Kitchen tasks you loathe even though you like to cook

[moondog]

Cutting broccoli. Those little buds get everywhere and prove resistant to removal by wet or dry cloth.
Nigel Slater once said that anything which involved retrieving a heavy pan made his heart sink a little. I so get that.

Grating bloody Parmesan on the side of the grater with the tiniest holes, and then washing it. Horrible job.

Garlic skin makes me homicidal. Fucking papery bastard stuff. But I love garlic in food. I often cheat now and use garlic paste.

I love doing mash now I have a ricer. It's like squeezing a zit

I always make a terrible mess with the blender and soup goes all over. I then have to wash the bloody thing out.

I will say again about the frozen garlic from waitrose. It costs £1.50 and lasts for ages, it's brilliant.

I don't like the stuff in jars but the frozen stuff is great.

Strangely when I do use fresh garlic I really like prising out the green shoot.

Mash. Hate peeling potatoes, but I would far rather do that than use the bloody ricer, yes, it makes lovely mash, but what a palaver, both to use and to clean and the mash is cold before you've finished making it all.

Onions hold no fear for me if I've got my contact lenses in I'm totally impervious to them, but if I'm not wearing them (which is rare) it's awful. I always keep a bag of the frozen ones in for quick meals.

Trying to sweep up silver balls after the DCs have been decorating cakes. They get everywhere and just bounce away from the brush.

Washing out the coffee grinds from the cafeteria....I can't stand doing it!!! Setting the table - dcs now do the job,

I bought a juicer recently and it's a massive ballache to clean. It's currently gathering dust.

Pomegranates: Cut in half (across 'equator'). Hold over large bowl of water. Take wooden spoon and hit pomegranate skin hard all over until seeds pop out. Mind hand whilst doing this.

Seeds will fall to the bottom of the water unscathed, and white bits will float on top of water.

Scoop out white bits.

Pour off most of the water.

Seeds at bottom ready for eating!

Oh, I will make mash, but NEVER lasagne. Whats wrong with good mince, spaghetti and parmesan?

yy to squeezing a zit! so satisfying

You don't need to peel garlic if you use a crusher - it peels it for you.

Oh I'll try that pomegranate trick although not when clutching large pre dinner g&t as obviously massive potential to gk awry.
Ty to grater and coffee ground tedium. Funny, there is plenty I am happy to spend hours doing-gutting fish, cleaning mussels, making a marinade....

Getting the mush out of the sink strainer after washing up. Bleurgh.

Blue, I tried that "bash the pomegranate with a spoon" thing. I wore a white tshirt. It looked like there had been a murder in my kitchen.

Pomegranates - Only eat them when mum is visiting as she peels them for me Nigella's tip is rubbish.

Roasted Chestnuts - adore them, but can't stand scoring them before putting them in the oven. They're tough and it's hard work.

Butternut Squash - Cutting them in cubes. I need a machete.

I hate making sandwiches.

I love cooking. I'll saute steaks and rustles up sauces and make roasts and tarts and pastry...you name it.

But making sandwiches is a soul destroying waste of life. Especially cheese sandwiches. Oh save me from the tedium.

Oh yes I completely agree about the tedium of making sandwiches.

I made meatballs yesterday. That was dismally boring as well. I started off making them small but got so bored I had to stop myself from making the meatballs increasingly larger just to get the job finished.

That said I like the mindlessness of preparing vegetables for Christmas dinner etc.

I only cook a roast dinner to that extent a couple of times a year so it's quite a novelty.

If don't understand those who cook a roast dinner every Sunday, I would be bored to death.

Yes.
I have fond memories of Christmases past with everyone pitching in for that sort of thing and music on and the fizz flowing.
Once read of importance of routine tasks in allowing people to talk more freely while eyes and limbs doing other things. At risk of sounding like a 60s sociology lecturer, think of the place of that for women especially in society. Getting together to prepare food.

One of my happiest times was working with a group of friends to prepare a wedding dinner for mutual friends. It was lovely. All arm deep in things, chatting away and sharing confidences and stories

"Oh yes I completely agree about the tedium of making sandwiches."

I get this with when I try to make fish fingers or goujons - the whole flour/egg/breadcrumbs bores me to tears and there's always mountains of the stuff.

I think some folk make a stack and freeze them.
I did that once but it was even more boring.

I agree about working with friends. One of my best days was the first time we butchered our pigs. Lots of us working away together, getting a huge amount done and having lots of lovely stuff to eat at the end of the day. It was brilliant.

I don't mind making sandwiches. Don't make that many, plus I'm training DC to make their own.

Somebody mentioned cleaning out the strainer thing when the sink has drained. I hate that too. And cleaning garlic press.

Preparing butternut squash. I love it and would eat it more often but it's always such a bugger to peel and chop. Or if you that thing of just hacking it into chunks with the skin on and roasting, you still have to get the peel off which is a million times harder when ths squash is squashy!

I bloody love frozen garlic. No stinky fingers, no papery skin everywhere, no garlic press to clean out. Marvellous.

I've taught DS that his "special jobs" are peeling veg and grating cheese. He's now pretty competant at both.