A simple one-pot supper
Apr. 19th, 2012 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceA cynical friend once told me that it took a lot of money to maintain Gandhi in poverty.
As is my wont, or possibly my job, I tend to use that as a metaphor. And so I found myself recalling it this morning, as I buzzed about having a delightful time in the kitchen. I want Karen to come home to a bowl of black-bean chilli, aka a one-pot supper. Simples!
This simple one-pot supper starts at 8am, when I begin to mix the dough for the bread that needs to go with it; so far it's consumed three pots, three bowls, two chopping-boards and two fingers. Hey-ho.
See, I wanted to use the slow cooker that came as a wedding gift. I love slow cookers, and this one is super-smart (mind you, any one would be super-smart to me if you don't need to use pliers to turn it on, but that's another story). So, cool: heap foods into slow cooker, switch it on, leave it for the rest of the day. Except that the first thing I ever learned about slow cookers was that it's bad to cook red kidney beans in 'em without boiling them vigorously first, because there's a really nasty bug that can lurk in dried beans and isn't killed by slow-cooker temperatures. The bug exists in lesser proportions in other dried beans. Black beans? I don't know, but I'm not taking any risks with K's health. So into the big pan in fresh water go the soaked beans, for an invigorating steam-bath.
And while they're doing that, of course I am chopping onions and garlic and chillies, and of course I'm going to fry them first before they go into the slow cooker, so that's another pan. And as I'm chopping away, I remember that I really don't want to grind garlic into the fibres of this gorgeous new butcher's block that was another gift, because I'm also using it to knead the bread on, and... Yeah. So I fetch an old board for the garlic, and think while I am peeling cloves how I was thinking only last night that I hadn't cut my fingers yet on this astonishing new Shun knife, and how sharp knives are safer, and... Yeah. Just that moment is the moment that my left pinkie casually brushes across the blade, and the knife draws a casual line of red, like a reminder not to be casual around serious instruments. It does so need a name, that knife.
Still, on we go, with a promise of neosporin later; and I have pulped my garlic and slid it into the pan and am just scraping up the last of it and faffing a bit with this whole one-board-on-top-of-another thing and... Yeah. My right-hand index finger contrives to press itself against the heel of the blade. Which is, yeah. Just as sharp as the point, thanks.
It seems to be a feature of growing older, that the blood just runs and runs. Clotting is for kids, apparently. And there were still the carrots and celery to scrub, and bread to knead, and pans to be washed, and and and.
Oh, and typing. YHN, this finger is, & UJM as well. Don't nobody go all munjhy on me now, there'd be a price to pay.
But anyway, I have genuinely been having a really nice time out there. And now I have more coffee to drink and proofs to read for Book View Cafe, while the dinner munjhes down, and it's all good clean fun. Except for the dirty bit where I had to wash my feet again and I'd probably better clean the kitchen floor before K gets home. California mud is sticky beyond all reason, not like proper English mud at all. I dunno if it's the drainage or the tilth or what, but I water the garden in the evenings and come morning the still-damp soil clings like leeches to the soles of sandals, boots, bare feet, whatever treads upon it.
As is my wont, or possibly my job, I tend to use that as a metaphor. And so I found myself recalling it this morning, as I buzzed about having a delightful time in the kitchen. I want Karen to come home to a bowl of black-bean chilli, aka a one-pot supper. Simples!
This simple one-pot supper starts at 8am, when I begin to mix the dough for the bread that needs to go with it; so far it's consumed three pots, three bowls, two chopping-boards and two fingers. Hey-ho.
See, I wanted to use the slow cooker that came as a wedding gift. I love slow cookers, and this one is super-smart (mind you, any one would be super-smart to me if you don't need to use pliers to turn it on, but that's another story). So, cool: heap foods into slow cooker, switch it on, leave it for the rest of the day. Except that the first thing I ever learned about slow cookers was that it's bad to cook red kidney beans in 'em without boiling them vigorously first, because there's a really nasty bug that can lurk in dried beans and isn't killed by slow-cooker temperatures. The bug exists in lesser proportions in other dried beans. Black beans? I don't know, but I'm not taking any risks with K's health. So into the big pan in fresh water go the soaked beans, for an invigorating steam-bath.
And while they're doing that, of course I am chopping onions and garlic and chillies, and of course I'm going to fry them first before they go into the slow cooker, so that's another pan. And as I'm chopping away, I remember that I really don't want to grind garlic into the fibres of this gorgeous new butcher's block that was another gift, because I'm also using it to knead the bread on, and... Yeah. So I fetch an old board for the garlic, and think while I am peeling cloves how I was thinking only last night that I hadn't cut my fingers yet on this astonishing new Shun knife, and how sharp knives are safer, and... Yeah. Just that moment is the moment that my left pinkie casually brushes across the blade, and the knife draws a casual line of red, like a reminder not to be casual around serious instruments. It does so need a name, that knife.
Still, on we go, with a promise of neosporin later; and I have pulped my garlic and slid it into the pan and am just scraping up the last of it and faffing a bit with this whole one-board-on-top-of-another thing and... Yeah. My right-hand index finger contrives to press itself against the heel of the blade. Which is, yeah. Just as sharp as the point, thanks.
It seems to be a feature of growing older, that the blood just runs and runs. Clotting is for kids, apparently. And there were still the carrots and celery to scrub, and bread to knead, and pans to be washed, and and and.
Oh, and typing. YHN, this finger is, & UJM as well. Don't nobody go all munjhy on me now, there'd be a price to pay.
But anyway, I have genuinely been having a really nice time out there. And now I have more coffee to drink and proofs to read for Book View Cafe, while the dinner munjhes down, and it's all good clean fun. Except for the dirty bit where I had to wash my feet again and I'd probably better clean the kitchen floor before K gets home. California mud is sticky beyond all reason, not like proper English mud at all. I dunno if it's the drainage or the tilth or what, but I water the garden in the evenings and come morning the still-damp soil clings like leeches to the soles of sandals, boots, bare feet, whatever treads upon it.