I was tagged by the Deputy Headmistress at the Common Room to answer these questions on Kitchens and Cooking.
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How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? HOw many are in your family?
Probably about 19 meals per week. There are 10 of us. Sometimes we order pizza from Papa John's on Tuesday night when large pizzas are $5.00. Mr. Potts and I go out to dinner some weeks. When baseball season starts we eat out many more evenings, usually pizza or Taco Bell.
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2. How many cookbooks do you own?
About 50. When I discovered the internet, it cut back on my cookbook purchases.
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3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?
Many times a week, maybe four.
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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)
The internet is my favorite source. Taste of Home magazine and Southern Living are other favorite sources. I also recently copied a recipe for a yummy-looking peanut butter ice cream pie from a magazine at the hair salon.
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5. How do you store those recipes?
Er, that's the project that is still awaiting my attention. I have a recipe card notebook that is falling apart and other printed from the internet recipes stuffed into pee-chee folders and still others in a 3-ring binder. I plan to buy a nice box from Hope Chest Legacy and get them all copied beautifully onto pretty recipe cards one of these days.
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6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas?
I have an ongoing debate with a friend over cooking being an art vs. a science. I'm a mostly a scientist when it comes to cooking. When something is good, I want to be able to count on it being the same every time so I stick to the recipe. When people compliment my cooking, I always say it's as easy as following directions.
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7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it?
Mr. Potts prefers country home cooking and is allergic to preservatives and MSG so I've had to learn to cook most everything from scratch. The children love anything pasta. I love anything spicy and hot and Mexican. To me, salsa is a kitchen staple! So we all take turns having our favorites.
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8. What's your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count)
Menu planning and making the grocery list.
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9. What's your least favorite part?
Besides unloading the dishwasher, I dislike handling raw meat.
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10. Do you plan menus before you shop?
Yes, though some alterations take place during the week.
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11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances?
Breadmaker and grain mill (these have to go together and count as one), crockpot and rice cooker. I love to leave for church with bread making in the breadmaker, meat and veggies in the crockpot and rice in the rice cooker! I must mention a fourth favorite - the standing mixer.
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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?
A rotisserie that cooked several chickens at once.
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13. Since money and space probably are objects, what are you most likely to buy next?
Pretty new dishtowels and some sharp knives.
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14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage?
We have 2 extra freezers and 1 extra refrigerator.
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15. Grocery shop alone or with others?
Preferably with one other person, either with Mr. Potts or one of the children.
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16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week??
Maybe one. Mr. Potts must have small amounts of protein at every meal.
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17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors?
Our kitchen, dining area and living area are all open, the kitchen being separated by a 14 ft. bar with cabinets above and below. We don't really have much room for decorating in the kitchen, everything is mostly wall to ceiling cabinets. Any available space is painted a deep purple (my favorite color). All towels, oven mitts and such are purple, tan or green to match the rest of the room.
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18. What's the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you?
I learned to make spaghetti sauce at 11 years old from my partially Italian step-mother.
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19. How did you learn to cook?
Mostly by following cookbooks after I was married.
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20. Tag two other people to play.
I have several friends I would like to tag, but alas, they are blog-less. Come on people! Get with it! (You know who you are!)
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