The Common Room’s Kitchen Meme
1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family?
We have a family of 4, and we eat at home most of the week. Sometimes we eat out two or three times at most (some of those for lunch and usually fast food if we go out). We don’t much like leftovers, but tolerate them. Tonight we’re eating lasagna leftover from last night.
2. How many cookbooks do you own?
Too many to name, and most of them with dust on their covers. I would guess that there are more than a hundred, but some of them are the grocery store cookbooks that you can pick up at the check-out isle. I also have a HUGE 4-inch binder that I have put together of my own favorite recipes (some hand-written, some given to me, some emails, some magazine articles, and some print-outs from the internet). I have a few spiral bound church cook-books and family cook-books also.
3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?
About once a week to an actual cookbook. I use a recipe from online or my own Binder about every other day at least.
4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources (relatives, friends, magazines, advertisements, packages, the internet, etc)
Internet is the most common (see above question). I like to get favorites from friends at church, online, and in person. I love going to pot-lucks and asking for them from the people who brought my favorite dishes.
5. How do you store those recipes?
4-inch Binder (see #2).
6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas?
It depends on the recipe and if I have tried it before. If I like all the ingredients, I’ll stick close to the recipe the first time and then play with it if I don’t like the way it turns out. I usually end up altering everything at least somewhat to fit my own tastes. After I have made it a few times, I will make it on my own without the recipe.
7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it?
We love international foods. I like American Comfort Cooking (Southern), Tex-Mex, Mexican, Indian, Lebanese, Hungarian, Middle-Eastern, Jewish, Asian (Thai mainly), Greek, Italian, etc.!!!
8. What’s your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count)
I enjoy reading through recipes and making meal plans, but I admit, with all my other housework and homeschooling, I tend to get behind at this and turn it into a chore.
9. What’s your least favorite part?
Washing dishes. My kids help out a lot, though.
10. Do you plan menus before you shop?
I plan, but usually will change the plan around as needed. Some weeks when I have no plan, I try and just plan a day at a time and we only shop for needed items (since we live closer to the store now).
11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances?
MEAT SCISSORS! LARGE NON-STICK FRYING PAN. Food processor (hummus and chopped onions).
12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have?
An AGA Cast Iron stove and a metal cooking rack to hang my pots from with an island under it that contained a sink and an ice maker with a plastic scoop. My friend Ammie has the perfect kitchen!
13. Since money and space probably are objects, what are you most likely to buy next?
A new set of dishes. Silverware (mine is in storage in Texas and we’ve been using cheap plastic stuff from Wal-Mart for six months or more).
14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage?
I have a brand new refrigerator in storage, but here at the apartment, there’s no room for that luxury. My goal is to have an extra fridge/freezer combo in the garage once we have one again.
15. Grocery shop alone or with others?
I like doing it with my kids, which makes me an anomaly.
16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week?
Maybe three at most.
17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors?
I like gold and red. My last kitchen was so pretty. I loved it. It was my favorite of all that I’ve had (which is many). I have bee stuff and roosters in my kitchen… and for a while I did the Paris bakery theme. I always end up with the bee things. I like the Italian bistro look. I HATE bright yellow and black bee things, though… so I tend to not tell people about my bee fetish because that’s the first thing they will get me.
18. What’s the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you?
Are you kidding? I hardly knew how to boil an egg when I got married. My poor husband. I’ve learned it all since marriage (which was at age 20). The meal I was most proud of was this past Thanksgiving that I made for my family all by myself since I was out of town and not with family for the first time. When we first got married we used to make Hamburger Helper (shhhh! Don’t tell anyone), but those days are long gone.
19. How did you learn to cook?
Self taught. My husband and I both enjoy cooking.
20. Tag a few other people to play.
I’ll tag a few people below that I would love to see answer, but if you are interested, please feel free to do the meme and pass it on to your blog buddies. Please email or comment to tell me when you complete it, however! I would love to read your answers. This meme has made me think about re-designing this site and adding a few more interesting topics. Now that my other re-design for my other blog will be complete next week, I’m looking forward to tackling this one. Maybe then I won’t neglect it for so long!
LJC (not sure if she does blog memes, but I love her kitchen ideas)
Sheri at Shades of Pink
Rhonda at Imagine
and…
Jen at Jeneric Jeneralities
Technorati Tags: Food, Cuisine, Eat, Fun, Blogging, Friends, Dinner, Pot Luck, Cooking, Recipes, Cookbook, Meme, Kitchen