gadgetry

No, not a kitchen gadget, one for the blog! I recently discovered how to create quick little response boxes at the end of every post. So now you should see three options at the end of all posts here on kitchen to kitchen, and you can share what you think about each post once you've scrolled down to the end.

The options are:
i'll make it
looks yummy
no thank you
So, if you feel in accordance with one of those reactions, just click the box and it will record your response. Also, if you think we're missing some obvious option, let us know and I'll go in and add it.

Any other feedback, requests, advice, comments, etc? Either post a comment or email/facebook Katie or me (if you know us), and we will do what we can to keep you happy.

Also, blogger tells me that our little blog has had over 1000 hits since we started it back in October, so thank you for coming by and having a look! It has definitely added to my culinary experience and exploration to play with taking pictures and get to post about how things worked out. It has also encouraged me to keep trying out new recipes so that I can keep sharing.

Note: I just wanted to make a little note of something in case people have noticed that I post quite a bit more often than Katie does. While teaching is absolutely a full-time job, it does give me most of my nights and weekends relatively free. Katie, on the other hand, is working a full-time job and taking night graduate school classes at the Harvard Extension School (I think I have the name right), along with some other things that take up her time. I've heard that she is cooking and has things to post, but I suspect that her life is just a bit busier than mine. In the meantime, I have free time and am enjoying cooking as a significant part of my personal winding-down time and hobbies, so that's why I am the one dominating the wires for now. 

so katie, what does your kitchen look like?

This is my kitchen.

Notice the old lady linoleum and the lack of counterspace (and the chili cooking away on the stove during the Michigan v. Michigan State game). We have no dishwasher, but fortunately our oven is relatively new and works pretty well. The birch-colored ikea table is home to our microwave and toaster for now, and has yet to be adorned with bar stools (so there is no seating in the kitchen). We are on the first floor, and lighting isn't super great, so we'll see how pictures go moving forward.

This is the corner of the kitchen where Eric has promised me more counterspace will go.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

This is the pantry. And the view to our paved "backyard".

The pantry contains mostly baking stuff and dry goods, such as:

• Brown, white, and confectioners sugar
• White and whole wheat flour (King Arthur brand always)
• Spices: salt, pepper, cumin, oregano, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, chili powder, allspice, poultry seasoning, thyme, curry, etc etc (way too many for me to list from memory)
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips (Ghiardelli)
• Nutella
• Maple syrup from Holiday Farm (Dalton, MA)
• Hot chocolate
• Rice vinegar
• Soy sauce
• Vegetable oil (olive oil is above the stove)
• Cans of tuna
• Whole canned tomatoes
• Fire roasted diced tomatoes
• 3 jars of Molte Bene tomato and basil pasta sauce (from Whole Foods, best pasta sauce I have ever had)
• Granola
• Couscous
• Rice
• Oatmeal
• Pasta (shells, fettuchine, spaghetti, angel hair)
• Annies Mac and Cheese
• Rice Chex, Honey Bunches of Oats, Special K
• Wheat crackers
• Candy apple kit
• Reusable shopping bags

This is the refrigerator.

It’s pretty empty now, but contains:

• ½ bushel of apples from apple picking in Boxford, MA last weekend at Smolak Farms
• Apple Cider
• Milk
• Lemonade
• Beer (Ipswitch Harvest, Wolaver’s Pumpkin, Ithaca Brewing Company, Harvest Moon, and assorted leftovers)
• Eggs
• Salad dressing (Hidden Valley ranch and basalmic vinagrette)
• Jam (four fruit, apricot, and strawberry)
• Coarse grain and regular Dijon mustard
• Organic Chicken Stock
• Butter (salted and unsalted)
• Shortening
• Cheese (port salut, jarlsburg, gruyere, tallegio, parmesan)
• Heavy cream
• Yogurt
• Heritage tomatoes, picked at Smolak Farms
• Frozen leftovers: Ina Garten’s Mac and Cheese, Chili
• Frozen Ground beef
• Frozen peas and frozen corn
• Frozen lemonade
• Ben and Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie Ice Cream
• Soco Lavender and Honey Ice Cream
• Pumpkin Frozen Custard

The fridge is a little empty—usually it has far more vegetables and usually some more fruit or leftovers—grocery store trip is in the works. My tea collection and cinnamon streusel muffins that Eric's girlfriend made last Sunday are on top.

This is where we eat! The “Kandinsky Dining Room.” (There’s another Kandinsky on the opposite wall.

…and this is where all our non-beer wine and liquor lives.

As for tools, I have all the knives, cutting boards, pots and pans I could need. However, I do not nearly have as much as I want. If I had my druthers, I’d have a:

• Candy thermometer
• Full Cutco knife set
• Food processor
• 3 more baking sheets
• Tons of cookie cutters
• Food mill
• Cheese cloth
• Bundt pan

And most importantly, more counterspace.

Next up, homemade applesauce!

backstory: katie

Until I was in high school, my family had dinner together every night no matter how little time we had until swim practice. Eventually schedules were so disparate that we all couldn’t be in the same place at the same time, but there was always a home cooked meal floating around. We hardly ever ate out or ordered in anything other than pizza once a month if we were lucky. As both my parents worked, meals were designed to be relatively easy to throw together at the end of the day—hence lots of easy-to-turn-into-leftovers meals and casseroles. I’m sure there was a financial component to all of this—feeding four ravenous and active kids can get expensive—but I think my parents were also concerned with making sure we were healthy and had adequate nutrition for our year-round sports activities, something that is easier to ensure when you know exactly what they are eating.

One thing my mother loved to do, particularly around Christmas time, is bake. Fortunately, she was willing to let us help out (i.e. make a mess) and after many years of practice I’m pretty confident in saying that while my pies may not always look spectacular, they sure as hell taste good. While I cooked some in high school, I was not particularly adventurous and confined myself to things my mom made often, like lasagna, chili, and this awesome angel hair pasta with plum tomatoes and basil dish. I stopped living at home after I went to college, spending all of my summers during school in Williamstown and New York, which meant that I had to start cooking for myself more regularly. Even senior year, when I wasn’t on a meal plan, I stuck to a general list of 5-10 recipes that I cycled through. The idea of wasting food if I made something I didn’t like (such as asparagus and parmesan risotto) was terrifying.

After graduating, it took me about a year to really start trying new things. Midway through last winter, I realized that I was eating next to no vegetables and really need to get creative if I was going to not get completely out of shape and unhealthy. Lots of Food Network and a trip to Barnes and Noble for cookbooks, in addition to some generous cutting of recipe portions, helped spark a different approach to cooking. The awesome farmer’s market in Harvard Square this summer/fall has also encouraged me to think outside of my comfort zone.

Generally, I try to make 3-4 things for myself a week, one of which will be something new or a new approach to a recipe that I’ve made before. Last week was curried butternut squash soup (post on that forthcoming), the week before a butternut squash, mushroom, and pea risotto. This weekend was a new approach to applesauce (introduced a blender, still on the fence about the texture), and this coming weekend may be something with pumpkin. I try to stick to local/seasonal foods as much as possible, but in the wintertime in New England that gets significantly difficult if you don’t want to be eating turnips the whole time.

Even though I come at cooking from a baking background, I have no problem adjusting recipes to suit my needs, particularly when there are ingredients I don't like. Things I do like: potatoes, fruit, pasta, potatoes, bread, potatoes, potatoes. Seriously, if there was one thing I could only ever eat again, it would be potatoes. So delicious. I'm also a big fan of the Barefoot Contessa, detest Rachael Ray, and live by the Joy of Cooking and Betty Crocker cookbook. I like simple flavors and combinations, and would rather eat something with two or three ingredients than twelve or thirteen.

Before this gets obscenely long, I’ll leave you with one kitchen lesson from my childhood: Do not leave rubber cleaning gloves anywhere near a gas stove when the stove is on, because they will catch on fire (who knew?). Should you have a mini rubber apocalypse on your hands, do not freak out and throw the gloves on your linoleum kitchen floor, because the linoleum will melt into the shape of Alaska. Also, your parents will be very unhappy and you will not be allowed to make macaroni and cheese while home alone again until you are old enough to date. Which is never, for your dad.

welcome!

Welcome to Kitchen to Kitchen!

Kat and Katie graduated together from Williams College in 2009 after four years of friendship in close proximity to find themselves continents apart.

Following graduation, Kat spent the summer working at St. Paul's School in New Hampshire before moving to Casablanca, Morocco for the school year to work as a Mathematics teaching intern at an American school. After school ended in 2010, she worked as a counselor in Switzerland for the summer and spent a brief seven days in the USA before moving to Bulgaria to teach English to incoming 8th grade students at the American College of Sofia. She is planning on moving back to Texas for a year in 2011 and is hoping to attend business school next fall. Kat never cooked anything other than quesadillas and pancakes before living on her own in Casablanca. She struggled to feed herself palatable food for a couple months before finding some food blogs that transformed her into a bit of a foodie who loved indulging herself in kitchen therapy. Now she lives in a cute pink house with three other girls who appreciate her forays into the culinary world.

Katie moved to Boston to begin work as a researcher on the theory and practice of responsible investment (she’d be happy to tell you more about what that actually means if you want to know). She’s moved from Brookline to Allston and now is firmly ensconced in the lovely town of Cambridge, where she lives with a in a house full of 1970s linoleum and fake wood veneer. Katie started out baking young with her mother and grandmother, and has mastered the art of the pie crust. Having grown up as the oldest of four siblings, she is also working on learning how to cook smaller portions.

Kat and Katie use cooking together as a way to stay in touch, make transitions from college life to the real world more manageable, and maintain our long-distance friendship. We hope that you enjoy our culinary correspondence!