Sunday in the kitchen

Meg and I have a bad habit when we go to do our grocery shopping over any given weekend: most people will draw up a list of what they're out of, a few things they need for any meals that they're planning ahead for, and head off to the grocery store. They go to their local Kroger-themed franchise, Fareway, Safeway-themed franchise, Dahl's, or what have you and knock out what they have on their shopping list and go home.

This, at least, is what Meg and I think as we make our way from store to store, collecting various meats, vegetables, spices and sauces in order to replenish our cupboards and prepare for any recipes we've eyed for the coming week. On any given weekend, I'd guess we hit three to four different grocery stores on average. We hit one of the big chain grocery stores - Carr's or Fred Meyer, make a quick run by Costco to pick up bulk items and meat, a quick run to Natural Pantry or New Sagaya Midtown Market to pick up a few organic or specialty items, and finally through one of the smaller ethnic markets, to grab some Asian ingredients, or to Red Apple for dulce de leche or other odd items. Plus a trip to Target, if our better senses don't hold us back. Maybe everyone is this way and it just never comes up in conversation, and we're not as crazy as we wonder if we are.

Crazy or not, we made our usual rounds today, returned home and dove right into our vague plans for cooking domination. A couple of weeks back whilst wandering through Costco, Meg saw The Food of India: A Journey for Food Lovers and picked up a copy. Thus far, our results have been quite good. We've made naan, lamb kofta, chapati, pork tikka and more. Today was the chapati (indian tortillas?) and the pork tikka. Additionally, Meg made up tandoori chicken from the January issue of Cooks Illustrated. I made up about ten pounds of baked ziti with sausage from another of the Cooks Illustrated books, The Best Make Ahead Recipe, and we got through with peeling our big bag'o'turnips to make this. Meg also cranked out some Pumpkin Spice Muffins yesterday from the pumpkin we roasted and froze from my office Halloween festivities.

(side note - still greatly enjoying having a full sized food processor. makes quick work of everything)