Cooking in the BIG Kitchen

After some serious cleaning... we have begun cooking in the BIG kitchen... our very own commercial kitchen with more stainless steel than you could poke a knife at. I am pictured above, cooking a full cooked breakfast for Jodie, of bacon and eggs, beans, toast and mushrooms. Jodie's delicious meal is pictured below.

Although it was a bit of a slog, I was ably assisted in cleaning the kitchen by a bulk order of cleaning chemicals - 35L all up, of some seriously concentrated stuff. Gloves were required, and it cut through grease like a treat. Below is a photo of the stove looking all sparkly.

The next thing on the list of culinary quests was a curry! I cooked a very peppery [but not too spicy] curry that night, and was privileged to use Jodie's Le Creuset to do it. It makes simmering slowly just perfect. Tonight, I made a beef vindaloo, which could have been interpreted as an attempt to kill Jodie - but I am very very proud of her accomplishment in eating it! I worked up a sweat eating it... so it was pretty hot. The main reason for this may have been using up the last of Mel's dried chillies, which are very, very hot. The quote of the night was me explaining the heat to Jodie, "The chillies were really hot, that's why I added the cayenne pepper!". Some of the spices used in the curry are shown below.

Here is the finished product. Now that I've managed to use up all of Mel's chillies - we'll get some kashmiri chillies to get the really red colour, and authentic taste.

I can't wait to cook a stir fry on the cooktop! These gas

Every commerical kitchen needs themometers - so that statistics can be taken on fridge temperature. Despite my tendancy to obsess... we got ones with a display on the outside, so I can sit and watch the fridge cool.


Yesterday, I also baked a batch of shortbread. It has been a very long time since I've made any. I think the last time was making some for Jodie when I was working for the department of health in South Australia. It's going to be interesting getting used to the gas ovens, which seem to be a little temperamental.

Oh... I can't finish this post without talking about our first bulk food order... otherwise it deserves it's own post! The highlight for me [besides the tabasco] was 4.1kg of rump. Jodie cut some wonderful steaks the other night, and half of it serviced our vindaloo. We've still got almost 2kg to go, in the freezer. We got 5kg of pasta, tons of baked beans, and enough stock to block the arteries of several guests through shortbread inhilation.