I made dinner!
2015-Feb-05, Thursday 20:21![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
That sounds more momentous than it actually is. It's not that I'm unable to cook, it's that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
softlykarou likes cooking much more than I do, so she cooks and I clean and everything is okay. Even now, while she's away at a psychology conference, our fridge is so stuffed full of leftovers that they can basically last me until she gets back.
But not quite. While I was able to use the huge amounts of Iranian stew as a side dish and had leftover chicken rizzala with rice last night, I wanted something a bit different tonight, so I took out some skirt steak, set it to marinate in mirin and szechuan sauce overnight, and about half an hour ago I cooked it:
The plates are old fashioned because I inherited them from my grandmother
I browned onions on the stovetop while the oven did its work, since that made sure I stuck around the kitchen and didn’t leave anything in the oven too long. I was a bit worried when I took it out of the fridge, because the mirin had given it a kind of cloylingly sweet smell, but it turned out I didn't need to worry. The smell was gone once it came out of the oven, and instead of ruining the flavor the mirin had tempered the Szechuan sauce so that it was a pleasant glow instead of a searing bite. I love spicy food as much as the next person who loves spicy food, but not all the time. And I neither undercooked nor overcooked it, which I'm pretty proud of considering I usually stir-fry everything and almost never use an oven.
Now, of course, it'll still be leftovers all the way untilsoftlykarou gets back, but at least some of them will be mine. I contributed! 
In other news, I dropped my phone on the L tracks today (or rather, between the train and the platform) when exiting to go to work, but I was able to get it back with a minimum of fuss and it doesn't seem to be damaged at all. My luck holds out!
softlykarou likes cooking much more than I do, so she cooks and I clean and everything is okay. Even now, while she's away at a psychology conference, our fridge is so stuffed full of leftovers that they can basically last me until she gets back.But not quite. While I was able to use the huge amounts of Iranian stew as a side dish and had leftover chicken rizzala with rice last night, I wanted something a bit different tonight, so I took out some skirt steak, set it to marinate in mirin and szechuan sauce overnight, and about half an hour ago I cooked it:
I browned onions on the stovetop while the oven did its work, since that made sure I stuck around the kitchen and didn’t leave anything in the oven too long. I was a bit worried when I took it out of the fridge, because the mirin had given it a kind of cloylingly sweet smell, but it turned out I didn't need to worry. The smell was gone once it came out of the oven, and instead of ruining the flavor the mirin had tempered the Szechuan sauce so that it was a pleasant glow instead of a searing bite. I love spicy food as much as the next person who loves spicy food, but not all the time. And I neither undercooked nor overcooked it, which I'm pretty proud of considering I usually stir-fry everything and almost never use an oven.
Now, of course, it'll still be leftovers all the way until
softlykarou gets back, but at least some of them will be mine. I contributed! In other news, I dropped my phone on the L tracks today (or rather, between the train and the platform) when exiting to go to work, but I was able to get it back with a minimum of fuss and it doesn't seem to be damaged at all. My luck holds out!
