Simple pleasures

 I seem to be coming back from my slough of despond, after catching up with my weight training and stair exercises. It's always good to move a bit even when I'd rather do almost anything else. Afterwards I'm glad I did.

I even put them on my calendar so that the alert pushes me into doing them.

And a couple of friendly very early morning  texts from someone newly back from India, helped the mood.  I suspect she's still dealing with jetlag, since they were so early I thought it must be an emergency. Clearly her clock isn't all adjusted yet. Lovely all the same.

And here's an entry for the doh, why didn't I do this years ago file

Cutting boards. Washable. Bendy so you can easily tip the food into the pan, or the trimmings into the backyard. So much easier than my improvising with wooden boards, or my handy Plexi sheet, very unfriendly to your knife blade. Also they skid.

These proud beauties are nonskid, yay, different colors for, they say, different purposes, there are rules. They say.  I say I'll pick the color I feel like using. My kitchen, my rules. Not that anyone's arguing the point.

As you see, in today's gallant attempt to catch up with the green veggies in the freezer, the onion cutting board

Soup of the endless leeks, some carrot greens, celery and

The last of the Bad Food hot dogs. This is the hot dog cutting board..

The dogs made a nice addition. I used the newly mixed Bill Veach Curry Powder a shot of Old Bay, kosher salt, added a bit more salt later. Some good chicken stock.

And it did come out a bit too fibrous, mainly because of the celery. So I strained it a bit, and that improved matters a lot.

I saved the pulp, and it's in the freezer. I'm wondering if it will make a good pasty filling, with yellow potatoes and maybe carrots. That baking might make it less chewy. Anyway, anything rather than toss good food.  And it's a new idea to try. And any cooks listening please suggest what you think might be a good way to use it. Other than chucking it out back, that is.

Meanwhile here's lunch with

sprig of Thai basil. 

Doesn't take much to amuse me. I've been so busy winnowing that I haven't paid attention to things I should really get. Like these boards. 

Speaking of knives, ss I was earlier, you know how TV cooks, particularly with restaurant experience, sweep stuff off the cutting surface with the sharp side of the blade, making home cooks scream in horror? Use the back of the blade!!  

Well, I heard one recently explain it doesn't matter in a high end restaurant because they have knife service. Constant resharpening available. So they don't get concerned about the cutting edge. 

I will just have to get to it and sharpen my knives, service only provided by me around here, in honor of the new fancy cutting boards. I wonder when my knife service will show up? When my food stylist does, I expect.