P&G's First Kitchen Date

For a long time now, I noticed that I have friends across various countries in similar personal situations as me - relocation due to marriage and all that comes with it. The most significant thing that comes with it is time. Lots of it. Suddenly the fact that a day has early morning, morning, mid morning, afternoon, mid-afternoon, late afternoon, early evening and "husband home" time, is a new reality! Anyway, what is common across most of my friends and acquaintances thrown into this world is a new found or reignited love for cooking. 

If you read G's post on our history (http://timesunlimited.blogspot.com/2012/08/kitchen-date-with-friend.html), why she would be the one to inspire me becomes obvious. Basically, one afternoon skype and coffee session where I was grumbling about not doing anything constructive I asked her for recipes and she came up with this idea. Trust her and only her to know just what i probably needed to bring sanity to me at that time. 

I already cook - I'm just an amateur cook and tend to experiment around. But this time we set a recipe, a day-range and we both would cook - and blog about it. So as promised to her, this blog is about our first kitchen date :)

We chose to make Short Bread Fingers as per this recipe:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shortbread_1290

I was full of good intentions but Friday is a weekend for us in the middle east and I postponed our date to Saturday.

Come Saturday, I decided to add a Pasta to the menu - so my husband got fed home made cookies and pasta for dinner :)

The recipe seemed simple enough and I've baked cookies earlier -- not sure these were supposed to be cookies though. Anyway, i added the butter and sugar and found its smelling funny so I improvised. I added in some vanilla essence and coffee. Then came the dough which wasn't turning into anything but powder, so i added milk.

With great excitement I had bought all the cookware - orange silicone bake ware  and some shape cutters. 

I used all, and put it into the over. Looked OK enough

I also made a spice indian pasta. Pink Sauce, Green Onions, Capsicum, Brocolli and mushroom. Its one of my "signature" dishes.

The result? The cookies were hard and some of them were a bit too thick - but the taste was great. So my improvisation wasn't bad!

Pasta - well it had a spicy indian flavour but we both loved it.

All in all a fun day - great concept and I see why turmoil, food and cooking go hand in hand.

Hum of the Day

When I found the cookie dough smelling odd, I knew it wasn't the way i wanted it. I knew what to do, I knew that a dash of vanilla and coffee is a good cure all. I wish I could handle life that way. I could be on control and know the quick-fixes. For now, I am happy that in my Kitchen, I am. Baby steps.