bread that does not require that much violence against the dough. There was that "no-knead" recipe a few years back, but what I usually do is just use a lot of water (typically as much water as flour) and long fermentation (12–24 hours). I don't know how commercial yeast reacts to that, but my natural sour leaven loves it. I just mix the ingredients, let the mixture sit and then bake.

Of course, the dough is wet enough that I need to use a pan – no freestanding bread this way.