Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Making the effort

The kitchen has been fairly quiet around here lately. We cook, I swear, but it isn't anything to write home about. Most of it is stuff you've already seen - we fall into ruts when we're busy. Frequently we don't make it into the kitchen until 8:30 at which point it's too dark to get any photos even if we were making anything worth telling you about. But we still enjoy it.

pizza prep
{pizza prep}

About the unnecessary plating that I do - you would think that pre-plating (and creating extra dishes) would make cooking more stressful, but I like it. It slows me down, it reminds me that everyday meals are special.  Sometimes the plating takes the place of actual cooking.

wine + cheese + olives
{a simple dinner from last summer}

We even do this when we eat frozen pot stickers (um, at least once a week, if we're being honest). No, I did not bother to make any side dishes, but we do have three different kinds of soy sauce, tempura dipping sauce and rice vinegar. That kind of counts.

gyoza night
{gyoza night - photo and plating by D}

The white platters are from Crate and Barrel about a million years ago and I don't think they make these exact ones anymore. But honestly, I think I'd like to add the cuatro platters from CB2 to my collection, because they look like an even better version. The little prep bowls are mostly from Crate and Barrel as well. When D and I moved in together my mom surprised us with an enormous box filled with an assortment of prep bowls. We use them for prep, but also for serving sauces.

There are limits, of course. My emergency meal* is peanut butter, eaten by the spoonful and adorned with chocolate chips. There's no way to dress that one up, so I just eat it out of the jar.

peanut butter + chocolate chips
{peanut butter + chocolate chips}

*An emergency meal is what you eat when you arrive home from work and you are dying. Ideally, an emergency meal should provide actual sustenance (pickles, though tempting, do not work well), should not require heating or chopping and must be able to be eaten with a single utensil or your fingers.

25 comments:

  1. I love going that little extra bit further and plating things up nicely. It makes everything feel just a bit more special. Like drinking juice from a wine glass :-)

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  2. This is pretty much exactly how I feel about food--I'm a grad student and don't get home til late, I'm only cooking for one, it's hella hot out, so even if I wanted to do a roasted curry cauliflower, it's too hot to turn on the oven...blegh. And I grew up calling the peanut-butter-on-a-spoon-with-chocolate-chips a "hedgehog" because you'd (of course) take that extra plating time to give the peanut butter hedgehog chocolate spikes.

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  3. You never cease to inspire me! Why shouldn't every meal (even a frozen one) be special?! From today forward I am going to make an effort to make every meal pretty (even my emergency meals).

    http://minimalinfluence.blogspot.com/

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  4. kiwi always laughs at me because i'm so neurotic about plating. i think you eat with your eyes and your stomach. both have to be satisfied!

    on the other end of the spectrum... yesterday i ate a spoonful of nutella straight from the jar for dessert. no, i am not proud of this :)

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  5. I prep my mise in place before I cook anything. It makes me feel fancy,a nd gives me a good excuse to use the prep bowls I buy more of every Christmas Eve in China Town.

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  6. "It slows me down, it reminds me that everyday meals are special." - I like this a lot. I enjoy my food so much more when it's been a calm, slow, thoughtful preparation rather than running round chucking it all over the place.

    and peanut butter out of the jar? absolutely!

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  7. I love the honesty of your post! ...and there's nothing wrong with frozen potstickers! They're delicious!!! :]

    My emergency meals are pb&j sandwiches. I can't ever get enough of them!

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  8. ha! I love this post. you're one of my favourite blog people Rachel!!

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  9. peanut butter and chocolate is one of my favorites, plus the protein makes it totally legit in my book.

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  10. Weekly potstickers, forgoing side dishes, and just-because plating? I support these eating habits.
    -sarah

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  11. Peanut butter + chocolate chips have been one of my favourite snacks since I was small. And always out of the jar & bag. Since getting married, chips + salsa have occasionally doubled as dinner since it's DJ's favourite thing to eat.

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  12. Pickles and cheese or olives and cheese are a favourite emergency meal of mine! maybe with salty crackers.....
    And I LOVE peanut butter and chocolate. Spoon out the pb and stick that spoon right into the choc chips. OR fill easter bunny ears full of pb. mmmm

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  13. mmmmmmm you plating is so better than my paper plates

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  14. Your ability to make an ordinary meal look that good is a special skill.

    I love the idea of plating everything, even in the prep, but not having a dishwasher makes the process less appealing.

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  15. @ Bridget - hedgehogs! I love that! I'm going to start calling it that immediately.

    @ ___________________ - we don't have a dishwasher either! I just have a dish rack set up and I wash dishes as I go along, every time I have a free second (like while veggies are sauteeing or water is boiling). Once I got into the habit of washing immediately, it was a lot less onerous.

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  16. If you put the peanut butter on a celery, it's healthy-ish. And then you can call them 'ants on a log'. Though hedgehog sounds cooler.

    I need to get into the habit of washing immediately. My husband will thank me.

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  17. strangely, I've been eating a lot of pickles these days ;) emergency meals are pretty common in my household. usually some rolled up pepperoni and cheese on a cracker. adult lunchables!

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  18. Rachel, what sauces do you like with your gyoza?

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  19. @ mari - I usually just use regular (aged) soy sauce with a splash of rice vinegar. My guy sometimes prefers the lighter soy sauce with less sodium. I also will sometimes use tempura dipping sauce, if I feel like I want a little sweetness.

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  20. My "emergency meal" is tuna-rice. It's a can of tuna, a packet of 90 second rice, and some Greek seasoning. Yum yum yum!

    I have to say that I envy your meal of gyoza. I've never made it at home, but it seems a lot easier than trekking to the sushi restaurant every time I get a craving. Do you like edamame? Because that would be the PERFECT side for gyoza :)

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  21. I love that you take extra care to plate your meals so thoughtfully. It makes every meal so much more special, no matter what you're eating!

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  22. Ditto on the peanut butter straight from the jar. Almond butter works just fine, too. :)

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  23. I realize this is over a year late, but I'm going through and reading everyyyything. I love this idea of slowing down and plating meal prep. Life it too beautiful to not appreciate it!

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