"Kswck" wrote:
> Regarding making something that is NOT the usual dish on any given night at
> home.....
>
> I find when I make something elaborate, I don't want it once it's finished.
> I guess it has to do with tasting here, seasoning there, tasting again, etc.
> By the time it is finished, I want more of the accolades of people eating
> the dish than actually eating it myself.
>
> You?

Depends, on the dish, the quantity, the time spent preparing, my
mood. Professional cooks typically don't eat the same foods they're
preparing all day... it can be the most succulent USDA prime steak but
after grilling hundreds I really don't want to look at another... I'd
probably prefer a tuna salad sandwich. I especially don't like to eat
chicken after I just cleaned and handled one, I'll prep chicken in the
morning for dinner. When I cooked in the navy I rarely ate the same
meal being served, nor did I eat while everyone else did... I didn't
want to look at food until everyone was gone from the dining area, and
only then did I think about what I wanted to eat... after preparing
meat balls for five hundred I couldn't look at another. Especially
preparing holiday meals, dozens of turkeys and whole hams, and all the
fixings, plus hours carving to order, I didn't want any part of that
menu... I'd wait until everyone was gone and the air cleared of any
cloying cooking odor, then I might prepare a cheese omelet. Even now,
at home, I often prepare food and then after it's all done I stick it
in the fridge for the next day and eat something else... like
yesterday, I figured to prepare london broil and potato salad for
dinner... by the time I finished messing with marinating the meat and
then peeled seven pounds of spuds, cooked them, let them cool, sliced
them, let them cool some more 'cause they were still warm in the
middle, and folded in the dressing with a few tastes I was no longer
into that menu. For dinner last night I had edam cheese on bakery rye
with mustard and a Crystal Palace with ruby red grapefruit... later I
polished off about a third of a half gallon of chocolate chip ice
cream. The meat is still marinating in the fridge (it'll become
dinner tonight) but I did have a big bowl of potato salad for
breakfast this morning, it's so yummy I had to force myself to keep
from having seconds, I'll have more later. I made all that potato
salad because I suddenly realized I still had that 15 pound bag of
spuds from Sam's Club in the basement fridge and they needed using
up.... I have no idea what I'll do with the other half a bag. I know
I started the potato salad with seven pounds of potatoes because I
weighed them. But by the time they're peeled, eyed, cooked, sliced
and dressed there's really not as much as you'd think, filled a 12 cup
mixing bowl. There was probably a good 1 1/2 pounds lost in peeling
and trimming. And potatoes give up a lot of water weight and starch
to the cooking water. I like my potato salad on the plain side, just
s n' p, mayo, minced curly leaf parsley, and some white vinegar... I
usually grate in a carrot and add some diced bell pepper but I had no
fresh pepper (those in my garden were still too small) and I was too
lazy to grate a carrot... only reason I added the parsley is because I
have a patch growing right outside my back door, otherwise it would
have been dehy. And I love onions in most salads but absolutely
detest onions in potato salad and slaw.

So, what can I do to use up that other half bag of potatoes, by the
time I finish the potato salad I won't want to look at more potatoes
for a while. I'm thinking potato pudding and freezing it... hmm,
potatonik freezes well.

http://emr.cs.iit.edu/~reingold/ruth...potatonik.html