Working Cook February 17, 2010

It took me three days to figure it out, but hey, I don’t have kids and I don’t really follow the school schedule.  This week is winter vacation.  This is why all the individuals who don’t go to the Day Hab are home.  In Kerem, that’s Misha and Mendy.  In Keshet, it’s all three.

I got a scare when I got in – no one remembered faxing in the grocery order.  Further investigation proved that the grocery order had, indeed, been sent in.  Except for the last page.  The produce page.  So my produce order?  Not going to happen. *Sigh*. Have to find time for veggie shopping.

But I also needed to be, you know. Creative. Today.  I’m tired of meat loaf/burgers/meatballs/pasta sauce.  It gets kinda endless.  I had ground beef thawed, also turkey and chicken.  Those last plus part of the ground beef were going to be Mendy’s, but the rest?  Dinner.  So, off I went to the Russian grocery on the corner.  Came home with plum tomatoes, onions and green peppers.  Also turnips, dill (have parsley) and parsnips.  Needed get some sort of jump on Thursday.

Got back. Started a pot of water for rice and a pot of water for blanching.  Because I decided to get all cheffy and PEEL the tomatoes.  And that means cutting an X into the bottom of each tomato, and plunging it into salted (like the Atlantic) boiling water for a few minutes and then into ice water.  Well, not ice water – more like very cold because don’t have ice on hand.  While I waited for the water to boil, I chopped some rather shvack onions and the green peppers. 

And then the grocery order arrived.  Fortunately, there was a very helpful counselor who knew he could take his eyes off  Misha for a minute or two (Misha doesn’t really have the motor control to do anything besides slip down in his big stroller, and he was happily watching television.)  Mendy was off on a walk, which makes everyone happy.  By the time we had everything put away properly, the water was boiling nicely, so I dumped in the tomatoes and filled the only pot I had readily available – the one I’d be making dinner in – with cold water.  By the time it was filled, the skin on the tomatoes was loosening, so in they went. I dumped the water out of the first pot, refilled it with fresh cold water, put the tomatoes in that, and let them sit while I saute’d onions and peppers, and then added about 8 pounds of ground beef.  The last two pounds I cooked separately for Mendy.  I also cooked a bag of broccoli and another of spinach.

I peeled and chopped the tomatoes and added them and the spices, and then started processing Mendy’s food, cooking the meats separately and setting some aside for Misha as well.  And then I added frozen corn out of randomness.  By the time I got everything portioned out and the pots washed and the food delivered to Keshet or the freezer, it was 2PM.