26 July 2008

Cooking: The good and the not so much..

Trying to keep to a budget, CAT and I have been eating almost exclusively at home.. Something that has been slightly more difficult as of late, being as we are short an appliance. Last weekend CAT put some reruns (aka leftovers) in the microwave, pushed a couple buttons, and the heretofore dependable machine said, "I Quit!" I couldn't complain really, given the fact that I'd had it for 17 and a half years, at least 5 of that it had lived with my brother.. Knowing that I'd spend way too much money if I just ran to the store to get another one, I got online and actually shopped around.. I found one at Lowe's that would work perfectly for my needs, and it was only $60 bucks. Only downside was that it won't arrive until sometime next week.

I'd never really gave much thought about how much I use my microwave. Not for anything major. Really just to defrost the occasional thing for dinner, reheating reruns, softening butter, etc, but it's something that I definitely do not wish to live without! Reheating food shouldn't be so difficult, but as I learned that first day, it's quite complicated.. You actually have to PAY ATTENTION to the food you are heating up, as demonstrated by the fact that the first time I tried to do this and burned the left over stir fry to the bottom of the pan..


CAT and I have had quite the adventure in cooking lately.. One night he made Oysters Rockefeller and this enormous, not to mention amazingly delicious burger.. You may not think these two things would go together, but it was sooo good!!


Last night we attempted to make sushi. It was quite funny. Those little suckers are not easy to roll. My first try left us both laughing, and me about to give up.


But, by the time I rolled the 4th one I was a pro.. Ok, maybe not, but we could at least eat them with chopsticks..

And even when they weren't pretty, they were edible.. We learned a lot by making them ourselves. IE, it may take a while before we find a brand of Nori that we like, and, though we sometimes have sushi that has sprouts at the restaurant, they must not be alfalfa sprouts. The alfalfa sprouts overpowered everything in the rolls we added them to and wasn't so good..

And, before anyone questions our sanity, we did not use any seafood that wasn't cooked, only cooked scallops, shrimp, and smoked salmon.. We'll leave the raw stuff to the professionals..

5 Comments:

Blogger tif-do said...

Thats a crazy big burger!!!

7/26/2008 12:54 PM

 
Blogger leaner said...

I stopped using our microwave on a daily basis. I have a love-hate relationship with it. Any meat cooked/defrosted in there makes me gag. I started heating up the reruns using the stove top, and they taste better (to me.)

We haven't found a nori we like best, but we make sushi often here. I have to say your rolls look better than mine, but only because they have better things in them. We make veggie rolls, and the occasional calfornia roll.

That burger is INSANE! How do you eat such a thing?

7/27/2008 9:08 AM

 
Blogger Joxer's Human said...

Leaner,

When you make the California roll, do you roll it inside out? I'm thinking that inside out rolls would use a lot less nori, until we find one that we like. Of course, I'm sure to make a hell of a mess trying to roll them :)

As for the burger, we just cut it into 4 pieces.. 1/4 of it definitely filled you up, but it made for great reruns. Good thing we cooked it right before the microwave died. Couldn't have heated that up on the stove..

By the way, the main reason I reheat in the microwave is because it uses less dishes to just stick whatever it is in the microwave and not have to put it back in a pan.. I don't have a dishwasher.. That and the whole takes a lot longer and I have to (am supposed to) pay attention to it thing.. Maybe if I actually stood there while I was reheating things, I wouldn't end up with dried out, over-cooked reruns..

7/27/2008 10:35 AM

 
Blogger lvh said...

i have two comments:

1. the sushi looks great and I'm sure it's a lot cheaper than what we pay when we go out.

2. dang, i knew i should have gone ahead and bought you a microwave for your b'day even though you kept telling me yours is fine.

love ya

7/28/2008 2:44 PM

 
Blogger leaner said...

I love my dishwasher. Did you know they take less water than handwashing? Yes, after Will read that he started putting everything in the dishwasher. I don't think I would be very happy with out that appliance. It is pretty much the only appliance we have so far upgraded, and it was so worth the money!

California rolls- nori out. I dislike rice out rolls. If you dip them the rice ends up in the wasabi infused soy sauce.

7/28/2008 7:57 PM

 

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