A Useless Guide to Cooking

You know that feeling you get when you do a thing, and you do it properly, and it's been a while since you did that thing (if even ever), and you're bloated-to-bursting with self-confidence and pride in your new-found ability to do simple things with a heap of confidence?  While it can be a detrimental feeling (I.E. when you buy multiple antiquated cars and think 'I can fix anything' before realizing you are in completely over your head), it adds that healthy dose of UMPH to life that makes you do fun stuff and turns an evening into an adventure. And so I've found that feeling taking things in the kitchen, and pushing them together to make tasty things. 

This is where I do battle. There's no oven, a single gas burner, and all the outlets are the wrong shape, but so are the plugs and they fit so that works out I guess. This picture was taken a good 5 months ago, so you don't get to see the industrial-grade Chinese blender with mystery controls I can't read. It's not much, but it's mine, and I'm proud of it. 
This, my friends, is a rice cooker. It is my most treasured If you do not own one, you are living in the past. This thing will cook rice & noodles perfectly, steam vegetables tenderly, boil soup thoroughly, and keep your food warm, moist and perfectly sealed for as long as you want (I left mashed potatoes on 'warm' mode overnight and woke up to the most wonderful breakfast). It may be the thing that allows me to get away making good food with my level of inexperience, but we're not here to talk about my things. So without further delay, these are the two not-so-disastrous results of the kitchen...

Garlic Chili Peanut Chiggin
I bought some chicken at the store because, well, because I wanted to eat it (there's not really any more reason to that when you buy things at the grocery store). Not knowing what kind of chicken I was going to make, I defaulted to the classic 'Get something green that comes out of the ground' strategy (works every time).
The purchased chicken, plus the things you see in the above picture, are the main things I used. I chopped the chilis and garlic, cooked that with the chicken, and then added some sugar (for that Thai flavour), peanut butter (because I felt like it) and some coconut milk to loosen up the consistency. 

While that was going, I put the rice cooker on and put some salted green onions up top to let the steam get to work. Then I put the lid down and it goes. IT GOES. I don't have to watch it, check it, think about it, NOPE. It just goes. Then it stops when things are done. What a gem this thing is. 

Result: When all was said and done, this turned out pretty well. I didn't taste much garlic, and the chilies were hard to detect (I later remembered that peanut butter is useful for quelling overly spicy foods, so I suppose that wasn't a great pairing), but it was really tasty. A savoury, thick peanut sauce that went really well with the rice and salted leeks. A little portion of comfort food with greens on rice. 

Pumpkin Tiramisu
For this one, I had to give Mom a call and ask for the recipe. I am not capable enough to make Tiramisu without instructions, but I am capable enough to improvise. Know how I turned the raw pumpkin into fresh pumpkin goop? Rice cooker. That's right. I put a pumpkin in a rice cooker. I broke all the rules and I still came out on top. See where the heap of confidence comes from? RICE COOKER MAN.

The first step is to make the goop that is the basis for the Tiramisu. Whipping cream, cream cheese, sugar, and the other things that I forget. Don't do what I did and try and whip the cream in a blender. Once you've got a handsome jug of goop like you see here, it's time to get to work on the assembly. 

I got some chocolate wafer cookies from the store, and dipped them in a boiled water-sugar mixture to help them soften up. I lined the bottom and the sides and they happened to fit almost perfectly. 

Then you take your goop and start pouring. Well, if you did what I said specifically NOT to do and mixed the whole thing in the blender, then you'll be pouring. Otherwise, scoop the goop (hehe) into the container, and then line it with cookies again when you're halfway full.  

Top the whole dealio with some cinnamon and cloves, and let it sit in the fridge while you pray that you didn't ruin the whole thing by using a blender instead of a hand mixer. Pray all night, and don't even look at it the next morning. Pray and hope until the evening, and then slowly open the fridge door, clutching what hope you have left, and with any dumb luck, the mixture will have thickened out and you will have fooled your friends and coworkers into thinking that you're a master dessert-maker. 

Result: Holy poop. This stuff was gooooooood. I even had an extra container of goop that I ate with cookies (I mean that I used the cookies as a scoop and powered through an entire cup of the stuff) by myself while watching a movie. You might fart the next day, but you'll have a damn good dessert that goes really well with brandy or amaretto. Don't believe me? Well I suppose you'll just have to come by and try some for yourself.