How to food
One of my Adult Competency Failure Modes is food. (On the one hand, I'm cross that a species with climate control & solar panels & ridiculous conspicuous consumption items like light-up toddler shoes hasn't sorted out a workaround for having to eat yet. On the other, biology: all the so far proposed workarounds for food work far less well than the real thing. So, whatever.)
Anyway, I have good food-and-laziness systems for when I remember them: these are easy, usually take a maximum of 30 minutes input time, and don't dirty a lot of dishes. I also tend to forget most of them under stress, and Grauwulf gets all cross when I don't have a *name* for what I'm making for dinner. So this is a how-to post, but also intended as a brainstorming post: please comment with ways you food! Or spins you'd put on these that maybe I haven't thought of!
Basics: To do these things you need:
*a properly stocked kitchen. This could be an entire post by itself, but basically comes down to keeping the things you use on your shelves/freezer/etc. Grauwulf tends to grill large portions of chicken & sausage at a time, which we then chop up and freeze in 1 cup containers; everything else is pretty obvious. (If people are interested in itemization & me talking about my pantry, do say.) Pots/pans/cooking devices you use. I've done some of this in a hotel room with a cube fridge, a hot pot, cutting board, knife, spoon, & bowl. If you want to pesto, some kind of food processor makes it far easier. YMMV & all that.
*To know what you (& the people you're cooking for) like/can eat/think goes together.
*kitchen practice. This is the "just try it" school of cooking; if you haven't got any remedial cooking skills whatsoever, then probably start by actually reading the paragraph bits in a few of the big all-purpose cookbooks first. Or dive right in and accept that there may be a few "throw this away and order pizza/dine on cold cereal" kinds of experiences as you get things sorted out.
"Pasta and" is the household name for this basic formula:
--Boil water, add your pasta-of-choice. Set a timer for how long the pasta is supposed to cook.
--in the last 2-3 minutes before the timer goes, add anything frozen (favorite veggie mix, pre-cooked meats, etc) Probably fresh veggies you want lightly cooked would also work here.
--when the timer goes, drain the water. Then add anything else (nuts, dried fruit, chopped spinach...) and cook it more if the spirit moves you. I usually also add olive oil at this point.
--add sauce if you want. Often I'll stick with olive oil & salt & pepper. You can use real pasta sauce, plain yogurt (with a little sweetener or some shredded cheese if that's too sour for you), pesto, add vinegar to your olive oil & maybe honey (I got this one out of an ancient greek cookbook-- it's a bit different, but I like it sometimes)-- whatever makes you happy.
--Serve. Eat. Enjoy.
A couple alternates:
*Spaghetti proper is its own thing, since I'll cook ground beef or turkey & warm up the sauce in a large saucepan while I'm boiling the water. Veggies go in either pan or pot depending on how much of a hurry I'm in (warming them with the pasta takes far less time) & then everything goes in the saucepan to be mixed up. Unless you're serving too many people & you need to mix it in the serving bowl. This works too. Either way, maximum of three cooking & serving dishes to wash, & your meat doesn't have to be precooked.
*Pesto: I have a little food processor attachment on my stick blender that I used to chop up cashews or pine nuts, raw basil or spinach (or both), & enough olive oil to make them sauce-like. You can add parmesan, roasted garlic, other spices as desired... artichokes would probably be good in this, too. A real blender or food processor might make this easier. You can cook it with the pasta a bit before serving if you'd like, or just mix it with the freshly cooked pasta.
*Ramen: I learned ramen from a Korean friend in college, who insisted that you just can't do it without an egg; veggies are also allowed. I usually add the flavor packet before the egg & then drain after cooking, which reduces the salt & little flavor packety flavor, but this is probably cheating. (If it's shrimp flavor, I skip the packet entirely & add soy sauce at the end.)
Other stovetop things include:
*Beans and stuff: Canned beans are awesome. Get the unseasoned kind and rinse them until they stop foaming before you use them. Corn, beans & winter squash make a complete protein, so you can do this vegetarian if you want, or add a meat and fresh or frozen veg of choice. I like spinach & green pepper besides the corn & squash. I usually season this one with southwesternish spices: oregano, turmeric, paprika, cayenne. You can also make it a curry.
*potatos & stuff: chop up potatoes or sweet potatoes smallish. Also a good winter squash is nice here (but you can do summer squash if that's in season; just don't cook it as long) Cook meat (ground beef/turkey, cubed chicken, italian or summer sausage), add your potato bits, cook, add favorite veg & things (fresh broccoli is good here.) The potato (and winter squash) will take a while to cook; if you're in a hurry, microwave it some first. I usually start with olive oil & the potatoes if my meat is pre-cooked. This goes well with plain (oil/salt/pepper/maybe thyme) spices, with Italian seasoning, with old bay, or with curry powder.
*Stir fry or fried rice. (I like fried rice better; you can use leftover rice from another meal, or cook it up before you start. Rice cookers are awesome.) This usually involves a bunch of chopping, since the idea is to cook thin pieces quickly at high heat. I generally chop up everything & put it in bowls sorted by approximate cook time before I start. My favorites include: chicken or summer sausage, carrots, celery, bean sprouts, mushrooms, cashews, sesame seeds. If you're frying rice, crack an egg or two in and mix it up as it cooks. Heat up the pan with olive oil & start with ginger and/or garlic before adding things; a splash of soy sauce at the end can be nice, or just add salt.
*Chicken soup. Fill your pot of choice maybe half-way with chicken broth (bought or homemade, add water if you don't have/want to use that much) Add chicken, chopped carrots/celery/other favorite soup veggies, spices to taste. (I usually add celery seed) Simmer, add pearled barley, noodles of choice, leftover rice... cook until the starch is done. (Barley will take a while, pasta will take up more of the liquid.)
Then there are things that take a little longer to cook, if not to assemble:
*Chicken & Rice bake. (This is a real recipe! It came off a campbell's soup can before I was born.) In an oven-safe baking dish (I use a 9x8" fake pyrex thing, uncovered) mix up: 1 can cream of soup (celery, chicken, mushroom, whatever you like), 1c water (or chicken broth, why not?), 3/4c rice, 1/4t paprika, 1/4t pepper and a package of raw chicken. Bake it at 375 *F for around 45 minutes. If you're using white rice, it'll be done; if it's brown rice, take it out and stir a little then put it back in for another ~15 minutes. If it's asparagus season, break up some fresh asparagus & put it in when you stir. (Unless you like your asparagus mushy, in which case, put it in at the start.) I also put in celery. I put celery in a lot of things.
*Crock pot! Crock pots are awesome; consider your day plan: if you're assembling the bits before work you want things that cook a long time on low; if you're putting it together at naptime, you'll want 4-6 hours on high instead. Things you don't want overcooked (corn, broccoli, peppers) go in half an hour before serving. I usually make:
**Stew: stew beef (you can saute this first but don't have to; if you want onions/garlic too you might as well), potatoes, carrots, celery, turnips, any other root veggies you happen to have on hand, just enough water to cover these, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, a bay leaf. Stew beef works better on the long time at low temperature plan. If you have venison, this is an awesome place for it. I think some people do exciting wine sauces or something here, too? Don't eat the bay leaf. (You can take it out before serving, or you can tell people it's like the baby in the king cake.)
**Chili: ground meat or chicken, beans, winter squash, tomatoes or tomato sauce/paste/V8, oregano/turmeric/paprika/cayenne, garlic and/or spicy peppers optional. Add corn & sweet peppers at the end, unless you like them cooked to mush.
**Pea Soup: Green split peas (the dry sort that comes in a bag!), ~3 cups of water or chicken broth per cup of peas, chopped carrots & celery, a ham bone and/or ham bits, spices as desired. (salt, celery seed, garlic, black pepper...) Cook it until the peas turn to mush when you stir it up. (The leftovers will solidify when cooled. Reheat & stir until it looks like soup again.) Remember the "Pease porrige hot" nursery rhyme? This is it.
**Multi-bean soup: soak your dry beans overnight, or microwave them in water in the morning before putting them into the crock pot. Add soup stuff (meat, carrots, celery, other root veg, chicken broth or water, herbs.... you may be getting the idea by now? This is another bay leaf recipe.) Cook a long time. I'm told that the earlier you add salt, the more the beans will soften up.
**If you like pot roast, do a pot roast. (I have maybe learned that I do *not* like pot roast, and with luck will not make any more to be disappointed by.)
**New England Boiled Dinner (appropriate for St Patrick's day!): Corned beef, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, celery. Just cover with water. Cook. The corned beef spices will take care of you. Fish everything out into separate bowls with a slotted spoon. Put some broth in a small pitcher/gravy boat & pour it on your dinner as you eat; freeze the rest to cook other things in for a little extra tastiness later on.
**Curry. blairmacg has an awesome coconut curry recipe here, for instance.
I used to do tuna noodle casserole, which is stove (for the egg noodles) & microwave. Cream of soup, a couple cans drained tuna (carnivore pets love the water), bell peppers go well here. Add some pickle juice or olives or a splash of vinegar. Heat all the other bits in a big microwave-safe casserole dish (I know, you can just call it a casserole, but I still think that's food) & add the noodles when they're done. Cook it a little more; basically you're just going for all the way warm. I don't like tuna, but I like this.
Any curry or other meat & veggie dish that you can put over rice can also be served over pancakes. My mother does this sometimes. (Pancakes are awesome! Do people want to read about pancakes?)
Waffles or pancakes (with pecans in!) with plain yogurt and maple syrup almost feels like a meal. You can serve them with fruit, too.
Leftover rice with (rinsed) black beans and coconut milk and maybe nuts in makes a decadent breakfast/snack with shades of that sticky rice & black bean dessert I always get at Thai restaurants. This is another thing I freeze in 1 cup portions for times of comfort food. (don't freeze the nuts, just add them after you've reheated.)
Remember the adage my father used to quote about "If you like it, it goes." The important thing about feeding a household is finding the intersection of your likes, and remembering what other things to pull out when a particular person isn't joining you that day.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Favorites?
Xposty from dreamwidth.
Anyway, I have good food-and-laziness systems for when I remember them: these are easy, usually take a maximum of 30 minutes input time, and don't dirty a lot of dishes. I also tend to forget most of them under stress, and Grauwulf gets all cross when I don't have a *name* for what I'm making for dinner. So this is a how-to post, but also intended as a brainstorming post: please comment with ways you food! Or spins you'd put on these that maybe I haven't thought of!
Basics: To do these things you need:
*a properly stocked kitchen. This could be an entire post by itself, but basically comes down to keeping the things you use on your shelves/freezer/etc. Grauwulf tends to grill large portions of chicken & sausage at a time, which we then chop up and freeze in 1 cup containers; everything else is pretty obvious. (If people are interested in itemization & me talking about my pantry, do say.) Pots/pans/cooking devices you use. I've done some of this in a hotel room with a cube fridge, a hot pot, cutting board, knife, spoon, & bowl. If you want to pesto, some kind of food processor makes it far easier. YMMV & all that.
*To know what you (& the people you're cooking for) like/can eat/think goes together.
*kitchen practice. This is the "just try it" school of cooking; if you haven't got any remedial cooking skills whatsoever, then probably start by actually reading the paragraph bits in a few of the big all-purpose cookbooks first. Or dive right in and accept that there may be a few "throw this away and order pizza/dine on cold cereal" kinds of experiences as you get things sorted out.
"Pasta and" is the household name for this basic formula:
--Boil water, add your pasta-of-choice. Set a timer for how long the pasta is supposed to cook.
--in the last 2-3 minutes before the timer goes, add anything frozen (favorite veggie mix, pre-cooked meats, etc) Probably fresh veggies you want lightly cooked would also work here.
--when the timer goes, drain the water. Then add anything else (nuts, dried fruit, chopped spinach...) and cook it more if the spirit moves you. I usually also add olive oil at this point.
--add sauce if you want. Often I'll stick with olive oil & salt & pepper. You can use real pasta sauce, plain yogurt (with a little sweetener or some shredded cheese if that's too sour for you), pesto, add vinegar to your olive oil & maybe honey (I got this one out of an ancient greek cookbook-- it's a bit different, but I like it sometimes)-- whatever makes you happy.
--Serve. Eat. Enjoy.
A couple alternates:
*Spaghetti proper is its own thing, since I'll cook ground beef or turkey & warm up the sauce in a large saucepan while I'm boiling the water. Veggies go in either pan or pot depending on how much of a hurry I'm in (warming them with the pasta takes far less time) & then everything goes in the saucepan to be mixed up. Unless you're serving too many people & you need to mix it in the serving bowl. This works too. Either way, maximum of three cooking & serving dishes to wash, & your meat doesn't have to be precooked.
*Pesto: I have a little food processor attachment on my stick blender that I used to chop up cashews or pine nuts, raw basil or spinach (or both), & enough olive oil to make them sauce-like. You can add parmesan, roasted garlic, other spices as desired... artichokes would probably be good in this, too. A real blender or food processor might make this easier. You can cook it with the pasta a bit before serving if you'd like, or just mix it with the freshly cooked pasta.
*Ramen: I learned ramen from a Korean friend in college, who insisted that you just can't do it without an egg; veggies are also allowed. I usually add the flavor packet before the egg & then drain after cooking, which reduces the salt & little flavor packety flavor, but this is probably cheating. (If it's shrimp flavor, I skip the packet entirely & add soy sauce at the end.)
Other stovetop things include:
*Beans and stuff: Canned beans are awesome. Get the unseasoned kind and rinse them until they stop foaming before you use them. Corn, beans & winter squash make a complete protein, so you can do this vegetarian if you want, or add a meat and fresh or frozen veg of choice. I like spinach & green pepper besides the corn & squash. I usually season this one with southwesternish spices: oregano, turmeric, paprika, cayenne. You can also make it a curry.
*potatos & stuff: chop up potatoes or sweet potatoes smallish. Also a good winter squash is nice here (but you can do summer squash if that's in season; just don't cook it as long) Cook meat (ground beef/turkey, cubed chicken, italian or summer sausage), add your potato bits, cook, add favorite veg & things (fresh broccoli is good here.) The potato (and winter squash) will take a while to cook; if you're in a hurry, microwave it some first. I usually start with olive oil & the potatoes if my meat is pre-cooked. This goes well with plain (oil/salt/pepper/maybe thyme) spices, with Italian seasoning, with old bay, or with curry powder.
*Stir fry or fried rice. (I like fried rice better; you can use leftover rice from another meal, or cook it up before you start. Rice cookers are awesome.) This usually involves a bunch of chopping, since the idea is to cook thin pieces quickly at high heat. I generally chop up everything & put it in bowls sorted by approximate cook time before I start. My favorites include: chicken or summer sausage, carrots, celery, bean sprouts, mushrooms, cashews, sesame seeds. If you're frying rice, crack an egg or two in and mix it up as it cooks. Heat up the pan with olive oil & start with ginger and/or garlic before adding things; a splash of soy sauce at the end can be nice, or just add salt.
*Chicken soup. Fill your pot of choice maybe half-way with chicken broth (bought or homemade, add water if you don't have/want to use that much) Add chicken, chopped carrots/celery/other favorite soup veggies, spices to taste. (I usually add celery seed) Simmer, add pearled barley, noodles of choice, leftover rice... cook until the starch is done. (Barley will take a while, pasta will take up more of the liquid.)
Then there are things that take a little longer to cook, if not to assemble:
*Chicken & Rice bake. (This is a real recipe! It came off a campbell's soup can before I was born.) In an oven-safe baking dish (I use a 9x8" fake pyrex thing, uncovered) mix up: 1 can cream of soup (celery, chicken, mushroom, whatever you like), 1c water (or chicken broth, why not?), 3/4c rice, 1/4t paprika, 1/4t pepper and a package of raw chicken. Bake it at 375 *F for around 45 minutes. If you're using white rice, it'll be done; if it's brown rice, take it out and stir a little then put it back in for another ~15 minutes. If it's asparagus season, break up some fresh asparagus & put it in when you stir. (Unless you like your asparagus mushy, in which case, put it in at the start.) I also put in celery. I put celery in a lot of things.
*Crock pot! Crock pots are awesome; consider your day plan: if you're assembling the bits before work you want things that cook a long time on low; if you're putting it together at naptime, you'll want 4-6 hours on high instead. Things you don't want overcooked (corn, broccoli, peppers) go in half an hour before serving. I usually make:
**Stew: stew beef (you can saute this first but don't have to; if you want onions/garlic too you might as well), potatoes, carrots, celery, turnips, any other root veggies you happen to have on hand, just enough water to cover these, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, a bay leaf. Stew beef works better on the long time at low temperature plan. If you have venison, this is an awesome place for it. I think some people do exciting wine sauces or something here, too? Don't eat the bay leaf. (You can take it out before serving, or you can tell people it's like the baby in the king cake.)
**Chili: ground meat or chicken, beans, winter squash, tomatoes or tomato sauce/paste/V8, oregano/turmeric/paprika/cayenne, garlic and/or spicy peppers optional. Add corn & sweet peppers at the end, unless you like them cooked to mush.
**Pea Soup: Green split peas (the dry sort that comes in a bag!), ~3 cups of water or chicken broth per cup of peas, chopped carrots & celery, a ham bone and/or ham bits, spices as desired. (salt, celery seed, garlic, black pepper...) Cook it until the peas turn to mush when you stir it up. (The leftovers will solidify when cooled. Reheat & stir until it looks like soup again.) Remember the "Pease porrige hot" nursery rhyme? This is it.
**Multi-bean soup: soak your dry beans overnight, or microwave them in water in the morning before putting them into the crock pot. Add soup stuff (meat, carrots, celery, other root veg, chicken broth or water, herbs.... you may be getting the idea by now? This is another bay leaf recipe.) Cook a long time. I'm told that the earlier you add salt, the more the beans will soften up.
**If you like pot roast, do a pot roast. (I have maybe learned that I do *not* like pot roast, and with luck will not make any more to be disappointed by.)
**New England Boiled Dinner (appropriate for St Patrick's day!): Corned beef, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, celery. Just cover with water. Cook. The corned beef spices will take care of you. Fish everything out into separate bowls with a slotted spoon. Put some broth in a small pitcher/gravy boat & pour it on your dinner as you eat; freeze the rest to cook other things in for a little extra tastiness later on.
**Curry. blairmacg has an awesome coconut curry recipe here, for instance.
I used to do tuna noodle casserole, which is stove (for the egg noodles) & microwave. Cream of soup, a couple cans drained tuna (carnivore pets love the water), bell peppers go well here. Add some pickle juice or olives or a splash of vinegar. Heat all the other bits in a big microwave-safe casserole dish (I know, you can just call it a casserole, but I still think that's food) & add the noodles when they're done. Cook it a little more; basically you're just going for all the way warm. I don't like tuna, but I like this.
Any curry or other meat & veggie dish that you can put over rice can also be served over pancakes. My mother does this sometimes. (Pancakes are awesome! Do people want to read about pancakes?)
Waffles or pancakes (with pecans in!) with plain yogurt and maple syrup almost feels like a meal. You can serve them with fruit, too.
Leftover rice with (rinsed) black beans and coconut milk and maybe nuts in makes a decadent breakfast/snack with shades of that sticky rice & black bean dessert I always get at Thai restaurants. This is another thing I freeze in 1 cup portions for times of comfort food. (don't freeze the nuts, just add them after you've reheated.)
Remember the adage my father used to quote about "If you like it, it goes." The important thing about feeding a household is finding the intersection of your likes, and remembering what other things to pull out when a particular person isn't joining you that day.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Favorites?
Xposty from dreamwidth.