In the Kitchen

The Kitchen [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] ---------------------- ---------------------- Cabbage Rolls Watching 'food porn' on YouTube was the inspiration for stuffed cabbage - here. I've made stuffed cabbage before, but it's probably been over 2 years since.  As it's not a regularly prepared dish, it's almost like starting over figuring out how to best put it together. There's lots of ways to cook, so I like to watch or read several recipes before sort of plotting what I want to do (which is what I think might be simplest and tastiest, according to my judgement). This seemed simple, but it took me a lot longer than I thought it would.   It's just a 4 step process:  (1) ready the cabbage; (2) prepare the stuffing (3) roll and anchor; (4) pour on sauce; and cook for 1.5 hrs. As I'm without an oven element at the moment, I've had to do this on the stove top.  The cooking pot opening wasn't wide enough for the size of my dinner plates to rest on top of the rolls, so I used two side plates and that worked out fine. Intended to just prep the cabbage and to precook some rice in readiness for the next day, but once I got going I kept going, so this was finally done at about 3am. There goes the body-clock readjustment -- again. Happy with the form of the rolls and the texture etc, but seemed way under-seasoned for my tastes.  So when I do this again, I'll be throwing in loads more paprika, pepper and probably some toasted and ground fennel seeds (although that's not traditional). The version I did was varied by introducing a flour & paprika roux/gravy to the liquid at the very end.  Turned out good. Served cabbage rolls with potato mash.   Loads left over, so it's more of the same next day ... and the next.  Uh-oh, I could get really sick of this.  Not one of those things I'd like to eat constantly.  I think I just get carried away thinking I could eat the same thing all the time, but I can't really. Might have a look online and see if I can freeze this, because there's a lot there. The slow cooker bread was a disaster.    Began as a disaster and ended that way. I forgot that I wasn't to have donuts for a while  and I began whipping up a batch for a mid afternoon 'breakfast'.   Not happy with the mix, so I changed my mind and made it a pancake mix instead.   Bad move.  Results were rubbery.  But I was too hungry to care. Had to figure what to do with the mountain of batter.  Hit on the idea of bread in the slow cooker, which I'd been eyeing off. Too lazy to check the video recipe again.  Seemed simple enough.  Thought I'd just wing it.  LOL ... bad move. Kept waiting for my bread to be 'done' by monitoring the top of the loaf, as I don't have a thermometer to check the heat in the centre.  Planned to just wait till it 'appeared' done. I didn't factor in that the top would never appear done because the loaf is steaming in the slow cooker utensil, creating condensation which moistens the top of the loaf, while the parts that are against the base and sides of the ceramic bowl are receiving more heat with less moisture  and are baking and drying off.  Of course, this means the longer you leave the slow cooker on waiting for the top to somewhat harden, the more hardened and browned the bottom gets.  Oops. The hard burnt bits are like rock, but the soft centre bits are edible (if you're desperate), although they're discoloured & probably a health hazard or something.   Would definitely do this again ... more carefully. Saved by the Ganges On the bright side, I was saved from stuffing my face like I usually do when I'm cooking:  saved by burnt bread and saved by the Ganges. Not long before dinner, got onto some Chinese site with photos of some guy's holiday in India, with bloated corpses floating down the Ganges, skulls lying around, packs of dogs eating corpses, an expanse of space dotted with close together, side-by-side, deposits of nothing but human excrement etc. The memory of the images kept haunting me as I tried to eat the cabbage rolls.  LOL Only got partly through my meal, close to throwing up.   If I'd tried to focus on the memory of images that were sort of haunting me, I think I seriously could have thrown up all over the place. Got told off for looking at sites that are 'bad' for me, but maybe it's not such a bad thing not being able to eat, when you could do with losing a few kilos.  Should run off some 'diet' pics to stick up on the refrigerator door, but I don't think that would go down well.   LOL --- Slow cooker bread should have been roughly 1 hr & 15 minutes ... instead of the 4.5 or whatever I did.  LOL