Cooking with love

Tomorrow afternoon my beautiful daughter leaves for home. She’s been here with me for 6 months now. She’s been my support person and my angel all through Michael’s hospitalisation and dying. I couldn’t have coped without her.

Tonight we’re off for a farewell dinner with some of our fellow dog humans, so yesterday was our last meal together. I wanted to cook something special. For Pip that was my tuna niçoise; for Chris, a steak. Sounds simple enough, except that the niçoise recipe I wanted to do is complicated, requiring much prep. Steak and oven-crisp potatoes? Easy. Except for the timing. Everything seemed to require cooking at the same time. The green beans needed to be blanched. The kipfler potatoes boiled then peeled, sliced and pan-fried to crispness. The olive tapenade needed making, as did the tuna mayo. The tuna needed searing. The potatoes for the steak needed time in the oven but meanwhile I was also making stuffed Padron peppers that needed 15 minutes in the oven. The steak was huge and discovering that the BBQ wasn’t working, it needed to be cooked on the stove and then finished in the oven. My oven only has two shelves.

Oh and then there are the poached eggs that need to go on top of the salad. That’s last minute. But turned out everything was last minute. The kitchen was a mess. But it was worth it, and besides, I don’t know when I’ll cook like that again. From now on its just meals for one. Plain and simple.

For those interested, here’s a link to the tuna niçoise recipe courtesy of Amanda Ruben.