April 9, 2009

  • Playing with Food

    In the last year or so, I've become more adventurous in the kitchen. Part of the reason is I've been inspired by Tom, part of it has been necessity. And in New Zealand they just don't eat out as much as we do in the States, so there's a bit of "When in Rome..." to it, too.

    There's nothing quite like having a limited supply of groceries to work with. I may have precious little counter space in my kitchen, but I do have a pantry that has typically been pretty well stocked. But when you're traveling and have to carry your groceries with you, you get good at keeping things to a pretty bare minimum. Even when I settled in Christchurch and was living in a house, I still didn't have that much space to keep things, plus I didn't want to stock up too much since I knew it would only be for a couple of months.

    Not all my experiments have been successful - I don't recommend tuna and ramen noodles, for example, even with the addition of Thai Sweet Chili Sauce - but nothing has been inedible (so far). And a couple of things have been downright tasty, such as when I tossed some bacon in with my stir fry 'cause I needed to use it before it got too old and realized it was good. Or earlier this week when I went on a bit of a fridge/pantry raid and put together a chicken and lentil soup for lunch. It probably would have been even better if there had been leftovers, but I polished it off in one sitting.

    I finally got a gig freelancing which starts in a bit over a week (hooray!), so I won't have as much time on my hands as I've had the last several months, but I think I'll still stick to cooking at home rather than eating out so much.