Food Revolution

[AccountingDrone]

I have eaten frozen dinners. Sorry, but THAT is not a lasagne, THAT is not stir fry, THAT is not fried chicken, and THAT is not a turkey dinner. I am heavily biased with the first one, since we grew up eating pasta about three nights a week, but still, frozen dinners? Yuck. I almost never eat those things, unless I am desperate. Add to the fact that I hate using the microwave for anything more than melting butter or boiling water quickly, and you can guess that I don't spend too much time in the frozen "foods" aisle. (Unless I am craving ice cream, that is.)

Lasagne? As if.

I entirely agree ... both hubby and I love to cook and are good at it - but it did take getting in there and making food. The absolute first thing I learned to make was a basic baked egg custard. Took me about 4 times doing it with help before I tried it all alone [IIRC I was 7 years old] and I screwed it up a couple times in the first dozen or so times I did it solo ... but it is something I make fairly frequently still [I love a good custard.] I will make lots of things from memory, that I have made hundreds of times each [and believe me, when you make something every day for a few months, it gets memorized!]

I have actually taught about 20 people to cook over the years. All of them came from families where the TV dinner and takeout was pretty much the standard I have a few standard foods I think everybody should be able to make. An omelet, beef stew, chicken noodle soup, minestrone [vegan and nonvegan] lasagne, roast chicken, 2 different baked fish recipes, apple pie [i am willing to concede to premade already pie crust, they are decent quality and some people just do not grasp pastry making] standard white bread [though I use unbleached flour], chocolate cake, and the whole turkey thanksgiving dinner [roast turkey, dressing made outside the bird, mashed potatoes, baked yams NO marshmallows, bread, homemade cranberry relish, gravy and both pumpkin and apple pie] and a rough idea on how to cook vegetables. I also teach how to use a cookbook to make unfamiliar stuff so they can continue to learn. I also encourage them to go out and collect recipes from friends and family =)

Of course if you are vegetarian/vegan your mileage may vary on necessary dishes =)

[Kheldarson]

Yeah, and when he brought up the subject in the first place, the lunch ladies cooks looked absolutely horrified. They're butter knives, for crying out loud.

But they're knives! And they have Zero Tolerance policy there! Cuz as pretty as the shots made it look, Huntington is a scary place in some areas, particularly around Marshall.

OTOH, I don't remember actually having real knives in school cafeterias until high school. Most of the time we got plastic, if anything.

[Cat]

I should learn to cook....I was even gung-ho about it recently....I got a mess of books and a crock pot!!

But after driving home from work and hittin the gym, I am too tired to do anything apart from pasta...and I never think to have ingredients on hand to throw in the crock pot

[Magpie]

Hey, if it helps him cook, let him have it. I have my way of doing things, you have yours, he has his. Lord knows my way isn't for everyone, but it works for me, even though it probably would be a bit too chaotic for most people. So unless the spreadsheets are actually making your hubby cook badly, let it go.

One of the best ways to learn how to cook is to simply get in there and do it.

And that is why the spreadsheets bug me. But I let him do it as long as he doesn't try to get me involved.

Mom's is so good. All she uses are the leftover fat drippings, flour, milk, and water. It's amazing. I usually end up with something that resembles water-y glue.

Ok, if we substitute "liquid" for "milk and water" how else does one make gravy? I normally use broth (so that it's even more chickeny), but it's not like cooking meat happens often enough that there's going to be enough samples to notice a trend.

I have actually taught about 20 people to cook over the years. All of them came from families where the TV dinner and takeout was pretty much the standard I have a few standard foods I think everybody should be able to make. An omelet, beef stew, chicken noodle soup, minestrone [vegan and nonvegan] lasagne, roast chicken, 2 different baked fish recipes, apple pie [i am willing to concede to premade already pie crust, they are decent quality and some people just do not grasp pastry making] standard white bread [though I use unbleached flour], chocolate cake, and the whole turkey thanksgiving dinner [roast turkey, dressing made outside the bird, mashed potatoes, baked yams NO marshmallows, bread, homemade cranberry relish, gravy and both pumpkin and apple pie] and a rough idea on how to cook vegetables. I also teach how to use a cookbook to make unfamiliar stuff so they can continue to learn. I also encourage them to go out and collect recipes from friends and family =)

I cook well enough that my current complaint is that I never follow recipes. My reason, however, is that my version tends to turn out much better. And I actually do follow them sometimes, but normally only when making ethnic food. And at this point African dishes are about the only ones I still consider ethnic. Well, that and my husband's traditional Russian Mennonite foods, but the recipes we have are never the same as what he remembers anyhow, so I'm allowed to play. I'm not very good at teaching people how to cook because I've been known to give directions like "cook until done" or "add spices as needed". I know that those are classic bad directions, but I was boiling frozen perogies as a little kid. I can't remember how to tell that they're done, they just look done!

That being said, there's a lot of things on your list that I wouldn't know how to do without a cookbook. I've made white bread by accident, so I guess I can do that. I still can't make most soups. I can do chicken noodle and leek and potato, but my miso soup tends to turn out poorly, as does my "throw random stuff in" soup. Last time I tried cooking meat I had problems, as I completely ignored all my heat transfer courses when picking the cooking time (I went by size, even though I was cooking a half-ham, which meant I should have picked less time per pound). I'm going to ignore the meat, because I'm going to assume that crazy environmentalist hippies are included in your "vegetarian/vegan" statement. But it drives me crazy when people just assume that I know how to cook well, because of all these basics that I'm missing!

But after driving home from work and hittin the gym, I am too tired to do anything apart from pasta...and I never think to have ingredients on hand to throw in the crock pot

Crock pots are great for beans. Soak them first (I use the overnight one, because if I'm not boiling them it's easier). Just throw everything that isn't acidic into your recipe at once, and then cook it. When you get home add the vinegar/tomatoes/other acidic ingredients and let it cook a little bit longer, and you can't tell that you didn't pre-cook the beans first.

[trailerparkmedic]

I never think to have ingredients on hand to throw in the crock pot

This is the only way I consistently cook dinner every night--I make a list of recipes I'm going to cook for the next week (or however long), figure out what ingredients I need, and make that my shopping list. I stick the top of the list (with the recipes and where I found them, if necessary) on the fridge and go off of that. I don't cook if it isn't planned in advance.

Here's an easy crockpot meal to get you started if you like Tex Mex--boneless meat (chicken and pork tenderloin work well), 4 oz of green chilies, 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup chipotle sauce or a few big tablespoons of chopped chipotle peppers in adobe sauce. Cut up the meat into chunks if its big, plop everything into the crockpot and cook on low for 8ish hours. Shred the meat before cooking. Fill tortillas with meat and rice.

[Jester]

I'm eager to try livers, hearts, and the other 'nasty bits'.

I love liver. And I've tried heart once. The head chef at the brewpub I worked at got in some various duck parts. Duck liver is awesome! But duck heart? Might as well chew on a racquetball. Yes, I am serious. That being said, I would try cow heart if given the chance. But so far, my one experience with heart was pretty horrible.

I cook well enough that my current complaint is that I never follow recipes. My reason, however, is that my version tends to turn out much better. And I actually do follow them sometimes...

Ah, but recipes are still good. I don't often follow them, unless I am making something totally foreign to me for the first time, but I still use them. I read a bunch of chili recipes before I made my own chili, though I had a good idea how I was going to go about it before I read any of them. Reading them just gave me some other ideas that I might not have thought about otherwise.

And when my friend Cookie and I made our white seafood chili, we looked up some white chili recipes. We settled on one that used white beans....and then created our own that had virtually nothing to do with the one we found. It just gave us a jumping off point, as it were. And by the time we were finished, our white chili looked and tasted exactly nothing like that one recipe we had found. (Ours was much, much better!)

I should learn to cook....I was even gung-ho about it recently....I got a mess of books and a crock pot!!

But after driving home from work and hittin the gym, I am too tired to do anything apart from pasta...and I never think to have ingredients on hand to throw in the crock pot

Okay, I don't do this myself, but Robin Miller has a system that would work for you. It requires a little planning one day of the week so you don't have to plan the rest of the week. (If you feel like picking up another book, check out her Quick Fix Meals.) Here is the basic concept:

Let's say you have Sundays off. I am picking that day randomly, and because many people (including myself) have that day off normally. So on Sunday, you would sit down and figure out what you want for dinner in your crock pot the rest of the week. Come up with five ideas (assuming you work five days), figure out the recipes (either by finding them online or from your books), figure out all the ingredients you'll need, note which ingredients cross over so you can buy the right amount (one onion can go a long way, for example), then go to the store and buy said ingredients. Come home, chop up what needs to be chopped up, and portion stuff for each meal. Use ziptop baggies or tupperware to portion stuff out, and stick in the fridge, each meal with its appropriate ingredients.* Then, Monday morning, you take the Monday ingredients, already prepped, throw them in the crockpot, turn it to the appropriate setting, go to work, go to the gym, come home, open the crockpot, smell the deliciousness you have made, eat dinner, relax, clean up, and do whatever else it is that you do at night. Next day, same thing.

*Do not cross-contaminate. Do not store meats in the same storage unit as you do veggies. Generally speaking, keep meats separate from everything else (especially raw pork and raw chicken), even other meats, as different bacteria feed on different meats, and you can get yourself really sick by not keeping things separate. You can store different veggies together, but I would keep the juicier ones and the more acidic ones (tomatoes, oranges, lemons, etc.) separate from the firmer ones.

Hope all this helps!

[AccountingDrone]

Any form of heart [my favorites are duck or chicken]

Cut heart into 1 inch cubes, or if duck/chicken in half the long way. Plop into salted ice water, and toss in teh fridge for half an hour. Scoodge between fingers to get any blood clots out, trim away any remaining blood vessels.

Take a covered ramekin or tiny casserole dish. Place the washed trimmed heart in, about 1 cup of cubes or so. Add 1 tsp minced garlic, half a tsp dried italian herbs, a couple grinds of fresh black pepper and cover with red wine [ some wine you actually would drink, never cook with an ingredient you would not eat separately] and cover with the lid. Pop in a low oven [250 degrees fahrenheit] and ignore for 3 hours. Serve over noodles, with bread, with a nice tossed salad.

Long slow low temperature cooking in a liquid is the secret to tenderizing the hear muscle, and removing all traces of blood cures the livery organ taste [that is actually the flavor of blood] Of course if you already consume blood in black puddings, or czarnina, don't worry about it =)

If I can't find poultry hearts, my next choice tends to be pork heart.

[Jester]

...never cook with an ingredient you would not eat separately...

Well let's see, that would eliminate all spices, lemons, most herbs, pasta (plain pasta? Really? HELL NO!), butter, garlic, olive oil, bacon fat, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and probably several other things I am sure I could think of.

[42_42_42]

My mom used to work in a produce store when she was a teenager. I'm not sure if this happened while she was there, or afterwards (given how well my dad knows the story, I suspect after, and that he was there). She encountered some nectarines, and commented on the "Little tiny peaches without any fuzz". This is a family legend, and we have been known to tell her to pick up some of the "great big nectarines with fuzz" and the like.

Hate to break it to you, but your mom was right, nectarines are simply a type of peach that has smooth skin instead of fuzzy, not a cross between peaches and plums as is commonly believed.

____________________

Our grocery shop every week is primarily from produce (we use very little canned or frozen produce). Both hubby and I cook very well (OMG, the ribs and smoked bbq that man can make!), and primarily from scratch. A good 75% of the time, the cashier will either ask me to identify a produce item or ask how it is used. I've been queried about leeks, parsnips, cilantro, parsley (both curly and flat-leaf), turnips, beets, jicima, shallots, even garlic!

____________________

I make damned good lasagna. Actually, I make several different damned good lasagnas. One time, I'd made my three-meat lasagna (made with veal, lamb, and pork, seven kinds of cheese, homemade sauce (made from our own home-grown tomatoes and herbs) and noodles) and some friends of ours who live solely on take-out and frozen foods were over for dinner and one of them had the audacity to say, how much he loves Stouffer's! grrrr! Honestly, if you prefer Stouffer's to my homemade lasagna ambrosia, then I'm not gonna waste any on you!

His wife is just as bad. Until recently, she only got iced sweet tea at restaurants because she didn't know how to make it at home.

[Evil Queen]

I just finished watching the two episodes on Hulu. I was so saddened to see those kids not eating, not knowing what a particular veggie is. Did you notice how malnurished the scrawny kids are??

This show makes me sad. But the Brit is cute to boot.

[AccountingDrone]

Well let's see, that would eliminate all spices, lemons, most herbs, pasta (plain pasta? Really? HELL NO!), butter, garlic, olive oil, bacon fat, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and probably several other things I am sure I could think of.

=} I am more referring to the habit of trying to make an edible stock from veggie peelings, yucky garbage quality meat and sour nasty wine.

Honestly, the black powdery crap between onion peels is a fungus, in general it just tastes bad but there are a couple of the smuts that are actually toxic. And there is nothing you can do with sour nasty wine other than process it into vinegar to make it palatable.

[TelephoneAngel]

Okay, I don't do this myself, but Robin Miller has a system that would work for you. It requires a little planning one day of the week so you don't have to plan the rest of the week. (If you feel like picking up another book, check out her Quick Fix Meals.) Here is the basic concept:

Let's say you have Sundays off. I am picking that day randomly, and because many people (including myself) have that day off normally. So on Sunday, you would sit down and figure out what you want for dinner in your crock pot the rest of the week. Come up with five ideas (assuming you work five days), figure out the recipes (either by finding them online or from your books), figure out all the ingredients you'll need, note which ingredients cross over so you can buy the right amount (one onion can go a long way, for example), then go to the store and buy said ingredients. Come home, chop up what needs to be chopped up, and portion stuff for each meal. Use ziptop baggies or tupperware to portion stuff out, and stick in the fridge, each meal with its appropriate ingredients.* Then, Monday morning, you take the Monday ingredients, already prepped, throw them in the crockpot, turn it to the appropriate setting, go to work, go to the gym, come home, open the crockpot, smell the deliciousness you have made, eat dinner, relax, clean up, and do whatever else it is that you do at night. Next day, same thing.

!

That sounds like a really good time saving system, and I will try it, the only thing, do the items to be used at the end of the week really stay good in the fridge when prepared on the Sunday? I ask because I never usually defrost meat if I am not going to use it withing two days and on that system it could be five days before it is used?

[Cat]

Hmmmm...not a bad idea.....though I only grocery shop once every 3 weeks.....I like the idea of soaking the beans,,,,I can snag some canned tomatoes and fake meats and make myself a good chili,,,,hmmm...

[Magpie]

=} I am more referring to the habit of trying to make an edible stock from veggie peelings, yucky garbage quality meat and sour nasty wine.

Veggie peelings make a perfectly fine stock. You just need to be careful about what peelings you put in there. Generally I don't put stuff in there that has problems beyond "tough". But carrot peels, the not-quite good onion peels (not the papery parts), celery leaves/the top of the stalks, spinach stems, etc, those are all fine. The only reason we don't eat them is because we're rich and picky.

I'm not sure where the wine comes in, and normally my meat base (if I'm using one) is either from a roast or I buy chicken carcasses. I know what you mean about not using ingredients you wouldn't consume on their own, but you need to look at why you wouldn't consume them on their own.

[AdminAssistant]

His wife is just as bad. Until recently, she only got iced sweet tea at restaurants because she didn't know how to make it at home.

My sister, who grew up in the same damn house and eating the same good food as I did, will not make sweet tea without a tea maker. It's one of the easiest things ever...but she just won't do it. When I have friends over, they rave about my tea and say they could never make it. Simplest thing in the world, really.