I’ve been lucky enough to cook in lots and lots (and lots) of kitchens. Kitchens in Edmonton, innumerable hostel kitchens around the world, the “kitchen” (i.e., the rice cooker) in my dorm in Hong Kong, the beautiful kitchen in our chateau in France, various kitchens in various apartments in Vancouver and Toronto, and for this past week (almost) I’ve been cooking in our new (super cute) little kitchen in Buenos Aires.

This post is to introduce you to my new kitchen and my first attempt at cooking therein (“Funny word choice”, you say? Well I say: “Ha, I’m a non-practising lawyer! Woohoo!”)

So. My Kitchen.

Cute, right? Extra plus: gas stove!

Since we arrived Tuesday night, I’ve been a cooking machine!

• Wednesday: A fancy butternut squash pasta for lunch (discussed in more detail below);
• Thursday: A chickpea salad for dinner (this was supposed to be Cilantro Lime Salad, but when I couldn’t find cilantro… or lime… I invented something new, totally different, and delicious;
• Friday: Sopa de Creme de Palmito for dinner (quite possibly the most delicious soup I’ve ever made, thanks Emeril. I didn’t photograph this one while I was making it, next time I’ll do it up and post it on the blog);
• Saturday: Black Bean and Butternut Squash Tacorritos for dinner (and for brunch yesterday)! Tacorritos are what you get when you can only find taco sized tortillas in the grocery store but your heart is set on burritos; and
• Sunday: A spinach salad and reheated 12 peso ($3) torta from the bakery kitty-corner to our apartment for dinner!

Butternut Squash Pasta

Lunch on Wednesday was inspired by 1) the leftover bowties we had from Uruguay, 2) the only good-looking vegetable in the grocery store (a butternut squash), and 3) butternut squash and black bean pasta. This pasta was super simple, I fried onions and garlic until soft, then added butternut squash for a few minutes. I then added chicken bouillon to the squash and simmered until the pasta was done cooking. Before serving, I tossed with fresh basil and garnished with a basil leaf!

Sounds simple, right? Well… almost…

1. Water takes forever to boil on my new stove. I need to start boiling water WAY before I need it.
2. I am incapable of lighting my stove with a lighter and must use matches.
3. It is hard to light my stove or my oven when the fan is on high. Since it is the summer, and the fan is always on high… this is quite annoying.
4. One cube of Calado de Pollo de la granja (chicken bouillon) is way too much salt for two people at one meal.
5. The cheap Queso Rallado (Grated Cheese) is like Kraft parmesan cheese. Not so delicious.
6. One thing I did right was bring my own knives, now I’m a slicing and dicing machine!

The only real issue at the end of the day was the salty salty bouillon. And despite being too salty, our pasta was pretty darn cute. Especially in our orange accented kitchen!

Bon appétit chicos!