For you home cooks: kitchen tasks you love and hate

[Mezzaluna]

The Pros had a thread like this going. I read it and thought we should have a similar thread for us home cooks. We don't have to worry about getting "slammed" with a huge dinner rush, but we have other 'issues'.

I'll go first:

I HATE making chicken soup with a whole chicken. It's a MESS to clean up and to strain the broth unless you have lots of big pots and strainers. (Yes, I love the finished product, but some of that is a pain.) I've done this since I was about 10 years old, but I still dislike

I LOVE to chop, chop, chop. It's kind of a Zen experience. I have decent knives and cutting boards so that makes it easier. I also have a nice selection of bench scrapers to make it easy to put the chopped food in the bowl or soup pot.

[cwshields]

Thanks for starting this thread, I'll throw in my two cents.

I also love to chop chop as I also have some very nice knives and cutting boards. I like making stock and don't mind the cean up, heck I even like washing the pans after. As you said it's kinda a zen experience when either chopping or washing for me.

The only thing I can think of right off is when the wife or kids toss my good knives or cast iron stuff into the sink, or worse the dishwasher.

[Jock]

Great thread!!

I hate peeling pearl onions or shallots when the skin is being stuborn.

I love making bread.

I love it when I am preparing a grand meal and it's getting close and I'm firing on all cylinders. The rush is terrific.

I hate it when I am in that mode and my wife complains that I am dripping water on the floor!!!!!

Jock

[panini]

Am I allowed?
I hate cleaning the garbage disposal. Does that count? I also dislike the sounds of my family cooking something in the kitchen. Means a lot of clean up for me.
I love to challenge myself to make dinner in 25 minutes and have all the pots cleaned and just the dishes to be done after.
pan

[Suzanne]

What a can of worms!

I hate making salad (maybe because I spent too long on garde manger?). Fortunately, my husband likes to make it almost as much as he LOVES to eat it. So we're covered almost every night (not tonight, which is why I'm here taking a break from washing and tearing lettuce leaves ).

And I hate emptying the dishwasher. But I do it; otherwise, 1) we couldn't use it again, and 2) all my tools and stuff would end up in strange places and I'd never find them when I need them.

I LOVE straining stock, over and over again until it's just as clear as it can be. Besides, I have lots of big restaurant linen napkins and flannel cones (Spanish coffee makers) to line the metal sieve, so I just empty the garbage into the can and throw the strainer into the wash.

[Mezzaluna]

Suzanne, I always try to get my husband to empty our dishwasher too. I don't understand why, but I hate that job too.

[indianwells]

Peeling Shallots has to be right up there!
Love chopping,slicing,dicing.
One of the best things for me is the smell of a long slow braise as it slowly permeates the house on a cold winter afternoon,especially if it's a leg of Lamb with Rosemary and Garlic!I do mine for 6 hours on the lowest possible heat.No need for fiddly carving,just caress the meat off the bone!

[siduri]

likes:

• mixing dough and batter (and all the tasting of raw cake batter at every stage along the way!) - have been doing it since i was little, mudpies in the back yard, i love the mixing and slopping around (well, no tasting there)
• with Jock, i love the rush before the big special meal (I do a christmas party with a full buffet meal for some fifty people every year) and all the flour all over me and everything, pieces of chopped vegetables flying, piles of stuff cooling, pots simmering, oven blazing - i enter a world on another level, like people who meditate or something - it's a way to come into myself, and surprisingly calming
• making bread, watching it grow, smelling it, baking it and eating it
• tasting as i go
• chopping, up to a point (the point where i get a blister from the top of the knife blade rubbing against the hand - usually only in the big christmas rush)
• eating, ah, the final product, and at every stage along the way

hates:

• putting things away (any dispersive task, don;t mind washing dishes, or putting in dishwasher, because they are all going from many places into one place, but i hate putting away - where i have to put each thing in a different place)
• cleaning up the huge mess i make (not bad though, if there is no rush- i can get into washing dishes even)
• even worse, cleaning up as i go along - i never do, figure i might as well do it all at once, at the end, than ruin my cooking fun and i'm just going to keep messing up
• any job that requires you to just stand there and watch or stir - jobs that require no skill, but just mindless hanging around or tedious repetitive acts (hand rolling gnocchi, stirring risotto, stirring polenta (which is not necessary, by the way). I think they invented these to keep women stuck for hours in the kitchen, just in case they got any ideas!

[Dirk Skene]

The only thing I can think of that I truly hate is cleaning my knives when somebody else in the house has used them. No one is ever supposed to use my knives. And why are they not supposed to use my knives? Because they do not clean them

[MuskyHopeful]

I like the prep work. Love when I have the mice en place. Then its the green light and I'm on my way.

My favorite kitchen task, however, is the eating after the meal is done.

I also like preparing a bunch of appetizers for a big party.

I hate cleaning up after a big meal when not everything fits in the dishwasher. Then you have to wait to finish the clean up. I lose my motivation for round two.

Kevin

Muskies anyone?

[Nentony]

Reaching consensus on what we should eat.

Tony

Edited to add one that I love. I love cooking at home when it raining or otherwise miserable out, usually soups.

[nofifi]

Mezzaluna, I too hate the chicken soup routine until I came across the greatest invention (why I didn't think of it first is beyond me)...a stock sock!! I just debone the chicken, put all the bones in the sock and make my stock (of course, with the vegetables, chicken, etc). Then there's no reason to find a bone later one. I think it really is faster because you don't have to strain as much.

Dishwasher.......I hate unloading but living alone, I get lazy sometimes and really hate unloading the darn thing and (omg, I can't believe I'm telling this...) I sometimes use what I need right out of the dishwasher, lol. Come on....we've all done this, lol.

Garbage Disposal... I solved that problem, I broke mine and never got it fixed, lol.

[allie]

I love chopping! When I was working full time and my SO stayed home with the youngest, I wanted to cook dinner because the chopping was my stress reliever from work to home. lol

I also love baking bread......kneading is another great stress reliever!

Another love is inventing new recipes. My family tells people that coming home to dinner is an adventure.......you never know what kind of combinations you might get!

I hate peeling potatoes. It makes my hands itch something awful! Washing dishes is another hate!

[Mezzaluna]

)...a stock sock!

Nofifi, is that something you can buy or make from cheesecloth, etc.? I'm intrigued.

Nentony said,

Reaching consensus on what we should eat.

Me, too. DH never knows what he wants to eat so I have to decide what to eat as well as all the prep and cleanup. He asked me to make a list of menus and asked me to just run down the list. Sure....

[Suzanne]

Oh, please. If I ask Paul what he wants to eat, he will invariably say "Lamb" or "Duck." Now, I love those, too, and very often have one or the other or both in the freezer, but come on! Not every night!! And anyway, I'm the one who has to buy it and prep it and cook it and plate it and then wait for him to get to the table. So I just decide what I want to eat, and make that.

But you know, sometimes I just get so tired of thinking about it every day.