Cooking again

I love to cook, and it’s been very difficult since we moved in here. I do not think I have cooked on a regular basis for at least eight or nine months. It has not been good at all.

I had some major issues in the kitchen when we moved in, because we moved a bunch of stuff in, I started unpacking and then I knocked over a six-foot florescent light (go me) which shattered everywhere. I had to halt everything and meticulously clean glass shards and dust from every surface, out of the stove coils, windowsills, every carpet nearby, and that’s right, every stupid dish, bag, and box that was in the kitchen. I’m still finding glass.

More depressingly, I am still washing dirty dishes from our old apartment. I was fed up at the end, and I threw piles and piles of awkward dishes into plastic totes, so now I’m stuck doing it all now. Which is really ok, since I was planning on washing everything before it went into the new cupboards, but it’s still time-consuming. I’m down to perhaps two loads out of twenty. Did I mention we have a single sink and no dishwasher? Personally, I don’t care about the dishwasher, and I’m thrilled to be washing dishes in a plastic tub again. I can’t stand dishes in the sink, so now my sink stays nice and clear, otherwise we can’t use it.

What this really boils down to is that it has been difficult to find the space to cook, especially before we moved the table in. Now the table is half clear, and I’ve gotten the stove and one counter clear, and I’ve been enjoying cooking the last few days. It’s not all roses, though. I’m out of the habit, so my timing is off. We had some fresh salmon donated by DH’s boss, and the only thing I had in the house to go with it was some frozen cauliflower and rolls. I found a recipe for hollandaise sauce, which I had never made before, and dove in. It began beautifully, but split rather obviously right at the end. Not scrambled, but just split. I looked up how to fix it, and tried again. Fine, fine, fine, split. Damn. I threw a mini tantrum, then got ready to eat. I separated it and resigned myself to an odd, spicy tarragon melted-shredded-cheese-textured thing and set aside the spicy butter for the fridge. I don’t know what made me, but I stirred the egg-stuff and it became surprisingly smooth. Out of curiosity (what was it going to do, split?) I added the butter back in a little at a time, and what do you know! Hollandaise sauce! There was much cheering. And man, was it good! I used tarragon vinegar and smoked paprika, and it was to die for.

I also made a new variant on my mother’s recipe for Chicken Soupa, a sort of “mexican” lasagna. I struggle with this recipe, not because I can’t make it, but because I just think that her version is very… plain. Well, here, let me show you:

Mother’s (bland) Chicken Soupa

• 1 package shredded cheddar
• 1 can diced green chilies
• 10 flour tortillas
• food-processed onions
• shredded chicken

In 2 quart baking dish tear up tortillas. Layer ingredients like a lasagna. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

It’s really good, but in my head I’m always screaming “WHERE ARE THE VEGETABLES?!?!?” I’m always trying to add things to make this dish feel right. I’ve probably made this dish a hundred times since I moved out, and I have never gotten something that seems right. I might have hit on it the other night. Don’t mind the frozen and canned stuff, I usually work from scratch.

Heretic’s Additions:

• frozen celery and carrots
• 1 can of petite diced tomatoes
• 1 can of salsa verde by Embasa
• 1 can mixed beans (pinto, black, great northern)
• fresh chives
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup, mixed with the tomato juice and bean juice, plus:
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp chipotle powder

The celery was questionable, and it really, really needed olives, but I think I finally hit on the perfect update.

This Old House

We had been looking at apartments on short notice, trying to see if we could find something before the honeymoon to simplify our living arrangements. To further those ends, I posted an ad on craigslist detailing our situation and our needs. A man answered me with this great e-mail:

Basic House…two VERY small bedrooms, small kitchen, small living room, small bathroom, small doors, small windows…and small price.

He wasn’t kidding. The place is teensy. It was built in 1950, and every scrap of space has been used. It reminds me of my friend’s 450 year old farmhouse that had twenty rooms and sprawled out all over the place and everything was different and mismatched and just odd–except this place has stayed entirely within it’s original shell. I love it’s crazy quirkiness! I came home squeaking with excitement over how cool the house was, and how cool the landlord was, and how Patrick had to be the one to say yes or no because I was totally in love with the place.

We were supposed to meet with the landlord (Burt) at one point, but he called and said he forgot he had a parent teacher conference and we could just drop by and pick up the key and walk ourselves through it and get back to him. After picking up the key, we drove over, and Pat thought it was pretty neat. Needed some cleaning and some work, but the benefits outweighed the drawbacks.

It’s in a slightly scary part of town. But it’s cheap. And private. And it’s bigger than an apartment. It doesn’t have a dishwasher, but it’s got a washer and dryer. And it’s actually got three bedrooms, though they’re all about the size of jail cells. There’s no bathtub, and the bathroom is carpeted, but the kitchen is big enough for our table. It’s on almost a quarter-acre lot, well grassed, with some trees and some mountain views and we are allowed to build a fence if we want. We can paint and garden and make as many improvements as we like. We can have our pets with no problems. We’re free to do whatever we want, except make drugs or fight dogs. Oh, and it’s about a ten minute walk from Pat’s work. Plus, I love it!

We’re in the process of settling in still. We are living almost entirely in the first floor because we are still doing deconstruction in the basement. We took down one of the walls between two of the rooms, and we will be taking down another to open it up to the laundry room. Right now there is about 18 inches of space between the washing machine and the wall that we’re going to remove: not very good for moving things, at all. We also decided to keep our bedroom upstairs and to put our living room downstairs, mostly because we don’t want people to be able to see that huge liability 50″ flatscreen TV that we got for Christmas.

The fence is up, but we’re lacking gates. The property is cut off from the apartment complex next door though, and that makes a huge difference. We have kids everywhere, and people were coming out to barbecue and congregate in our backyard. Not acceptable. Did I mention we’re paying about the same for our house and yard as they are for their crappy, crowded apartment complex? Man, I feel really lucky.

We have the new tiling in the entryway and bathroom, and sadly, the crazy wallpaper in the kitchen had to come down due to some mold and general disrepair. I’m going to repaper the walls and paint the brick after everything gets bleached to high hell. It’s currently very gross.

More updates as we go.