(no subject)

One great side-effect of dating The Q (formerly known as The Girl) is that she has rekindled my interest in cooking. Therefore, she has given me a reason to buy kitchen things! In the past couple of weeks, I've bought:

• A knife set (Wusthof Trident 8-piece set) with the classic handle. There are lots of knives in the world, but I think Wusthof is the best (for me at least). The classic handle is the handle I've been using all my life, so it's comfortable. I had a 10" steel at my place, so I used it in place of the 9". I have a spare 3.5" paring knife as well that's joined the set.
• A KitchenAid 7-Cup food processor. My first food processor, oddly enough. I'd have liked a 11 cup, but in reality a 7 cup is enough for me.
• A Zyliss mandoline. Neat!
• A KitchenAid stand mixer. Acutally, The Q owns this, but she's going to give it to me because she prefers her other stand mixer. I think it's a 5-qt with a screw-down bowl. You can rest assured that there will be a meat grinder and sausage stuffer in my near future.
• And a variety of other odds and ends for the kitchen.

Tonight, I cooked her a eggplant parmigiana. Yes, I cooked something vegetarian (though there was a lot of cheese, so the vegans can still go to hell! :). The recipe was from Cooks Illustrated, which is one of my favorite magazines. The recipe turned out very well and was fairly healthy for a change, so that was nice. The eggplant is salted and drained, then breaded and "oven fried" for a nice crispy exterior. The sauce and cheese goes on and it's baked to yumminess. Very tasty.

Cooking is fun. That's my point. In the near future, I'd like to add homemade pasta and French Onion Soup to my repertoire.