What's a girl to do when her boyfriend is away? Cooking and cleaning! I swear it's not as anti-feminist as it seems.
I decided to have a kitchen adventure and make a brand new and very complicated recipe. Except that it's not that complicated... it just required me going to a grocery store that I never use - which is an adventure in itself! I was all disoriented. Figs were starting to look like chestnuts. The fresh meats were nowhere to be seen. But thankfully the employees, scattered all around the store, all wore nice bright red shirts and were able to direct me when I got lost.
Then I hit the LCBO for two types of Port and really had no idea what I was even looking for. I mean, I couldn't really tell which would be good for a soup, so I based my decision on the amount of bonus Air Miles that was offered with each one.
The next part of this adventure was cooking duck. I'd never done it before and was a little scared. It's a whole other species of bird! But I have to say that I was pretty impressed with my mallard intuition. My duck soup was a success but not without a few hiccups. So to help your future kitchen endeavors, I'm giving you my "What NOT to do during a kitchen adventure" list:
1) If you have a paper cut, wear gloves when touching minced garlic. Ditto for lemon/lemon juice. The pain is so incredible that at that moment I almost wanted to amputate my entire arm.
2) If you plan on chopping up and handling jalapeno peppers, make sure to take out your contact lenses and then DO NOT TOUCH YOUR EYE. If you do, you will feel like a fountain of sulfuric acid is pouring gingerly over your eyeballs.
3) Always use protection when handling hot objects. You must wear oven mitts when removing a cast iron skillet from a hot oven. If you do not, there will be much burning.
4) Just because an oven mitt doesn't technically conduct heat, you should not touch the part of the oven mitt that was in contact with the hot object only seconds ago. It's still pretty damn hot.
5) Always read the entire recipe before starting it and make sure you understand all the steps don't miss anything. Sheppard's Pie just isn't the same without the ground beef.
Numbers 1, 3 and 4 were from today. The upside is that the duck soup was a success.
