Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Too-Light Sausage in a Too-Dark Kitchen

Jessica, of the photoblog QuickSilver Dreams, gave us this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge topic, "In the Kitchen!" Now I'm sure that, for a lot of people, the idea conjures up visions of domestic bliss: kids setting the table, something wonderfully aromatic coming fresh from the oven, a cat on the rug and grandmother's old glass gleaming in the sunshine from the kitchen window.

My kitchen is never, ever like that. My motto comes from the 1990 film Sibling Rivalry: "I don't cook. I reheat." Good little movie, that. Anyway, the point is, I hardly ever do any cooking, I have no kids to set the table, no cat to lie on the rug, and the kitchen window is just a pass-through into the den.



But occasionally I have to actually cook something. Tonight it was Italian sausages. I peeled the casings off, put them in water, and added a lid that isn't nearly big enough to cover the entire frying pan. But at least it covers the sausages.

Then I cut up the peppers, one of which had a cameo role in last night's entry as floating food.

I have a bad habit of burning sausage after leaving the room for just a little too long. Hence the water. That cooks the sausage and peppers most of the way. Then when the water runs out, it browns - or burns. But tonight I didn't leave the room. I turned down the heat when the water ran out. The sausage didn't burn. It barely browned before we ran out of patience and ate it anyway. (There was more green pepper than this, by the way. What you see here are the slices that didn't cook as quickly as the rest.)

Recently, as part of the same extravaganza of failing technology that took our old refrigerator and my mouse, we lost the use of an old combination fan and light fixture that we always hated anyway. It's a wiring issue or bad sockets or a short or something. John went to buy something cooler and more modern, but the store didn't have anything good. We'll get it eventually.


A week after that, we lost the use of another old fixture, one that we actually liked and put there. It's not attached at the moment, but this overhead light has a nice white glass cover with a gold wheat pattern. The old cord on this late 1950s or early 1960s lamp has stopped working.


There's a little light over the stove and a small track light over the sink, but they don't do much to light the room. So John brought in this lamp that's been sitting in the bedroom closet for years. The clear base is filled with old Happy Meal toys, circa 1990. There are at least three Back to the Future vehicles in there: a DeLorean, the modified locomotive, and the hoverboard with Marty on it. As you can see, through, the lamp itself doesn't do an adequate job of lighting the room.

That's it for now - probably the least impressive kitchen and kitchen activity on this whole Challenge. Care to top me? Then click this link! And check out everyone else's entries below.

Karen

Linking List

Jessica - Posted!
QuicksilverDreams
http://www.thewatersedge.us/QuickSilver/

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis...Suddenly Carly
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com

Kerrin - Posted!
A New Day A New Photo
http://kerrinsdailyphoto.blogspot.com

Danella - Posted!
Deep Red Style
http://deepredstyle.com

Suzanne R - Posted!
New Suzanne R's Life
http://newsuzannerslife.blogspot.com

Julie - Posted!
Julie's Web Journal
http://www.barrettmanor.com/julie/journal.aspx

Janet - Posted!
Fond Of Photography
http://fondofphotography.blogspot.com

Teena - Posted!
It's all about me!
http://purple4mee.blogspot.com/

Robin - Posted!
R's Musings
http://rs-musings.blogspot.com/



Linda - Posted!
Blah Blah Blog
http://blahblahblog.wordpress.com/

Becky - Posted!
Where Life Takes You
http://ryanagi.blogspot.com

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11 comments:

Gattina said...

Nothing of what you have listed are on my "kitchen" pictures ! Except perhaps the cat. But there are more than one and they are ON the table ! Big difference ! But a grandma, yes that would have been nice.

Carly said...

I didn't find your entry uninteresting at all. In fact, it was kinda fun to see the sausage on the stove. As always, you did well with the challenge. :)

kmm said...

We are so much alike in the kitchen department except you would rarely catch me cooking meat. My record has been noodles for every evening meal for a week. Tonight I have not even bothered with those. So I really enjoyed your entry Cheers Kerrin

DesLily said...

mmmm love italian sausage!

you are lucky you can leave the kitchen when you cook... with 9 cats here one does not leave any sort of food unprotected lol

Teena in Toronto said...

You made me hungry! Gimme some :)

Mine's up too :)

Anonymous said...

what a cool and interesting lamp to resurrect!!!

Anonymous said...

Karen, I LOVE Italian sausage and green peppers, and I boil mine like that, too. Sometimes we add onions, red peppers, a slice of provolone cheese, and eat them on hoagie buns, but just the meat & peppers is great, too! And that is a very cool lamp!

Suzanne R said...

The sausage looks delicious! I may have to try it sometime -- I'm not into Italian cooking much, though. But I rarely meet a food I don't like. LOL!

Anonymous said...

What a great series of photos, I really like the one of the sausage and peppers cooking together.

Anonymous said...

My kitchen is probably less interesting than yours - although slightly better on the lighting front - but only because I changed the light bulb last week! ;-)

Becky said...

Unique, as always! I found a cool fixture for the hallway that is right up your taste alley. It's rather 50's space-saucery looking with moons and stars on it. Found it at Lowes. And where those pumpkin pancakes I saw a couple entries back?? LOL!