It’s another Sunday morning and that means coffee and reading the paper. The new house makes things a little different but mostly the same. There’s the stereo system, a large high-quality system from the 80s that fills the house with sound. Right now, it’s shuffling 4 CDs of 80s music while we wait for the paper to show up. It’s running late, almost expected for the last Sunday before Thanksgiving. I’m sure they were waiting for ads to jam inside at the last minute.
Category Archives: Weblog
Cooking for Fun and Profit
We moved (duh!) and that meant a larger kitchen for me. Tammy’s a baker and not as much of a cook, although she can whip up a mean soup on the strength of smells alone. I’m an event chef; I like to cook for people. That said, last weekend was a “pressure cooker” because I was cooking for some extended family, one of which was a chef himself. The menu was designed to be small courses served with social time in between.
The starter course was potato leek soup, a rustic Cook’s Illustrated recipe that rarely fails to disappoint. What’s funny is that it’s easy to make and not too expensive. Side note: if you have homemade broth then chose that over store brands. I used a organic chicken broth that cost on a quarter more than the name brand and it made a big difference.
Second course was butternut squash risotto, another gem from Cook’s Illustrated, which features a unique method to extract plenty of squash flavor: roasted innards! You scoop the stringy goo and seeds out, roast them in a skillet and add it to the broth as a base for the “stock” to add to the risotto later. I like the flavor where the sage punctuates the sweetness of the squash, but my experience is that it consistently comes out gummy. Most people that have tried it like it that way, but I’m hoping for a better texture that allows the shape of the arborio rice to come through.
Main course was a modified chicken saltimboca. We did the tenderloins instead of the breast and that allowed better portion sizes for everyone. My lessons learned here were important, especially regarding the correct placement of sage and prosciutto. I undercooked the pieces in the pan due to the falling sage burning on the skillet surface, so instead of warming in the oven, I moved the temp up to 375F and then 5 mins of broiling near the end. It produced fantastic results, so I made a mental note to restructure the cooking times with more broiling to crisp the prosciutto.
The title of the post mentions profit so here’s the money shot: cost savings. I was able to feed six people all of the food above (even a white cake and frosting for a birthday cake) for $37.00, much less than we all would have spent at a restaurant and the food was just as good.
Yum!
Still Alive
I’m still here and still trying to find time to write. When I’m home, I’m spending my time cooking, getting stuff from storage unpacked, ironing the occasional shirt and even playing some Halo 3. I’ve got some posts stacked up, so it’s time to write again.
My Ballot
Election Map 2008
Here’s Google’s election map for easy reference:
Blog like it's 1995!
I’m writing this on an *dial up* internet connection. Yuk! The modern web is mostly usable on a 56K internet connection, but it drags. Online shopping is mostly a joke–photos and images take forever to download. We still don’t have DSL on at the new house. It’s a very long story, deserving a blog post of it’s own.
Tonight it’s dinner at Tuscan Grill on the east side of Springfield. We’re taking my mother-in-law and her husband to a nice restaurant to say “thanks” for their hard work over the last couple of weeks. Much like my parents did for us when we moved in to Kickapoo, Anne and Burl have sure “filled the gaps” with our new house.
Dinner at Home
Tammy and I chose dinner at home tonight, a small part of a larger plan to spend less money on eating out. We had leftover port filets from the night before so that became the base of a fantastic pasta dish. Thepork had been grilled and wrapped with bacon so a carbonara was a perfect choice. To save a pit scrubbing, I used a single skillet, starting with the pasta. I cooked it until just under done then reused it for growing butter and making a white sauce. Not to rush the story here, but since it’s time for bed, everything was added to a cassarole dish and put under the broiler. Poof! A great dinner for pennies!
Last post from Kickapoo
This is the last weblog post I’ll write from the comfy confines of 853 S. Kickapoo. I’ve enjoyed my time here, and while looking around at the nearly empty house, I know I’ll miss it. It’s a house of a little over 1000 square feet and that makes for an intimate experience, but most of all, the house had very different environments. The kitchen was filled with windows and curtainless, so during the summer, it was like a screened-in porch. The den was just right for the two of us to watch TV and feel completely isolated from the rest of the house. It’s also the warmest and coolest in the appropriate seasons, making it Tammy’s favorite room.
There’s not much to say here except “Goodbye old friend.”
Goodbye Kickapoo…
Home Stretch
We’re in the home stretch of the move. The appraiser took their time to return the list of items to fix, and while none are major, it’s obvious that she took the inspection and copied it word-for-word. That said, the items can easily be fixed in the next few days, but I would have loved doing it without the extra drama.
Today is painting the parts of the house that I scraped and primed and then patching the chimney mortar on the cap. Both are really easy to do but the chimney has me nervous because I’ll be climbing up the ladder and on to the roof. It’s not the height, it’s the transition from ladder to roof and the risk of falling.
What’s life without a little risk, eh?
Old House Sadness
When I look around at the mess that our old house becomes, I try not to be sad. It’s odd to think that six months ago, we had no idea that we’d be moving. I didn’t know that last Christmas was the last one with the aluminum tree centered in the front window. That was also the first Christmas that we did large light outlining the front of the house and it looked great.
I’m crying now.
This house has meant so much to me. It’s been the place where Tammy and I “grew up” together. We got better jobs and weather good times and bad while learning to be a real married couple. This house held the first “wine tasting” party, a nearly epic event with friends and family.
I can’t hold on to everything in my life forever. This house has been a physical and mental stabilizer for me for so long that leaving it sometimes scares me. I know that it’s the right thing to do and I know I’ll love the other house, but for now, this old friend doesn’t want to leave my heart.
Steve Kirks 