just a (transplanted) city girl

Sometimes I cook, not often but it does happen. I have your typical NYC apartment, small with a stove, counter top, sink and fridge in a little recessed area, not a separate room. When I was looking at apartments there was one with a separate kitchen, the oven couldn’t open all the way it was so narrow. I said no, I don’t cook but my friend does and she visits me. I like my little cooking area even though I don’t cook.

With my allergies and costs going up and my salary not going up, I have started to do a little cooking. My most recent endeavors started with hummus. I was going to a convention over the weekend and needed lunch. I always make chicken salad and take crackers for these things. Normally I make the chicken salad with cream cheese. This time I wanted to go a little lower fat so I thought I would mix it with hummus but I was out. The problem when I buy hummus is I have to read all the ingredients and it gets tiring. That’s why I bought a can of chick peas (garbanzo beans) to make my own. I drained them, mashed them with a fork and added some hot sauce, lemon juice and some of the liquid that was in the can. It turned out O.K. not a smooth as from the store, next time I’m going to try buying dry peas and cooking them myself and using my blender to get the hummus smooth.

Tuesday I cooked lentils. I had bought an Indian dinner to prepare that was red lentils in tomato sauce after I ate it I thought it was pretty good and should be easy to make myself, so I bought red lentils. They have been sitting in my cupboard ever since. Now I decided to cook them, I was flush with success after the hummus. I looked up the directions online and put them on the stove. The directions were from a blog and I started reading the comments. Partly from envy because there were so many and I get a pitiful amount of comments. Then I heard a sizzle and looked to see the pot was boiling over. It was a good thing this was the Tuesday before the Wednesday I was off since I had now had to spend a couple hours scrubbing my stove top. No it didn’t take that long to clean up the boil over remains, but the whole story of why I spent two hours cleaning my stove could take up a blog post of its own. That story, along with the story of the wet wall in my bathroom will have to wait for another day. The lentils weren’t ruined, just slightly overcooked, I added tomato sauce and grated cheese to make it a tasty dish.

Tonight I decided to make candied ginger. I started eating it for my stomach and got addicted to it. It’s another thing where reading the ingredients is tiring. Unlike the hummus and lentils, I have never made candied ginger before. So I googled it, then went to the store. Now, there was nothing in the instructions saying how to pick out good ginger, not thinking it made a difference I just kept filling the bag until I had a pound, bought some sugar and milk (I was out of milk) and headed home. Besides not knowing how to pick out good ginger, I had completely forgotten the directions said to ‘peel and slice ginger’. I don’t have a peeler, so the ginger was washed and sliced and I made candied ginger with the peel on. It took forever to slice the ginger, Alton Brown says to use a MANDOLINE, so I think I will get one. After cooking the ginger ‘gently’, which I had no idea how to cook something gently, till it was tender, there again “HUH? Tender, yeah no idea.” the directions say to weigh the cooked ginger and add an equal amount of sugar, then add 3 tablespoons of water and bring to a boil. I checked two recipes and both had the same amount of liquid, I was skeptical but followed the directions. You can see by the picture, there is a lot of liquid there. Where did it all come from? Can you see now why I don’t cook? The directions also say to cook until the ginger gets dry, about 15-20 minutes. It took much longer and I started to panic, thinking maybe I had ruined it. For pity’s sake, I can ruin boiled eggs.

Eventually it was done and I poured the ginger out onto an aluminum cookie sheet. You can see it here. I am not sure if I saved any money, but it is really tasty, I had to force myself to stop eating it. I will definitely be making it again, after I buy a peeler and a mandoline. I hope you have enjoyed reading about my culinary efforts. You might want to mark this down on your calendar, it is a momentous occasion. It’s actually worthy of a parade. Someone else will have to make the arrangements for a parade however, I have candied ginger to eat.