Cauliflower

While I contemplate what to do with this blog I bring you a never published post from last fall:

It all started with the cauliflower
Other wise known as the post where I proclaim my domestic clutziness.

The other day I realized that I was craving cauliflower. I decided to make a variation of this dish Cauliflower with Ginger, Garlic & Green Chilies from Madhur Jaffrey’s Quick & Easy Indian Cookery. And since I was making that dish I was going to make a chickpea and tomato curry to go with it, and riata. While I was looking for a riata recipe I found two more dishes I wanted to cook. The menu progressed to include rice, somosas and spicy tamarind sauce.

Around 5 pm I started doing prep to throw everything together when Husband came home. At 7:00 pm I went to pick up Husband and when we arrived back at the house he started helping me in the kitchen. Now at 9:20 the chickpea-tomato curry has been done at least 40 minutes, the somosas have just come out of the oven and we are cooking are second, yes second batch of rice. I ruined one of my favorite pans.

I blame the kitchen, specifically the lack of counter and storage space. Our last home had a nice 6 ft span of counter space, plus the sink and another 2 feet. Our new place has two 12″ sections and two 2-foot sections, both 2-foot sections of counter are partially covered by a toaster, kitchen-aid mixer, dish-drainer and telephone. So when I started smelling something I looked in the pre-heating oven and saw our cast iron skillet, it was shoved in the oven one day while we needed to use more than two burners at the same time (a teapot sits on the fourth burner). I assumed the smell was the cast iron skillet-but I had no where to put a hot cast iron skillet, oh well. The smell continued, it got stronger. Eventually we found the rice (still on a heated burner) cooked to a black crisp.

The samosas however, were totally worth it.