Behind The Scenes at Peter’s Kitchen

You’ve heard about Peter’s Kitchen before. You’ve seen many of Peter’s creations here on LLE. Now, you can experience the behind the scenes action.

First, a little background information on Peter…

The hypothetical restaurant, “Peter’s Kitchen,” was founded several years ago when Peter’s family jokingly suggested he open a restaurant with that name. Instead of going out to eat, Peter’s family often preferred to stay at home and dine at Peter’s Kitchen. Peter actually has no formal culinary training. Engineering, yes…culinary, no. He learned how to cook at a young age by watching his mother in the kitchen. As the oldest of five siblings, he often had to cook for his family.

Peter loves to eat and he’ll eat just about anything (luckily, he was blessed with a lightning fast metabolism). Thus, he likes to experiment with various foods/ingredients. Although he does not particularly enjoy cooking all that much (so he says), he cooks dinner nearly every single night for his family. Some nights he is in the kitchen for up to an hour and some nights he spends just 20 min. or less. He usually prepares 3-4 dishes every night, depending on how many mouths he has to feed.

Peter is all about cooking quick, simple, and cheap meals. In fact, his daughter suspects/knows that one of the reasons he regularly prepares her favorite seafood is so she doesn’t spend as much money on groceries at Trader Joe’s. While frozen shrimp is more convenient than head-on shrimp, it is inevitably more expensive…even at TJ’s. Peter doesn’t mind cleaning the shrimpies himself in order to save some money.

Now you know where his daughter gets her cheapskate ways. Note: Peter also keeps the shrimp heads in the freezer to throw into a future pot of soup. Now you also know where his daughter gets her inability to throw away food…or anything for that matter.

Additional background information:

Peter’s daughter, Allie, suspects/knows that her father would rather her find a real job than spend hours everyday blogging, as her blog is not popular enough to consider it a ‘real job.’ He thinks/knows that she would make more money working for McDonald’s than Foodbuzz. Much more.

Thus, Peter tries not to show too much excitement about her blog. Of course, he often lets his guard down and when this happens, his daughter can’t help but smile. After all, he was the one who helped her research DSLR cameras and bought her the one she wanted for graduation, further encouraging her blogging hobby.

Before Allie takes his dishes from the kitchen counter to her photography spot, Peter does some last minute arranging of the food to make sure it looks blog-worthy. Sometimes, he adds a twig of parsley or some other garnish to make the dish more pleasing to the eye. His daughter’s hobby has forever changed his approach to food presentation. Now, he is always thinking about what he can do to make his dishes look better for the blog .

It is in these moments when Allie realizes that deep down inside, her dad thinks her blog is pretty cool.

***

Last Wednesday, Peter was just starting to cook dinner as his hungry daughter got back from her workout. As Allie was chugging a glass of water, he told her to check out the gorgeous green hue of the broccoli he bought at the store. He immediately suggested she take a photograph.

His hungry daughter didn’t feel like it because she knew she would have to take the broccoli to the window sill or out on the balcony for good lighting and she was on the verge of gnawing off her arm. However, Peter was adamant about documenting the crown of broccoli and insisted the kitchen lighting was just fine.

Upon reviewing the initial photos, Peter agreed that natural lighting was necessary. Thus, he followed her advice and took it over to the ‘sill.

He even went over to the sink to sprinkle some water droplets to make it look more natural. Oh dear.

Take two.

As Ms. Tyra Banks would say, this was his best shot:

Peter proceeded to explain to his daughter that the shadows were necessary to bring out the texture of the broccoli florets. She nodded in agreement and hurried her father along.

Peter told her not to worry. ‘Give me 10 min. and I’ll have dinner ready.’

First he chopped up the [gorgeous] broccoli and 1/2 a carrot while his daughter washed her bargain tomatoes.

He also took out a can of baby corn, one of her childhood faves.

Next, he sauteed the shrimp (that he cleaned earlier that day) in a pan with a few tablespoons of canola oil.

On the side, he lightly steamed the broccoli in a pot with about 2 cups water until just tender.

Time to stir-fry!

Baby corn, carrots and tomatoes in 1 TBSP canola oil.

+ steamed broccoli and a sprinkle of salt.

Finally, he tossed the veggies with the cooked shrimp.

Peter wanted you all to know that “cooking healthy meals is easy and simple.”

Thanks, Peter.

Peter never uses recipes. Ever. Instead, he improvises with whatever happens to be in the fridge/freezer/pantry.

Note: This was a super simple dish due to Allie’s desire for a quick meal. If there is interest, Peter is open to demonstrating some more complex dishes such as:

Quote of the day:

“Allie, you’re gonna want to take a photo of this dish. It’s special. Tell them it’s made with Peter’s secret sauce.”

~Chef Peter

Tagged as: Baby Corn, Broccoli, Carrots, Shrimp, Tomatoes