The pre-cook up post

OK so I've just been down to get all the ingredients for today's big cook up which was a bit of a nightmare in itself since they're renovating our safeway and therefore, the entrance has changed yet again, and the service desk and everything is in a totally different place. These renos have been going for ages and the end result will be that safeway will be much much bigger. I've been told different dates of when it will all be finished; today I was told October, wow! -- I may even have to resort to coles online for a while if I have problems next time. Someone did help me but Joy hadn't been to that entrance before so she didn't locate it. Also the staff are all lost cos everything keeps changing around as they work on different areas of the store, but the person helping me was great; she had a map so fortunately I was able to get everything, including the ingredients I'd never heard of before; go me! :) – I also went to the butcher, and they kindly diced up some lamb for me.
and this is why I just mentioned on twitter I'm feeling slightly nervous about this recipe; not sure why; we're only required to use the stove, but I guess the foreign ingredients are freaking me out; what if I put too much in by accident? Would I ruin it? etc. etc. thecrazykiwi did prdict I might initially feel a bit nervous about this recipe. but ah well, will follow it to the letter and nothing should go wrong.
Also I got all my ingredients for the cookies, yeah! Looking forward to making them too. Having salix_03 tell me she doesn't use electric beaters, I decided not too myself; I told her I just can't use them; mixing doesn't work and just creates a mess. Think I'm better off just doing it all by hand.
So now I'm off to start cooking the lamb saag. am going to chop everything up first and measure out before I actually put saucepan to stove so I can just locate everything straight away when it's time to put them in.
Til Next time, RdFreak

smells sooo nice!

man i wish i could record this smell; smells so so so so damn good; better than anything else I'd done before. there's so many spices in there which makes me unsure whether I'd like it, though with extra yoghurt it should be good. I think I did everything right. was unsure about a few things cos I'd never used a couple of the ingredients before. like, I was unsure if the cinnamon sticks were OK to put in just as is or whether we needed to peel them and get something else out; ah well. -- I was also unsure whether I got the cardamon pods out correctly. I originally thought they were just the pods but it seems to be pods inside this other layer, so, um, not sure. But yeh, should be OK enough regardless. we can just fish out the bits that we don't like/shouldn't be there.
Technically I could start on the cookies now while this is simmering and has still got a while to go, but for now at least, i think I will stick to one thing at a time.
mmm smells bloody nice mate, (and I don't usually swear in the LJ! Lol :)
Til Next time, RdFreak

cook up=success!

Wow, so I did it! i successfully cooked the lamb saag and i did taste it; seems like a heck of a lot of spinich but i did follow the recipe!
And, i made chocolate chip cookies; one tray is in the ove, and since I only have one tray (thought i had two but anyway) I am doing them separately and noting to self that I need to buy another baking tray. And, the mixture worked great! I say, never in my life have I been suuccessful with cooky mixture before, but i found i put all ingredients in gradually and that helped. I'm weak though and boy was it hard to mix with the flower in the end, but I did it, and put one cup of chocolate chips in gradually and mixed them. So still got half a bowl left for the other tray.
Did I mention I love cooking? I don't think I did, but I do now. I always knew I'd love it when I could successfully do it.
My parents know about the lamb saag but not about the cookies; nice surprise for them I feel.
Til Next Time, RdFreak

It's my journal and I can boast if I want too!

Well, it was a success! Parents enjoyed the lamb saag though the general feeling was that it wasn't spicy enough. this surprised me because A: the spices did smell strong when I went to put them in and B: it did taste spicy when I did the taste test just after it had finished cooking. ah well, will know for next time. Of course, I would never have it as spicy as dad has it, but even for me, it could have been a tad more spicy.
And the cookies were a lovely surprise. The first lot took a while to cook because I had the shelf too low.
David T was right; Dad did do the dishes and we got talking about how I'm getting so much stuff, that I'm running out of room. This unit is a great size for me, but since I'm cooking heaps more, we're noticing that the kitchen is too small and I haven't got a lot of bench space. And there's just so much other stuff not related to cooking that is building up. Anyway for now it does me well. May upsize in the future but we can't now.
So yeh, it was all fun. I found that cooking does take up a lot of time which is good really; it gives me something to do. -- now what to cook next week?
I've had a couple of new additions to my LJ flist recently and one of them is also into cooking so at least i know she won't mind my rants, Lol!
I've just realized that I seem to go through phazes in my LJ where I'll go on and on about something for a long while, then I may get bored of it; not that I'll get bored of cooking at all; that's here to stay. But I was just thinking about Lu getting pissed all those months ago because I was going on about the iPhone for a while; not that it bothers me; if people don't like what i talk about in my journal, they don't have to read. But yeh, it just got me thinking that I can be like that; ha, it's me and I make no apologies. :)
Til Next time, RdFreak