happiness is…..

Posted on | May 30, 2009 | 1 Comment

….cooking your first meal in your first real oven in your first beautiful proper kitchen.

we had a very lazy saturday, so dinner was an uncomplicated affair of proper macaroni cheese with a decadent gratin topping.

i’m very serious about making white sauce….it has to be cooked forever, very low, with plenty of stirring. and bay leaves and nutmeg and salt and pepper. and the roux has to be cooked thoroughly to begin with. (one of my ex-employers once remarked that my bechamel was good enough to eat on it’s own, with a spoon).
i did all that part outside on my soon-to-be-banished-permanently-to-the-workshop barbecue gas ring that leaves huge sooty marks all over my pots. (because the gas part on my new oven isn’t hooked up until next tuesday).
added the cooked pasta, some chilli and cheese, loads of fresh chopped chives, scallions, parsley that i had just picked, and the delicious topping of cheddar, breadcrumbs and dollops of butter.

i had already burned off the factory coatings and cleaned the oven as prescribed, on friday, so there it was, all gleaming and shiny and new and ravishingly italian and ready to heat up.
it has a superfast pre-heat function….then it took me a few minutes to figure out which symbol meant what setting…..then i threw the macaroni in there and set the timer.
i was determined not to sit and fret beside it in the unfinished kitchen, so i walked away for twenty five minutes.
the timer went off and the thing was cooked to perfection.
crunchy golden brown, very even, on top and heated throughout.

as we ate, i could hear that the oven fan was continuing to run in.
it was cooling itself, how clever is that?

it’s got catalytic liners, so it virtually cleans itself as well.
i think i’m in lurve.
o! it’s an ilve! it’s the titanium freestanding T906.
and it’s exactly twice as wide as the oven i had for ten years in cairns.
i won’t know myself!

and for the first time in my life, i am interested in rotisserie chicken….it looks dead easy with this oven…..

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hi, i'm patti flynn

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