Tired, beat-up, but true

[jaunthie]

Do you have some favorite cooking pots? Cooking utensils? I do. And they're not necessarily the expensive or ideal ones, either. For example, I have three big soup pots (if you don't count the pressure-cooker, which I don't usually use for soup, although it kicks ass if you're pressed for time). One is my gigantic stock pot, which I really only use for big-batch cookery, like turning the Thanksgiving turkey carcass into vast quantities of yummy turkey stock, or mulling enough cider for the annual Gingerbread/Rankin-Bass party. I love the pot, but it's just not practical for everyday use; most of the year it lives in its own special box and not in the pots-and-pans cupboard. The second is a tall, rather narrow, nonstick soup pot that does a good job, but I just don't love it. It works, and I use it, but meh.

And then there's my third big soup pot. It's one of the first pots I ever owned. It's been through multiple moves, including one that somehow dented it so it's no longer perfectly round and its original lid doesn't fit onto it anymore. It's a "bargain-basement special" soup pot that came as part of a cheap set. It has nonstick coating on the inside which has not stood up well to the test of time, the outside looks like it's been subjected to various chemical experiments, and it's got cheap plastic handles bolted to its sides. And 9 times out of 10, it's the pot I reach for when I'm going to make a batch of soup or stew or a smaller batch of cider or what have you.

Is it the shape? (It's as wide or wider than it is tall, which I find useful.) Is it its thermal qualities? (It heats up quickly and evenly, and it's the easiest pot I own to keep at a simmer.) Is it some bizarre emotional attachment based on how long I've had it? (Knowing me, this is entirely possible.) Is it the fact that I can't remember ever making a bad batch of anything when cooking with it? (I'm a good cook, but am I that good?) Or is it some combination thereof? I don't know. All I know is that I really should replace it with something better at some point, and I haven't the faintest idea what "better" would be.

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I used to feel that way about an old battered Revereware 3 quart pan... but sometime after dianthus gave me a pressure cooker (a two pan set, featuring a pressure lid and a regular glass lid that fits them both, best cooking gift ever) I found myself using it less and less, and eventually gave it to my sister when it became clear she could use more kitchen stuff.

Moving to the boat was interesting in setting my priorities with cookware. At the Woodinville house I have/had a large kitchen full of equipment (for crying out loud, I had three ovens, one of them a built in wood burning brick oven that could heat the whole house and which would stay hot for a day). When I moved out, I pared things down to a pretty minimal set -- the pressure cooker set, one larger stock pot, a small sauce pan, my cast iron wok, a couple ceramic baking dishes, the giant granite mortal and pestle and that's about it. I've added a couple of things (an oven stone, a small covered soup pot I won at the Four Family Association's Chinese New Year, a baking sheet that fits in the tiny propane oven...) but I've tried to keep things light. (Except for the mortar and pestle, a measure of both how much I use them and my love for them.)

[jaunthie.livejournal.com]

I imagine that was a huge change in mindset/cookset. I have a number of pans/bakeware that I only use occasionally, but I'm really happy to have when it comes up. And then there are the things I keep thinking "gosh, it'd be nice to have one of those" - like an oven stone. :-) The trick is finding a place to store it and/or being able to justify buying it...

Your pressure cooker set sounds fabulous. I have a nice Kuhn pressure cooker that also has a non-pressure-cooker lid, nice brass accents, and a custom-fit trivet for the bottom that allows you to set the pot down on the counter/tablecloth with no worries. It gets a lot more use in the winter months than in the summer, but I should really investigate more ways to use it overall.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I store my oven stone in my oven, mostly -- it doesn't interfere with most of the cooking I do, and I usually bake bread weekly. It's still kind of odd having moved to the smaller kitchen -- before Thanksgiving I suddenly deeply, terribly missed my hand blown optical glass stemware for twenty... (Silly, but for a bit there I was really sad.)

My pressure cooker set is Kuhn as well, though it doesn't sound as pretty as yours. The two pots are good sizes for general cooking, so a lot of the time I use them without pressure. Mostly I use them with pressure for cooking brown rice or other whole grains (have you done brown rice in a pressure cooker? it takes fifteen minutes, and the rice isn't mushy or weird afterwards), or beans when I don't have a lot of time. And asparagas and artichokes. In the summer when I'm cooking just for myself, I will sometimes have dinners that are just a bunch of asparagus or an artichoke, and something to dip them in.

[jaunthie.livejournal.com]

OMG! I've done beans in my pressure cooker, but it never occured to me to try brown rice. That's a fantastic idea! Brown rice in 15 minutes...oh yum... *fights urge to go cook up a batch right now* Moroccan cooking is a natural for pressure cookers, by the way. I've done some fabulous tagines, and since I doubt you're tomato-allergic the way I am, you could explore the tomato-based ones with fish or with just veggies.

We have simply got to get together for coffee and catch up - possibly with Molly as well, if we can catch her free during one of her major performance seasons. :-)

[tylik.livejournal.com]

...and better brown rice that you can get another way. It opened worlds for me, I tell you. (When I was really broke, during the time I lived up in Edmonds, I ate a lot of brown rice and lentils, which left me unable to so much as look at them until recently. The texture improvement really helped.)

I hadn't even thought of trying the pressure cooker for Moroccan food. Oh, my heavens, that sounds so good -- especially for the winter. (Which is funny considering the climate of origin.) Do you have a favorite Moroccan cook-book? I've done some Ethiopian cooking, and a Moroccan dish or two, but not a lot...

I am in complete agreement on catching up -- but not before the 15th, for me. I have to get this paper submitted, so I can include it in the five grad school applications that I also have to get in... oh, yeah, and there's this final on the 12th... Eeee!

(Come the 16th, I will be partying. Okay, specifically, I will be over at David and Theckla's, eating latkes... but still, partying.)