That's Just How I Roll
It's rare that I have a weekend so full, that Monday is a respite for me. This was one such weekend. I hosted two dinner parties this weekend, or as my parents would call them, dinner for the family since there was myself and the Singer, as well as a couple of guests.
While I was growing up, it was dad who'd usually do dinner through the week, except when he was on afternoon shift. He'd get things timed such that dinner was ready to be cooked and served within 20 minutes of mom coming home. It ran the gamut from roasts to burgers, soup to pasta. In retrospect, I really appreciate what he was able to do and how he did it. Part of me wishes I'd stayed in the kitchen more and learned, and not just wandered off to watch television.
The weeks that he was afternoons, mom would do the cooking, and things were much simpler. Nothing took more than 30 minutes to cook. That's not to say mom wasn't an excellent cook, she just excelled at the large family dinners. When it came time to have the extended family over for dinner, she claimed the kitchen. Where my dad seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of timing for the family dinner, my mother deployed the family celebrations with the precision and predictabilty of a computer subroutine. Everything happened precisely on schedule, nothing was forgotten and problems were dealt with.
I've still got a lot to learn from my parents; lessons which I sorely needed as I put dinners together. The dinners were complete opposites of one another. The first was your basic meat and potatoes fare, and the second was vegetarian Indian again in yet another attempt to ensure that the Shivley one had at least one decent meal while he's here.
Saturday - Meat and Potatoes
The lineup for Saturday's dinner was a roast pork, potatoes around the roast, and sugar snap peas with onions and cinnamon. Nail and his lovely wife, Hammer were the attendees and kindly brought some beer and wine... as well as appetites. Now, roasts aren't my forte, and I'll admit there were a couple of panicked calls to Serdad, which resulted in me being on Serdmom's shit list. Regardless, I was able to pull things together with the help of the Singer, though I'm slow to accept help in my kitchen. One of those things I'm going to have to work on, I'm sure.
The roast was rolled in rosemary, garlic, pepper and salt and then tossed in the oven to cook merrily away. By far, this was a much easier dinner to put together since everything centered around the cooking of the roast and the spilling of the beer.
I'd underestimated the time required to cook and put the roast in later than I'd wanted to. As a 5 lb pork sirloin roast, it had to cook for about 3 and half hours. Trichinella is not our friend. Still, once it was in the oven, I was able to mostly forget about it as I cooked up the onions and peas. This involved carmellizing the onions (which I still need to work), steaming the peas and then combining with a bit of cinnamon. The potatoes were parboiled, and then tossed into the pan with the pork for the last half hour.
All said and done, dinner got served around 9:15. Thanks go to Hammer for helping me check the roast, as I'd lost my meat thermometer.
Groans of pleasure were heard and a great time was had by all.
Sunday
In a complete 180 from Saturday's dinner, Sunday featured the some tasty vegetarian Indian dishes, which I pulled out of Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine. The Shively one also contributed with a dish of his own.
For my part, I cooked up Asparagus and Corn in a Fenugreek Curry, as well as an Eggplant, Tomato and Green Onion yogurt based curry. The Shivley one created a coconut vegetable curry with hard boiled eggs.
My kitchen has never seen so much action. Two cooks at the stove, every burner going as well as the oven to keep things warm. Oddly enough, we managed to pull it out, and get dinner served just before 9. All in all, it was a success.
And I was ready for bed!
On a related note, it was really nice to do something as a couple with other people. The Singer was cause of celebration and the reason for its success as she entertained our guests, put up with my controlling kitchen ways and kept me sane when I'd go off the rails. I was glad to have her there. This was a great weekend, and I look forward to more of them.
While I was growing up, it was dad who'd usually do dinner through the week, except when he was on afternoon shift. He'd get things timed such that dinner was ready to be cooked and served within 20 minutes of mom coming home. It ran the gamut from roasts to burgers, soup to pasta. In retrospect, I really appreciate what he was able to do and how he did it. Part of me wishes I'd stayed in the kitchen more and learned, and not just wandered off to watch television.
The weeks that he was afternoons, mom would do the cooking, and things were much simpler. Nothing took more than 30 minutes to cook. That's not to say mom wasn't an excellent cook, she just excelled at the large family dinners. When it came time to have the extended family over for dinner, she claimed the kitchen. Where my dad seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of timing for the family dinner, my mother deployed the family celebrations with the precision and predictabilty of a computer subroutine. Everything happened precisely on schedule, nothing was forgotten and problems were dealt with.
I've still got a lot to learn from my parents; lessons which I sorely needed as I put dinners together. The dinners were complete opposites of one another. The first was your basic meat and potatoes fare, and the second was vegetarian Indian again in yet another attempt to ensure that the Shivley one had at least one decent meal while he's here.
Saturday - Meat and Potatoes
The lineup for Saturday's dinner was a roast pork, potatoes around the roast, and sugar snap peas with onions and cinnamon. Nail and his lovely wife, Hammer were the attendees and kindly brought some beer and wine... as well as appetites. Now, roasts aren't my forte, and I'll admit there were a couple of panicked calls to Serdad, which resulted in me being on Serdmom's shit list. Regardless, I was able to pull things together with the help of the Singer, though I'm slow to accept help in my kitchen. One of those things I'm going to have to work on, I'm sure.
The roast was rolled in rosemary, garlic, pepper and salt and then tossed in the oven to cook merrily away. By far, this was a much easier dinner to put together since everything centered around the cooking of the roast and the spilling of the beer.
I'd underestimated the time required to cook and put the roast in later than I'd wanted to. As a 5 lb pork sirloin roast, it had to cook for about 3 and half hours. Trichinella is not our friend. Still, once it was in the oven, I was able to mostly forget about it as I cooked up the onions and peas. This involved carmellizing the onions (which I still need to work), steaming the peas and then combining with a bit of cinnamon. The potatoes were parboiled, and then tossed into the pan with the pork for the last half hour.
All said and done, dinner got served around 9:15. Thanks go to Hammer for helping me check the roast, as I'd lost my meat thermometer.
Groans of pleasure were heard and a great time was had by all.
Sunday
In a complete 180 from Saturday's dinner, Sunday featured the some tasty vegetarian Indian dishes, which I pulled out of Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine. The Shively one also contributed with a dish of his own.
For my part, I cooked up Asparagus and Corn in a Fenugreek Curry, as well as an Eggplant, Tomato and Green Onion yogurt based curry. The Shivley one created a coconut vegetable curry with hard boiled eggs.
My kitchen has never seen so much action. Two cooks at the stove, every burner going as well as the oven to keep things warm. Oddly enough, we managed to pull it out, and get dinner served just before 9. All in all, it was a success.
And I was ready for bed!
On a related note, it was really nice to do something as a couple with other people. The Singer was cause of celebration and the reason for its success as she entertained our guests, put up with my controlling kitchen ways and kept me sane when I'd go off the rails. I was glad to have her there. This was a great weekend, and I look forward to more of them.
posted by Serdic at 08:28
4 Comments:
Here's your freaking comment. Don't say I never did anything for you.
(P.S. It was a nice weekend, wasn't it. Especially the beer on the floor. Definitely my favourite part.)
Given that I can't say you never did anything for me, that does not preclude me saying, "You've never done anything for me."
Thanks for the comment!
Don't use that earth logic on me. I r smrt.
Yeah. I definitely need more sleep.
Beer on the floor huh. I never get invited to the good parties.
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