Monday, July 26, 2010

Why pack when you can cook?

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to do a lot of cooking on our last Monday in this apartment.  I'm not really feeling sentimental (anymore...or yet again) about moving, but there is something nice about a good-smelling home, even if it is piled high with boxes.   I can definitely get behind the whole "we're moving; let's order in" rationale, but I guess I wasn't quite ready to give in to it yet (though I did not complain when Will brought home pizza from The Cheeseboard on Saturday night!).  I guess I figure that as long as we haven't packed all the cooking paraphernalia, we might as well use it.  Save those "oh my god I cannot cook tonight" meals for when we can't find the spatula.

Delicious muffins.
When Jacqui posted a recipe for what is simply one of the best kinds of muffins on the planet, I knew it was time to pull out some frozen bananas.  I thought there were probably 3 or 4 hiding in the freezer, and that I'd use them all up - you know, a good ole pre-move freezer cleanout.  Whoops. There were 6.  I feel a little like I will turn into Dooce when I have a larger freezer.  Note: before I found that link to Twitter, I was trying to find a post on her site about an overabundance of bananas in the freezer, but I could not. The search function on her site kept asking if I was looking for "front banana" or "banana freedom".  I found this amusing.  So yes.  I figured it would be a good idea to make some chocolate chip banana muffins.  My cookbooks are all packed, and I like to play in the kitchen, so why not try a new recipe?

Meatloaf + Rustic Sourdough.
Bad photo, great dinner.
And when I found myself wanting to make something healthy with ground turkey for dinner tonight, I simply did a search for the ingredient on Food Loves Writing, where there are just a ton of recipes on my "gotta try it" list.  Voila!  That turkey meatloaf recipe I bookmarked so many months ago!  Shanna makes any recipe seem approachable and worth the time and energy, and while my version was not perfect, it was delicious.

I used almost 1.5 lbs of turkey instead of 1. Whoops.  The turkey  came all the way to the top of the pan (borrowed from our neighbor, because whoops again, we already packed the loaf pan), and the sauce spilled over and burned.  Whoops whoops whoops!
It didn't matter though; it tasted so dang good.
And a little salad, just for good measure.

Tonight was my first attempt at meatloaf, and I'm pretty proud.  It was fun to make, squishing up the meat and egg and breadcrumbs and such with my hands, blending the ingredients and trying something new.  And the muffins came together in about five minutes, ready to pop in the oven as soon as the meatloaf came out.  I don't care that the kitchen got swelteringly hot and crowded with dishes (hey, we're moving soon!), or that this meal took about an hour to make, or even that now I am so tired I just want to pass out on the couch and not pack a single box.  It was delicious.  It was new.  And right now, I am all about starting fresh...even as we spend our last days in our "old" apartment.

4 comments:

  1. kim, this is awesome! love that you tried recipes from both HJE and FLW! it's like you had both me and shanna over for dinner before you moved out. haha i just wish i were really there...what a meal!

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  2. Thanks, Jacqui - it WAS kind of like having my blog buddies over for dinner. Will was impressed, I was proud, and I have you two to thank. :) Now if only I could put all our stuff in some magical packing oven!

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  3. YUM! And the thing about Dooce cracked me up.

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  4. I thought you'd like that! :)

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