Livia N – Page 81 – no counterspace

My kitchen needs more storage space

I have a small apartment, and in some ways it has been a good idea to limit my available storage space. I will fill anything… and that will just make it harder to move in the future. But I love my apartment, and I’m likely to stay here for a while.

So I am trying to figure out what to do with my available floorspace.

Option 1: Nothing.
Bonus: It keeps me from accumulating a whole lot of extra crap.

Option 2: Shelves
Can hold my cookbooks and extra pantry stuff… and, if the shelves end up sturdy enough, I could finally bring my mixer from my parents’ home.
Minus – omg, I already have enough food staples stored to hold out against a seige for a fortnight… but they could be in more visible locations so that I’d use them up… *cough* yeah, right, like I wouldn’t just fill the space because it was there… but I would move it all to a level where I didn’t need a stepstool to get to the ketchup.

Option 3: Chest freezer
I can steal all the 8 year old beef that is filling the bottom of my mother’s chest freezer and I can have more room to store my own stuff without having to keep 40 lunches at work.
Minus – I will hoarde food and possibly not get around to eating it, either. And what’s the point of having room to get free meat, if I’m going to spend $150 to get it? Also, it doesn’t solve the book storage problem. Do they make hutches to go over chest freezers, like an etagere?

Chicken Marsala-ish

So I had a hankering for Chicken Marsala… but no marsala wine. But that’s not the sort of thing I let stop me.

I looked up several recipes for chicken marsala and them left them all at work and tried to recreate the plan from memory.

Also, I did not see the need to buy marsala. After all, if you need fortified wine, what could be better than Manischewitz?

So I glugged a bunch of oil into a pan and fried thinly sliced chicken, which had been dredged in lightly seasoned flour.

Then, about halfway through, I realised that I should have sauteed in less oil so that it would make a nice gravy base.

So after the frying was done and the chicken was draining on paper towels, I pulled out another large pan and scooped up as much of the floury dregs from the bottom as I could and used that to fry onion and mushrooms.

(note: It was useful here to cook up three breast instead of the two I really needed because it was impossible not to sneak hot fried chicken breast bits while fiddling with the rest)

Once the mushrooms had cooked to the point where they released oil back out, I dabbed some up with a paper towel. Then the chicken went back in and I glugged a bunch of Manischewitz over all… And added the garlic (3 large cloves, chopped). Lots of pepper, salt, and a good bit of powdered thyme went in – with a dash of worcestershire sauce and a drop of browning sauce.

More cooking.

And then [redacted] lobbied for a splash of milk (ended up being light cream) to loosen things up a little more.

We ate it over mashed potatoes with cooked spinach and garlic on the side – very tasty. (very rich, too)

getting my fridge organized

Food
meat
1 leftover rib roast (beef)
1 leftover steak
~~1 leftover lamb shank w/ lots of meat~~
~~miscellaneous fajita leftovers~~
ETA: 12 chicken leg quarters

veggies
mushrooms
spinach
broccoli
red bell peppers
potatoes

Meals I can make out of that
Hash – rib roast and potatoes
~~Lamb Korma – lamb shank, mushrooms~~
Meat & Rice Gooshie – fajita leftovers, broccoli, steak (if fajitas were steak, too), jar of salsa, cheese, spinach, bell peppers

I cooked 3 leg quarters in cranberry juice and froze one.

~~The cooked one can go with rice and a reduction of the sauce in which it was cooked.~~

Things I need to buy at Fresh Grocer on the way home
cranberry juice
cheese
jar of salsa

Stock report

So end result:
1 qt of chicken stock frozen for my mother
48 ice cubes of chicken stock put up properly in my freezer
1 1/2 quarts of chicken stock in my fridge waiting to turn into ice cubes
1 1/4 quarts of duck stock in the fridge

I think I need to get everything frozen before I leave the house for a week.

And both refrigerators at work will have maintenance done over break, so I can’t store the leftover lunches I have put together and frozen. It’ll be a fine trick to fit everything in.

I think I can do it, if I leave the ice cube trays out of the freezer after I empty them and just put the containers in whole. Things *should* fit.

Mmmmm food makes it warmer

What could be better to make for dinner when a bunch of women get together to watch Stargate: Atlantis than lemon chicken? Nothing. But having cookies and mashed potatoes on the side is a big plus.

I have had chicken stock AND duck stock boiling away all weekend. Actually, they are both turned off and cooling down now so I can put them up, but – YAY – so much humidity that it is condensing on my walls and fogging up my windows.

And for breakfast today I had an egg white omelet full of cream cheese and bacon (because I’ve been thinking about that ever since Traveller mentioned it. And, no, I am not dieting – I just keep giving all my good yolks to the feral cat.

Mmmm… I may be dressed, but I am all warm and cozy in my bed, cuddling my cat, with a belly fully of tasty hot food.

Later there shall be bridge playing.