Adventures in our new kitchen!

Dan and I have been cooking on our own for a few weeks now, and we've been getting along nicely. Having a gas stove has helped me with the transition. (I grew up cooking with gas, so I find electric very confusing.. I always look below the pan to see how hot the flame is.)

A few notes:
1. Menu planning is super helpful. We're on a pretty tight budget, which means we try to use everything we buy--that's a lot easier to do when you have a plan for what to buy. We still have a few grapefruit languishing in the back of the fridge, but we're using up our produce appropriately.

2. Slow cookers are AWESOME. Dan and I generally don't make it home from work/gym until around 7:30 or 8pm. (Last night, we finished our workout at 9!!!) It's really nice having dinner ready to go when you get home. We also use it for oatmeal!

So far, we've made oatmeal, beans, lentil soup and chicken tortilla soup. I expect it will continue to get heavily used.

3. I'm out of practice baking!! I tried to make muffins this weekend, and ended up setting off the smoke alarm. The butter/sugar didn't incorporate very well, and ended up bubbling over the edge of the muffin pan onto the oven floor. I spent 30 minutes scrubbing out our oven today, and it's finally usable again.

4. Toasters are awesome--and prevent a lot of burnt bread.

We're continuing to enjoy our first month cooking on our own--it's a terribly fun adventure.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com.

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