wherein Liz prepares to embark upon a culinary adventure... tomorrow

[edenfalling]

Today's entry in the 'weird things I have acquired from tenants' department: a Blue Apron box.

The tenant left for the summer and did not cancel their subscription quite fast enough, so whoops, one extra box arrived. Fortunately this particular tenant is generally on top of things, and upon receiving the package notification email, promptly called us to say they weren't in town and we should just make the food ourselves.

Mom Boss and Aunt Boss were not interested, and I wasn't sure the food would keep long enough for Miss Cactus to choose any on Thursday, so I just carried the box home myself. (The whole mile and a half. Exercise is good for you! *flops*)

The recipes are as follows: crispy catfish & spicy vegetable curry (with charred lime); seared steaks & salsa verde (with fingerling potatoes, asparagus, & radishes); and Persian-style chicken & crispy rice (with zucchini, currants, & lemon yogurt).

They all claim to take only 15 minutes of prep time. Considering one of them involves mashing garlic into a paste, and the other two involve making lemon or lime zest from scratch (wtf), I call bullshit. I mean, I am game to try these things! They sound tasty! But I am pretty sure they will take about an hour of prep time each, plus the listed cooking times, plus slop time for cleaning dishes (I don't have the biggest sink, nor do I have endless counter space), so... I think two hours total per meal. Blargh.

Anyway, I have put the things that need refrigeration in my fridge, while the others are sitting in the box on a table, and I will probably attempt either the catfish or the steak tomorrow evening.

Comments

[heliopausa]

For quick-as-a-wink lemon zesting: I own a tool like the one in the top picture in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zester

I am utterly not a gadgets person, but I appreciate and use this one.

[edenfalling]

Ooh. You know, I might be able to acquire one of those on Thursday when I do my weekly grocery run... which helpfully also decides the menu order: steak Wednesday, catfish Thursday, and chicken Friday. Thanks for the suggestion!

[branchandroot]

Yeah, I suspect the 15 minutes is "actual putting together for people with all the right tools" not the "getting things out" or "washing up" or "waiting for the pan to heat". Still, sounds tasty, so it's worth a try!

[edenfalling]

I think it's also 'if you are really efficient at prep tasks, you can do a bunch of them while other parts of the meal are cooking,' but I am... let's just go with not efficient and leave it there, yeah? So I have to do everything up front instead of doing half the prep during the cooking time. *sigh*

[mme_hardy]

Have a great time!

The fastest lemon zester, bar none, is the microplane grater, which you can also use on Parmesan cheese and ginger. (It's the second one in Heliopausa's link.)

https://www.amazon.com/Microplane-40020-Classic-Zester-Grater/dp/B00004S7V8/

Buy this. You'll thank me.

[edenfalling]

Hmm. Target definitely carries versions of that online, so I guess I will see if my local store has one in stock tomorrow since I will be out that way already. :)

[mme_hardy]

Hooray!

[krait]

...I've never found that making lemon/lime zest takes more than a minute or so?

I'm jealous about the steak, though - I sure wish that some steak would turn up in my mailbox. :)

Enjoy!

[edenfalling]

Ah but see, YOU already had the relevant tools on hand! Whereas I (until I went out and bought a zester/grater on Thursday) would have been trying to zest a lime with only a knife. Which is a drastically different proposition.

Tangentially, there are reasons I now own a carrot peeler and a potato peeler, and they are directly related to the time I tried to cook something involving carrots and potatoes before I owned either item. *headdesk*