10 posts tagged “cooking”
Beetroot was cheap at the markets on Saturday, so I grabbed a couple of bunches.
This recipe from the Organic Collective is just fantastic!
| BEETROOT, COCONUT AND LIME SOUP | |
|
30g unsalted butter To garnish | |
| Method: | |
|
Melt the butter in a saucepan and when foaming, add the onion and lemon grass and fry over a low heat until softened.
I swear, I have never had so much energy as after eating this soup! | |
Just a quick couple of recipes that I'm really enjoying right now. Posted at both LJ and Vox to keep track of what I'm doing :P. They're both easy and alomst fail-safe!
Gerello Roast
This is a eye round of beef, pot-roasted. It has a lot of flavour and is quite easy to prepare.
Ingredients
* Beef gerello roast (eye round)
* 1 stubbie (Small bottle, about 375mL, for non-Aussies!) of beer
* 1/4 cup of plain flour
* 1 tsp salt
* 1/4 tsp pepper
* 3 Tbsp chilli oil
* 1 can of tomatoes
* 5 medium potatoes
* 6 small orange sweet potatoes
* 5 sprigs of rosemary
* 1/4 cup chopped parsley
* 12 curry leaves (just use a teaspoon of curry powder if you don't have them. I grow it, so no dramas!)
* 1 medium onion, cut into rings
* 1/2 tsp cumin
* 2 Tbsp cornflour
* 2 tsp minced garlic (or 3 or 4 cloves of fresh)
* 2 tsp minced ginger
* 1 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce
Method
1. Mix plain flour, salt and pepper in a bowl. Push roast firmly into the mixture, coating all sides.
2. Add the chilli oil to a large saucepan over medium heat and brown all sides of the roast.
3. Add onion, garlic and ginger, cooking on low heat for 10 minutes.
4. Add beer, tomatoes, herbs, cumin and Worchestershire sauce. Stir well, cover and simmer for 40 minutes.
5. Turn roast, add potatoes and sweet potatoes, and simmer for a further 40 minutes. - Youc an use any vegetables you like, using the normal cooking times as a guide for when to add your vegetables. If the liquid is insufficient, add your favourite stock.
6. Check potatoes with a skewer or fork. If cooked, remove the roast and let stand for 10 minutes. Remove the vegies and place in a bowl. Remove liquid from the hotplate.
7. In a small bowl, combine leftover plain flour and cornflour with a little water and make into a smooth paste. Mix into liquid and return to hotplate, on medium to high heat.
8. Boil vigorously and keep stirring! This will reduce and thicken the liquid. Once thickened sufficiently, remove from heat. Spoon over roast and serve with vegetables.
Almost Apple Pie Cake
Delicious served on it's own or as a dessert with. warm or cold, with cream or ice cream.
Ingredients
* 1/2 cup light olive oil
* 2 x 50gram eggs
* 2 cups brown sugar
* 2 cups chopped apple (approx 3 medium apples peeled and cored)
* 2 cups sifted self-raising flour
* 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
* 1/2 cup currants or chopped raisins.
Method
1. In a bowl, beat together the oil, eggs and sugar. Add remaining ingredients and combine well.
2. Pour into 23x6cm round, greased and lined cake pan.
3. Bake in the centre of a moderate oven (180C) for 50 to 55 minutes, or until cooked through when tested with a skewer.
4. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a cake cooler.
This is a moist cake that will sink in the centre on cooling. Store (if it lasts long enough!) in an airtight container in the fridge.
For those of us who sometimes don't have a lot of time on our hands - and let's face, who doesn't have those days? - I've grabbed some quick and easy pasta recipes that are tasty and good for you.
Pasta Arrabbiata
Arrabbiata means "angry style", so expect this one to pack some bite!
1 brown onion, cut into thin wedges
80g thinly sliced pancetta
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 x 440g cans no-added salt chopped tomatoes
2 Tbsp chopped fresh conteniental parsely
1 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano
To make the sauce, heat a little olive oil in a frying pan, and add the garlic, onion, pancetta, and chilli flakes. cook until the onion softens and pancetta is lightly browned.
Stir in the tomatoes, parsley and oregano. Increase the heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat again, and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes, or until the sauce reaches the desired consistency.
The most commonly served pasta with this sauce is penne or orecchiette, and if not eaten alone, it goes nicely with veal cutlets and salad.
(serves 4)
Pasta Puttanesca
"Puttana" is the Italian word for prostitute, and there are various tales of why this style of sauce has such a name. One is that is very quick and easy to make out of pantry ingredients that would be on hand for most people. Another is that it was kept cooking by ladies of the evening, so that the intense, spicy aroma drew in customers.
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 brown onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400g can tomatoes
60mL (1/4 cup) dry red wine or water
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
12 small pitted Kalamata olives, sliced
2 Tbsp drained capers
2 drained anchovy fillets, cut into 2 cm pieces
3 Tbsp chopped continental parsley
To make the sauce, heat the oil in a medium, heavy-based saucepan. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until softened. Add the garlic, tomatoes, wine or water, tomato paste and chilli. Increase the heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 12-15 minutes, or until the sauce is the desired consistency. Beautiful over tuna steaks instead of pasta, too.
(serves 4)
Tomato, Basil and Garlic Pasta
A beautiful sauce made with delicious Roma tomatoes.
3 tsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 kg ripe Roma (egg) tomatoes
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup chopped fresh basil
To make the sauce, heat the oil on medium, in a large saucepan. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Stir in the tomatoes and pepper. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. Stir in the basil. Also nice served with steamed zucchini and broccoli, and salmon or tuna steaks. Simply divide the vegetables and fish between the serving bowls, then place the pasta in a large serving dish. Spoon the sauce over, and allow diners to help themselves to the pasta and sauce to go with their fish and vegetables.
(serves 4)
Pasta Alla Norma
1 ½ Tbsp olive oil
1 brown onion, cut into thin wedges
400g can of chopped tomatoes
500g eggplant, ends trimmed, cut crossways into 2.5cm-thick slices
¼ cup chopped fresh basil
1 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano
Freshly ground black pepper
80g low-fat fresh ricotta, crumbled
Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in a medium saucepan (with a lid) on medium. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until tender. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes.
Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan on medium-high. Add the eggplant slices and cook for about 5 minutes on each side or until golden. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels. Stir the herbs into the tomato mixture and season with pepper. Divide cooked pasta between 4 pasta bowls. Top with the eggplant and tomato sauce. Sprinkle over the ricotta and basil leaves.
Sugo Di Limone
1 Tbsp olive oil
500g ripe egg tomatoes, seeds removed, and chopped
½ tsp olive oil
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
This is a warm dish, best served with lamb leg steaks, or salmon steaks, and a salad.
Toss cooked pasta with the tomatoes, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and pepper.
Oh my, was this GOOD! I added thin slices of lean steak to it and tossed it through to make it more of a meal on it's own, rather than a side dish. As a side dish it serves 4. Yes, this is definitely one for my recipe collection.
Ingredients
600g peeled pumpkin
250g zucchini
1 red capsicum, seeded and deveined
1 red onion, cut into wedges
1 Tbsp olive oil
50g rocket leaves
1/4 cup of pine nuts, toasted
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, skin on
Method
Preheat your oven to 200C. Cut the pumpkin, zucchini and capsicum into 3cm chunks. Drizzle the oil in the bottom of a large baking dish and add the onion wedges. Toss the rest of the veggies in and stir to coat with oil. Roast for 40 minutes or until vegies are tender. Allow to cool.
While the vegies are cooling, make your dressing. I seldom measure these things, so we'll have to guess. But as always, if you need to adjust it to taste.
In a small jug, mix together a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, a couple of teaspoons of white vinegar and about 100mL of olive oil. Take the roasted garlic cloves and squeeze them out of their skins. They should be nice and soft, but still keep their shape. Smoosh them up, and toss them in with the oil and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice (a tiny bit will do). I also added about 1/2 a teaspoon of white sugar, but I think raw would be better as it has a nice, caramel-y flavour that goes great with roasted garlic and onions, rather than just out and out sweetness like white sugar. I added about a tablespoon or 2 of warm water too, just to tone it down a little. Let that infuse while the vegies cool further.
Quickly heat up a frying pan and put the pine nuts in to toast, shaking them around the pan so that they don't burn. Tip them into the vegies and stir them through.
Wash the rocket leaves, and toss through the vegetables. Drizzle with some of the dressing to taste.
Any leftover dressing should keep a jar in the fridge for a couple of days.
Last week while doing the shopping, I mananged to pick up a container of mascarpone cheese really cheap. So, I decided we'd indulge a bit and have a proper tiramisu as dessert. Since this is something I can make with my eyes shut, I really don't measure anything when I make it, so you may need to adjust the amounts accordingly if you make it.
Tiramisu
1 packet of Savoiardi (sponge fingers)
250g mascarpone cheese
1 tub of double cream (also about 250g)
3 eggs, seperated
3 Tablespoons of sugar
demitasse cup of espresso coffee
Chococino drinking chocolate powder (or grated chocolate)
Grab the packet of Savoiardi (sponge fingers). Open them, and eat one or two with a cup of coffee. Put the rest aside. Scoop the container of mascarpone cheese into a mixing bowl, add the sugar and the yolks of the seperated eggs. Combine on medium speed until the sugar is no longer grainy and the mix is a pale yellow, almost buttery colour. Add half the cream and stir through. Set aside.
In a second bowl, beat the egg whites until they are stiff. Not quite as stiff as they need to be for a meringue, but more than the frothy stage. You'll know it when you see it. Fold the yolk mixture through the egg whites.
Lay out the savoiardi in a layer in the bottom of a serving dish, and drizzle the cold espresso coffee, making sure the fingers are mostly covered. Don't dunk, or you simply end up with a soggy mess, and a watery finish of very strong coffee in the bottom of the tray. Spread a layer of the creamy filling on top, and continue with another layer of fingers and cream cheese mix. Top the final layer with the rest of the cream and sprinkle with the chocolate. Cover and set in the refrigerator for a few hours to allow the flavours to develop.
Mnay versions add coffee liqueur to the espresso, but since I don't drink alcohol except for very rarely, I just left it out. It's a very adaptable recipe and it can be varied easily according to taste, with more or less cheese, cream, sugar... Try it, then make it how you like it!
My kids have been devouring this almost as fast as I can make them; 3 inside a week, with a chocolate cake in between!
Banana Cake
60g butter
90g sugar
1 egg
2 mashed bananas
1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda
2 Tbsp warm milk
125g self-raising flour
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, mashed banana and bicarb soda. Gradually mix in milk and sift in flour alternately. Pour mixture into a well-greased and floured cake tin. Cook in a moderate oven (180C - 200C) for 30 minutes.
This cake is really nice with the cream cheese icing that's usually found topping carrot cakes, so the recipe for this is included. I prefer it lemon flavoured, while the kids much rather the vanilla version. To make it vanilla, just omit the lemon rind and juice and replace it with 1/4 of a teaspoon of vanilla essence. You can also use "light" Philly cheese, to no detriment, if you're trying to be a little more careful about fat and calories. The coconut and/or walnuts are for sprinkling over the top only, and won't affect the recipe if you don't use them. If I'm out, or the rest of the family don't fancy either nuts or coconut, a fine sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg is also nice.
Cream Cheese Frosting
30g butter
60g cream cheese
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup of coconut or chopped walnuts
Beat butter and cream cheeese until creamy. Add remaining ingredients and beat well. Spread on cake and sprinkle with your topping of choice.
Like most people, I have a kitchen filled with tools. Also like most people, I could easily do with a lot less of them than I have, cluttering up drawers and cabinets. Some I keep because I may use it... one day. Others because they're just nice to have - like my melon baller; I've never used it, but just having it makes me feel grand :P. But if I was honest with myself about what I will use regularly and most, my list of "must have" kitchen items would be quite small. That said, I'm not going to cover the large equipment like cookers and refrigerators, just the basics of your utensils drawer and cupboards. And I'm also not going to cover the trendy teapots, digital egg-timers and fancy tongs that "make mum's life SO much easier in the kitchen". I'm a kind of "grass roots" girl, so this is for the basics that no one should be without.
Make sure you've got a great set of knives. It's the quality that counts, not the number of knives in your set. It doesn't
have to be a huge set; I get by with 3 main knives for everyday use, plus a couple of specialty knives for particular things. Most people suggest a 10" chef's knife be included in the list, but I find it too big for most things, and that a 8" utiliy knife does the job quite well. It's perfect for vegetables and manages the meat easily enough. I also recommend a 4" paring knife for small jobs and find that a 10" wavy-edged bread knife is particularly useful. Apart from cutting bread, it works perfectly for lettuce, onions, cabbage and other leafy vegetables, and it's the best knife I've found for cutting tomatoes without squishing them. Later you may want to add to these basics with a boning or filleting knife, and a cleaver for jointing chickens and such, and chopping hard veggies like pumpkins. Add any number of other knives as you prefer, but I find these are used all the time, and do the job well, while some of the others barely get picked up unless it's to move them. Always store them in a decent knife block. While blocks are generally designed to hold the knives blade down, I usually turn them the other way so the blade isn't being rubbed along the timber unnecessarily when they are removed and returned from the block. Some people really like to store knives on a magnetic strip above the workspace, but I'm an absolute kitchen klutz, and that would just be courting disaster.
The next thing is a good timber chopping board. Forget plastic. Despite popular belief, plastic actually grows bacteria more readily than wood. See the results of a test done here. Soft wood is going to get cuts in it the same as plastic, so choose a good, tight-grained hard-wood board. It needs to be nice and heavy so that it doesn't slide around the bench on you while you're trying to chop, big enough to handle the size of the food you're preparing, and a good thick one will let you get out a belt sander every so often and sand off a top layer to smooth out any cuts should they happen.
Everyone who enjoys a good steak needs a cast iron fry pan. And the best thing is that, unless you're planning on buying Le Creuset, they are so cheap! My current one is from the army disposals and camping supplier and cost all of $10. Once you get your cast iron fry pan home, you'll need to season it. If it's new, it will probably be coated in a waxy film, which will have to come off. Despite what the old wives tales say, it's ok to use modern dish soap on it. The old "No soap, EVER!" adage is a leftover from the days of "soap" being a mix of caustic soda and some kind of rendered animal fat, with the lye alone being enough to strip the seasoning from a pan. Modern detergents with wetting agents and mild foaming actions have little in common with the lye soaps of 100 years ago, and won't hurt it. Looking around, you'll find a billion different methods, all telling you that the last one you read was wrong, and why this one is better... Ignore most of them :P. They really complicate a fairly simple process unnecessarily. I like to use a hydrogentated vegetable fat - that is, one that's solid at room temperature. Some kind of lard or animal fat is traditional, but I've never used it. Rub some of the fat all over the pan, and place it upside down in a moderately hot oven for 1 to 2 hours, with a baking pan beneath to catch the drips. Once it comes out of the oven, it should be nice and black and ready to use. For a while, I would only use it for frying high-fat foods such as bacon or a few steaks, as the complete seasoning process takes time and use, so use it, use it, use it! Cast iron heats quickly and evenly, and over time develops and almost non-stick surface. Once you've been eating steaks cooked on an iron pan, you'll not want to eat them any other way.
Good heavy-based saucepans are another top choice in my list of essentials. Never use aluminium for cooking with,
as over the years there have been many studies that suggest a link between the early development of Alzheimer's Disease and using aluminium - including in anti-perspirants and deodorants, along with cookware - and these studies are only being expanded upon and more positive conclusions are being found as time passes. I like my stainless steel with sandwiched copper base, although you could go for cast iron again. Just remember that the weight of them is huge, and the large dutch ovens may require someone with the strength of an Olympic clean and jerk champion to lift. Glass lids seem to be the popular order of the day, because you can see how the food is cooking without having to lift the lid. I hate them, and for the bona fide kitchen klutz, nothing is worse. I have a cupboard full of lidless saucepans, and have already decided my next set will have steel lids.
Next up, get yourself a decent set of standard measures. Choose your local standard for spoons and cups, and find out the equivalents in other systems, or if you're using a lot of Imperial and/or metric recipes, get a set of those as well. Some cooking is forgiving and you can get by on a guess, but there are times when it pays to be more precise. An acurate scale is also a must.
The next most indespensible item I have is a pyrex jug. They're great for measures, but are also fantastic for heating liquids gently in the microwave, and making jelly. Or jello. Whatever you call the wobbly fruit-flavoured stuff that's served with a dessert :P. Mine are in 2 sizes; 1 cup and 1 litre and I find they get used for all sorts of things. Including the smaller one as a gravy or sauce boat on erm... less than formal occasions :P.
Mixing bowls are also vital. I have them in plastic, ceramic and stainless steel, in a variety of different sizes. You'll need different sizes and materials depending on what you're doing. There's no point in having to drag out a giant ceramic bowl to whip up a little bit of cake icing, but if you're making a loaf of bread, it's a different matter. Stainless steel bowls are handy to have as they chill and heat really quickly, over hot water making the use of an impromptu bain marie for melting chocolate or mixing up hollandaise sauce, or chilling while whipping cream over a bowl of ice, a really simple matter.
A blender is great to have, too. Perfect for whizzing soups, smoothies and purees. It's not necessary to even have a bulky blender, if that's all you're going to do with it. A stick blender may take a little more time, but it takes up far less room in the cupboard when it's stored away.
If you've got a thin egg slice and a whisk, you're well on your way :D. They sound so simple, but finding one that suits you is sometimes difficult. I like a really nice, thin edged egg slice or lifter, simply because one with a thicker edge is likely to break your eggs when you try to slide it under them to get them off the pan, or wrinkle your nice round pancakes when they need to be turned. A large balloon whisk gets used around here more than any other, but I find a small flat whisk is handy for making small quantities of scrambled eggs, or mixing up an egg wash.
If baking is your thing, your sifter is going to get a workout, so make sure it's a good quality one, and large anough to handle the amounts of flour and other dry ingredients that you'll be using. But don't overload it too much. Better to have to do 2 seperate siftings, rather than try to cram a large amount in and have it spilling everywhere.
In my kitchen, the final vital piece of equipment... SMOKE DETECTORS! My family joke that they know when dinner is ready, because the smoke alarms go off :P
Some more quick easy pizza toppings to try.
AUSSIE
Spread a pizza base with basic tomato sauce and sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese. Top with thinly sliced bacon; gently crack eggs on top of the bacon and sprinkle with more grated cheese. Try and make a bit of a ring arond the outside with the other toppings to stop the egg running off. Mine would have less bacon and more eggs than this one.
ONION, ANCHOVY AND OLIVE
Cook sliced brown onions in a large frying pan until caramelised. Spread a pizza base with basic tomoato sauce. Top with the onion, chopped anchovy fillets and black olives. Sprinkle with cheese and top with fresh oregano leaves.
SPICY SAUSAGE AND BOCCONCINI
Spread a pizza base with basic sauce and top with sliced cooked spicy Italian sausage, chopped chilli and sliced bocconcini. Serve topped with fresh basil leaves.
MUSHROOM AND FETA
Spread a pizza base with basic tomoat sauce and sprinle with grated cheese. Top with thinly sliced mushrooms, crumbled feta and chopped fresh thyme. Sprinnkle with more grated cheese.
PEPPERONI AND OLIVE
Spread a base with basic sauce and sprinkle with grated mozzarella. Top with sliced pepperoni and black olives and sliced red onion. Top with more mozarella.
Pizza in a hurry is easy and quick if you have prepared bases. And there's usually a topping that's approved of by everyone. The trick is to keep the toppings simple and vibrant, nothing too overpowering. A nice mix of flavours can be achieved quite easily by thinking out of the Domino's box and being creative with what's on hand.
Potato and Rosemary
Leave off the tomato base for this one, and simply sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese. Follow with very thinly sliced new potatoes, chopped fresh rosemary, finely sliced garlic and a drizzle of olive oil.
Salami and Rocket
Spread a base with basic tomato sauce; top with grated mozzarella and thinly sliced hot salami. Once removed from
the oven, top with baby rocket leaves, allowed to wilt on the pizza slightly.
Fig and Prosciutto
Spread a pizza base with basic tomato sauce, then top with thickly sliced fresh figs, coarsely chopped prosciutto, and crumbled gorgonzola cheese. Sprinkle with flat-leaved parsely.
Vegetarian
Spread a base with basic tomato sauce and sprinkle with grated mozzarella. Top with chopped bottled char-grilled capsicum (drained), chopped semi-dried tomatoes, sliced black olives, finely sliced red onion, baby spinach leaves and torn fresh basil. Sprinkle with a little more grated cheese, or alternatively, thinly sliced pieces of feta cheese.
Barbecued Chicken
Spread a base with a mixture of basic tomato sauce and barbecue sauce, thens prinkle with grated cheddar. Top with shredded cooked chicken, thinly sliced mushrooms and more grated cheese.
Lamb and Goat Cheese
Spread a base with basic tomato sauce; top with thinly sliced goat cheese, chopped semi-dried tomatoes, sliced cooked lamb fillet and baby spinach leaves.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved the idea of learning to cook. Her mother's small and ill-equipped kitchen was a place of magic, surely, for such unappealing or ordinary individual ingredients could only be transformed by Alchemy into something so delightful...
My mother professed to be a quite ordinary cook, but to me, it seemed the wonderous dishes miraculously appeared from her cheap set of few saucepans, haphazard drawer of utensils, and sadly small cooktop and oven. Her pikelets and pancakes were perfectly round and evenly golden on both sides. Her meatloaf had a slight crunch to the outside, and the inside was tasty. My sister and I used to vie with our father for the end pieces, so there was more of the crispy outside to eat. Her ANZAC biscuits with peanuts - which the recipes never called for, but she added anyway - are thus far completely unable to be duplicated. I recall always asking her to show me how, but our kitchen was tiny, badly-designed, and had little room for a child to sit without being underfoot. So for hours I would stand behind the divider between the kitchen and the dining room and watch as she made ordinary food; casseroles for dinner, pikelets for morning tea with the other tennis ladies, homemade potato salad for picnics with the extended family, and my favourite; mum's cream cheese tart. Like a cheesecake only less firm, more creamy, and hint of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Unfortuantely, Mum also had very little patience with teaching the art of cooking. She preferred to get in and get it done so she could get out of the kitchen, rather than explain steps, and the whys and wherefores, and let her kitchen get untidy from the efforts of a child to duplicate the process.
Still, from somewhere came a desire. Maybe from my aunt - my father's sister - a classic, oldtime "country cook", even though she lived in the city. I spent several weeks of the year visiting her with my cousin, and although in later days her old Early Kooka (zoom in on the pic at this link to see what one looks like) was passed over in favour of newer appliances, it still remained in the kitchen and was used occasionally. But from her kitchen came lusciously thick pea and ham soup, lamb shanks with the meat almost falling from the bone, and lemon meringue pies better than any I've tasted since.
That could be nostaligia talking, but it seems that the lemon filling is never lemony enough, the meringue never mallowy enough, or high enough, and the base never firm enough...
Wherever it came from, it was enough.
But for so many years now I've not enjoyed cooking. How is meant to be enjoyed, when the cook is left alone in the kitchen every step of the way, while those around are sitting in the living room bickering and snarling at each other? How is it meant to be savoured when the meal is eaten with barely a comment of gratitude for effort, maybe a quickly muttered, "Thanks for dinner" before departing the table quickly, desperate to continiue watching some television programme? It's impossible for me to enjoy when I know that I will be left alone again in the kitchen to clean up until it's done, despite my asking for help on that score.
Now, I think I need to discover again what makes it wonderful, and such a joy.
I need to do it for me, and anyone else can simply enjoy the fruits of a well-loved hobby.
As long as someone else does the dishes.
