She has escaped the guillotine thus far because I have so many friends that sing her praises. Blogs declare her glory and whole cookbooks are devoted to her. What am I missing?
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CROCK POT, center, looks forlorn as she
awaits the jury's verdict. White blanket,
right, has been sentenced to donation,
and misc, left, will be sent to a friend's
kitchen for rehabilitation
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I recently moved into a very cute and spacious enough apartment on the upper floor of an old house. It has many charming qualities, like sloped sage green walls, and lots of antique windows to let in natural light, as well as delightful neighbors. But less charming is the lack of storage. My closet is about as wide as it is deep; there is no storage in the bathroom beyond the medicine cabinet. Do YOU buy your toilet paper one roll at a time? Well, guess what. The extra rolls must go somewhere. No, my african violets must go there. When I moved in there was even no place to hang my hand-towel or bath-towel. My lease says that I cannot make changes to the apartment without permission from the landlord, but that was too ridiculous.
My grandmother passed away about two years ago, and I inherited eighty years worth of gadgets and gizmos. A friend of mine mentioned that you only need three knives in your kitchen--one to chop, one to pare, and one to slice bread. That led me to think--do I really need three sizes of whisk? (the answer turned out to be yes, by the way. I'm a sucker.) I went through all of my gadgets and got rid of three extra pairs of kitchen shears, and these three gadgets (below), mostly because I have no idea what they are for. That left, by the way, two whole drawers and two countertop containers full of gadgets, spoons, spatulas and pancake turners.
I've never actually used my crock pot, and given the general devotion of all, it seemed advisable to try it at least once. I associate crock pots with overcooked, under-tended, sub-standard fare, meat with no texture left, and carrots that are mush. Boasts such as, "I made a cake in my crock pot!" fall on deaf and unimpressed ears. It cannot be a very good cake. Part of what I love so much about cooking is the process--I love chopping vegetables, things simmering gently on the stove, kneading dough. Okay, maybe I'm over the last one (at least my wrists are). But then a little voice whispers, "You say this now, when you have tons of time on your hands, but perhaps you will think differently when you are married to the love of your life and have little munchkins running around." So perhaps it is time to reevaluate my relationship with my crock pot.
My intention is to try a number of recipes, made with care and made with crock pot, and we shall see how the pot performs.
As I was contemplating my problem, I ran across a pin on pinterest "The best crock pot mashed potatoes!! I'll be so glad I pinned this!" As any veteran pinterest user knows, one must approach such claims with a grain of salt. But I've been thinking that I wanted to make mashed potatoes, so perhaps this is the perfect opportunity. I've wanted to get cracking on the 150 Saveur recipes anyway, and there's this one for Colcannon, which is basically a version of mashed potatoes. Also I love cabbage.
Oh, and here's a picture of the boy, for good measure. You're welcome. This is us at the ND-Pitt game.
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