Japanese

L has been working very long hours the last couple of weeks, culminating in 15 hours at work on Thursday. Given I haven't yet managed to poison her, she was more than amenable to me cooking this Friday, rather than seeing whether I could repeat my feat of eating a whole Domino's pizza in one sitting.

Once I'd stopped the frying pan spitting over-hot oil and sauce at me, Teriyaki chicken with red peppers and spring onions (or whatever they're called here) was largely a triumph.

Bacteria - Round Two

After a week of feeding my flour/bacteria mutant twice a day in the ideal warmth of Beige Towers, yesterday was baking day. The starter floated in water, as it apparently should, and was kneaded into a dough by L. 

While she was out lunching with friends (while I had the remnants of last Friday's pizza which should really have featured in the cooking part of this blog), I folded it twice more, leaving a sticky, slightly rising dough. I'd like to show you  a picture of it, but I can't because blogger is rotating the picture through 90 degrees, giving the impression my flat is falling off a cliff. We then decamped back to L's since her oven is far more likely to reach the correct temperature. After 45 minutes in the oven, the bread actually rose, and smelled and tasted of bread, rather than the strange chemical, paint-like smell that it gave off for the previous two days; as off-putting as that was, at least it didn't smell of vomit anymore. 

We both agreed that this was fun, but probably not to be repeated, given the effort involved to arrange your day around feeding it. It passed the time in my last week of being between jobs though, and showed that I am still able to follow experimental details.

Ginger

Another Friday evening, another chance to prove to L that after nearly 20 years of being in labs, I can accurately follow instructions. After wandering round Safeway for quite a long time wondering where the ginger root was (including an emergency phone call to ask where I would likely find it), on the Valentine's Day dinner menu: chicken and peppers in soy sauce/ginger/honey/hot sauce. Having never had this before, I was pleasantly surprised, and will definitely be doing this again. There then followed L's chocolate lava cake and An Officer and a Gentleman on the DVD player. Who needs massively hiked prices in local restaurants when you can have such an agreeable night in?

Bacteria

Into the second week of my break before a job in the real world. Last week chiefly involved watching the first series of Game of Thrones about three years after most of the rest of the planet. This week, series two, chasing a bank transfer that has taken eight days (and counting), and bread making. I have been given this homework by L, who has decided after three separate bouts of me cooking dinner for her that I am competent in the kitchen, Super Bowl party chocolate brownie catastrophe notwithstanding.

The bread in question is sourdough, which requires fermentation of the 'starter' shown on the right by bacteria caused by the decomposition of flour by water. It's slowly getting more air bubbles in it, and it's slowly getting runnier. Every 12 hours I have to feed the bubbling, evil-smelling thing in the tupperware on the left with more flour and water, all the while hoping I'm not accosted by my neighbours for the smell emanating from my kitchen. I've made some damned smelly things in the lab in the last 14 years, but this? Crikey.

"You can make this again"

This is going to be a semi-regular feature, showing off what I have been up to in my kitchen escapades to try and thank L for driving me to IKEA and CrossIron Mills and everywhere else in the charted universe in search of a set of coasters that I like. Oh and for also baking me a birthday cake, buying me Star Wars Lego, and taking me to Vintage Chophouse on my birthday. I was spoilt rotten. 

So after Saturday night's latest IKEA date (the third in four weeks, can you believe), there was a stop at Superstore on the way back for ingredients to spicy pork meatballs. The one time I tried to make meatballs a couple of Easters ago ended in abject failure, since they disintegrated on contact with any sort of cooking implement. The list of ingredients for the recipe included half a cup of sour cream. Now that's a staple beloved of Mexican cuisine (which I'm not a fan of), but of meatballs? I was dubious. After nearly 90 minutes of faffing about, the end result is shown on the right. Fully intact, moist, and spicy. L was heard to declare "you can make this again".