Monday, July 19, 2010

Day 155- Selective Laziness

I'll dig through an entire shed looking for my favorite coat (which my sister says is in there, but I still haven't found it), or boxes of random stuff looking for a game, or check hundreds of books to find the one I'm trying to remember so I can re-read it. It's like pulling teeth to get me to do anything that doesn't sound interesting though. But I finally found the charger for my camera (really), and the battery's charging- finally.

Same thing happens with food. I'll make something amazing, crazy, whatever. Fat chance getting me to make "boring" every day food, though. That's gotta be fast and easy, or it's just a waste of time. I suspect the slow food people would like people like me to just give up and die already.

It's just.. I know you (I?) should be "in the moment" and do the living right now thing, but spending half an hour a meal, even just for heating them up, every day? I have more interesting things to do. That's a *huge* time suck. I could be loafing or playing facebook games!

Um... bad example.

Cooking and eating just take a huge amount of time each day. Last time I *really, truly, honestly* ate three meals plus snacks a day was vacation back in (I think) November. It felt like I was cooking, eating, or cleaning up all day long, every single day. Of course, I eat really slowly, so I really was spending about 4 hours a day eating, plus another hour and a half or so cooking and cleaning up.

The eating doesn't seem so bad, though, because I can do other stuff at the same time- like watch a movie, or play a game, or read a book. I learned a long, long time ago that all those things should be avoided when I'm cooking.

There are many burned pots and foods in my past. I'm responsible for the cremation of not less than 100 pizza rolls.

So, like I said, interesting cooking, good; everyday cooking, bad. But if I had to do that cool crazy cooking everyday? I'd not want that either.

Slightly related, does anyone know a good, easy way (with stuff I've probably already got in the house) to get scorch marks out of a stainless pot? I got a bit distracted. More vinegar, maybe?

On the food front, I'm trying to talk myself into eating the rest of the very sweet rice. I'm pretty sure the rest of the sweetened coconut milk is being used in chai, and all I remember eating yesterday (after finishing off the leftovers again) was a bowl of noodles with soy sauce and spices.

10 comments:

  1. Try heating a little vinegar in the pot and then putting some baking soda in it.

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  2. I've had great success with just boiling a solution of water and baking soda in the pot for a while, then scouring the pot with a paste of baking soda and water. (Of course, you empty the water you boiled first.) It got tons of gunk out of my enameled cast iron pot and it got burned stuff out of my stainless skillet.

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  3. Kim- vinegar and baking soda makes me think of middle school volcanoes- is that what I'm looking for?

    Lindsey- I'll try the baking soda/ water paste stuff.

    so far I've tried simmering with vinegar/water, and scrubbing with straight vinegar. The vinegar worked ok on some of the stuff, but when I put water in the pot to boil all the nasty and discoloration came back... Hmmm... meanwhile, I now know just how gross the tap water here is....

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  4. I totally understand about the cooking thing. I feel like all I do all weekend long is cook and do dishes. In part because I cook big meals so we have a good amount of leftovers for lunch and dinner.

    But also, I'm more likely to *make* something for lunch, as opposed to eating more leftovers. So, it's breakfast, dishes, lunch, dishes, cook 2 different things, dinner, dishes. Repeat for Sunday.

    Mid-week there's a lot less cooking.

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  5. J,

    Yeah, that's what you're looking for. The foamy reaction helps break the gunk up. And warm vinegar makes foamier foam. Warning though, some people (like me), think the smell of hot vinegar is horrendous.

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  6. I think I am also selectively lazy - When I have the right mix of interest and pressure.. I can really knock stuff out of the park. However, without it - I am downright slothful. The following result is: I am constantly falling behind on anything related to cleaning.

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  7. Baking soda paste works really well. Or boiling water with baking soda in it, letting it sit for a bit then scrubbing. Barring that, Barkeeper's Friend.

    Maybe you could do massive batches of boring meals that you store for when you want them, and sprinkle them into interesting meals? Sometimes that helps me.

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  8. Barkeeper's friend is *magic* stuff, but I haven't got any, so I'll work on the baking soda and vinegar options.

    Ruby Leigh- I'm right there with you on the cleaning. I've figured out that if I make the "tidying" at the end part of the activity at least things stay reasonably ok looking. Like I do the dishes from cooking before i eat, so the only thing I have to remember later is my bowl/ plate and utensil. Then I wash those right before I drop new food on them. Works out.

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  9. Here's what I do with burnt on gunk. Put a couple of heaped tablespoons of baking soda into the pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Boil for 15 minutes or so. Allow to cool and then wash as normal. For really bad burnt-on stuff, this process may need to be repeated BUT it eliminates scrubbing.

    - Pam

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  10. Thanks, Pam. I've gotten the gunk off, now it's just the marks on the metal- discoloration from burning on, I think. Teach *me* to do something more interesting while cooking....

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