Elementary Chef

If there’s any “First Rule� of measuring, it is this: never measure over the pot the ingredient is going into. All kinds of things can happen that could ultimately dump a whole lot of whatever into the pot, which could ruin your dish.

When you’re trying a new recipe, it’s a good idea to start out with the amount called for, and then add more if you want later on.

There are two kinds of measuring cups: liquid and dry measures. Dry measures are quite often a group of graduated cups. The reason for this is that you scoop up the flour or sugar, etc., and even out the measure by scraping off the top with a straight edged knife. This is the most accurate way to measure. When you’re measuring these kinds of ingredients, it’s important to avoid shaking down or compacting the contents of the cup. This can give you way more than you need.

The best way to use a liquid measure is to hold it at eye level, and pour in the amount needed. Or you can set it on the counter and bend over to look. If you’re looking down into the cup, you could easily get less than the amount you need.

For measuring ingredients, you don’t want to use things like coffee cups or spoons from your tableware set. It’s pretty much guaranteed they won’t be accurate measures.

While there isn’t much you can do about too much oregano, or too much hot sauce, if you get too much salt, try this: put a couple of slices of raw potato into the pot, and let them soak up some of the salt. Just don’t forget to fish them out before serving!

If you live in a large metropolitan area with city water, the temperature of the water coming out of your tap is not something you think about too often.

It does fluctuate, though. For example, the water coming from the cold tap in Duluth, Minnesota in January is going to be much colder than that coming out of a tap in Phoenix in July.

So it’s a good idea to have some concept of how cold your cold water really is.

Also check your recipe to see if it calls for cold water specifically, because your cold water may not be cold enough. Most recipes work on a principle of everything being at room temperature (or about 70°) but “cold� water should be anywhere between 50° and 33°.

If you’re in the habit of keeping a pitcher of drinking water in the fridge, you might want to consider using that for cooking.

If you check your water heater, you should be able to tell how hot your tap water gets, too.

cooking, water

I love pizza in all its varieties. Until we moved out to AZ, I hardly ever bothered to make my own, since we had great pizza available at any number of pizzerias and Italian restaurants all over the Detroit metro area. It was nothing like the widely-touted New York style, which seems to me to lack substance. (In other words, it doesn’t seem to have much of anything on it!)

If New York style is your thing, this guy has gone hogwild on it, with recipes and method up the wazoo. He’s even hacked his stove!

Detroit pizza, at least the kind I remember, is what I consider the ultimate. Not-too-thin crust, sauce without sugar, and lotsa, lotsa cheese. Nothing at all like New York’s finest. It’s a whole different thing.

I figure making pizza is a lot like blogging. There are all kinds of varieties, but above all, it’s got to be fun, or else what’s the point?

Some kinds of pizza are just plain weird. I can’t imagine handing over good money for a crust covered with barbecued chicken, for example, or ordering shrimp or pineapple as a topping. Yikes!

I do try out variations that are so often featured at major chains, just to see how it flies. Stuffed crust, and double-decker have been two great successes at my house. We’ve also experimented with making pizza on the grill – which is a big help in the summer. I like to play around with the dough, too. Yesterday we had a double-decker pizza with chopped garlic and parsley in the dough. It was yummy!

As you can imagine, it’s not too often anybody leaves the crust when they have pizza at my house.

There are really only two hard-and-fast rules I have regarding pizza: it needs to have plenty of cheese and toppings, and the crust needs to be good enough that you’d eat it plain. Otherwise, the shape or size or configuration and variety of toppings can be almost anything.

I’ll hafta sit down and come up with a recipe for the best double-decker, so you can try it, too. Stay tuned!

pizza

Everybody’s got their own attitude when it comes to leftovers. A lot of people really hate the idea of recycling their holiday dinners, and others look forward to the leftovers almost as much as the main meal.

When our son was still living at home and the house was often filled with boys, leftovers were a blessing. Sean and his buddies could clear out the fridge in no time. Rarely did we ever have to face that blasted turkey for the 3rd or even the 5th time, as so many families end up doing.

Now with just the two of us, we plan our leftovers at the same time we’re planning a big meal. A homemade turkey frozen dinner is a lot more appealing a couple of weeks down the road. I’ll get into the instructions for making those in a minute.

Next to having a good general idea of what you’re going to do après dinner, being firm about throwing stuff out is high on the list of important things to think about. If you know you’re just saving something in order to put off throwing it out, throw it out in the first place! Save washing the dish ;>)

Here’s a few ideas on what not to save:Never save anything that amounts to less than half a cup.
Never save anything you don’t like all that much, anyway.
Never save anything that doesn’t save well. Mashed potatoes and whipped cream are two examples of things that don’t keep their consistency and flavor.
Never save anything that went wrong. If the stuffing had too much salt, or the green bean casserole burnt, pitch it!

Now for the frozen dinner idea:
It’s fairly simple. Save the plastic nukeable trays the store-bought ones come in, (not the cardboard ones, since they aren’t washable) or buy microwave-safe containers.

The trick is in having about the same amount of each food item in each compartment, for even cooking. Keep in mind that potatoes don’t freeze very well in home freezers, but you can easily substitute cooked rice or pasta.

Sadly, you’ll need to experiment with cooking times, as your microwave and the kinds and amounts of food will vary. Start with 1 minute and go from there.

There are more ideas here.

leftovers

Over at the Science of Cooking, there’s a roundup of articles on basic cooking, including how to make a creamy soup without the cream, high altittude cooking, how canning works, and more.

Sadly it appears this site was only active for about a year, but the information is still good, and well worth a browse!

Yes, folks, that’s really what it is. See, I love tacos, burritos — all that wonderful AZ-Mex cuisine, but the assembly is tedious and the mess generated by a round of either is often more than I care to address.

So I came up with this idea, and so far everybody that’s had it has gone back for seconds!

Taco lasagna

Package of 12 corn tortillas
1 lb. ground beef
1 envelope taco seasoning
1 package freeze-dried refried beans
1 16 oz container fresh salsa
1 16 oz. package shredded cheese of your choice

Brown ground beef; drain and add taco seasoning according to package directions.

In greased 11X7 or 9X13 baking dish, add the dried bean mixture and water called for on the package. Sprinkle with half the cheese.

Layer with as many tortillas as it takes to cover the first layer. You might want to tear one or two to fit the odd spaces.

Add ground beef mixture, spread it out evenly.

Add another layer of tortillas, cover with the salsa. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, (longer for the smaller pan) and there you have it!

Serves 4-6, depending on what else you’re serving.

recipes, taco, burrito, lasagna

Yes, those chilly days are here when you want something warm and substantial, without jumping thru too many hoops.

This is a two-person recipe, essentially. I make it in a little (I think it’s a quart-and-a-half) crockpot. I happened to see in a crockpot cookbook the other day that the author thought the little models were pretty much useless. Not so, in our house!

We use ours all the time. Not only is it more efficient for the amounts we cook, it’s much easier to wash up later.

Here’s what you do:

Peel and cut in half 2-3 potatoes. Introduce them to the bottom of the crockpot.

Pour over one 15-oz can or half a 32 oz jar of sauerkraut. Add 1 tablespoon caraway seeds, and/or 2 tablespoons brown sugar, if you like those flavors.

On top, place about 12-16 oz kielbasa, cut in serving-size chunks. (Some places it’s labeled Polish sausage. Or you may prefer simple smoked sausage. The difference is garlic. Polish has it, smoked does not.)

You should have just about enough room to fit it all in. Cover and cook on high 4 hours, low 6 hours. (It will also work if you need another 2 hours or so on low.)

Resist the temptation to stir!
When you’re done, you’ll have a meal you can serve on a plate as three separate things, not a muddle. The potatoes will have absorbed all the salt and flavors from the other things, and you may not need to add anything to them! Yummy!

crockpot, recipes

Anybody with little kids knows they get picky, and sometimes toddlers seem to get stuck on a loop and will only eat one thing. If that one thing happens to be macaroni and cheese, you can get some protein into it by adding an egg to whatever kind of mac-and-cheese you use.

Beat the egg first, if you don’t want him or her to detect molecules of “something else” in the preferred food of the day. Then add it while the stuff is still hot, after you’ve mixed it all up.

This also works with mashed potatoes.

I tried this on my granddaughter Carley and she didn’t suspect a thing!

Everything you ever wanted to know about sushi — and much more is here at Make My Sushi.com.
Have to admit this is something I’ve never tried — but with plenty of info and how-to videos, MakeMySushi does make it seem like a do-able proposition!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving is not the time to decide to learn how to cook. ;>)

Still, all over the country families will be waiting in expectation of a feast come that special Thursday, so I thought I’d provide a few suggestions. A lot of this can be done right now.
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You’ve probably seen them on TV for $19.95. These things are touted as wonderful to quickly thaw your frozen meat or whatever without the partial cooking you get from a microwave thaw.

Yes, they do work, but here’s the secret: they’re made out of cast aluminum, which has great temperature-conducting qualities. So check your cupboards (or your mom’s) for a heavy cast aluminum baking pan. These were popular in the 50’s, and may also be found at rummage and/or estate sales for a fraction of the cost. They don’t actually thaw in minutes, but do cut thawing time significantly.

Yes, I am the Queen of Tinkering With Food. When he was a kid, my son, Sean, found this a source of great irritation.

“Can’t you just leave it alone?� he’d ask, when he saw me adding something new to an old favorite dish. Today that would be called, “kickin’ it up a notch,� but back then Sean was a purist. He even issued an edict one time, when he was about 11, and we were planning a family barbecue.

“No foreign potato salad!� he insisted, as his dad and I pondered the merits of German vs. Cajun vs. Mom’s Old Standby. That time he won. He was right, too, as at that time my own mother was still with us, and looked forward to her comfortable old recipes served at my table.

And Miracle Whip was still what it claims to be. But I digress…

I got into the tinkering thing because of Connie. She’s my brother’s ex-wife, who taught me everything she knew about Maltese cooking when I was just out of high school. Her way was to buy jars of Ragu and add stuff to it, and make it right. We created some knock-your-socks-off Rigatoni in those days, and had a lot of fun both cooking and eating.

Eventually I did figure out ways of making my own Maltese (and eventually Neapolitan and many other) sauces from scratch, but I am forever in dear Connie’s debt for setting me on the path. (more…)

I am never so disappointed as when somebody invites me to a gathering and insists I don’t need to bring anything, only to find when the meal is served, a partially-cooked (or burned) meat with nothing (or almost nothing) in the way of side dishes.

Last summer we went to a birthday party for a one-year-old. They had all manner of grilled meats available: hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, and steaks. Everything was grilled to perfection, but the only sides they served were – get this – potato chips. Taco chips. Guacamole and bean dip.

They coulda had a superb buffet, if only they’d asked!
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The musical fruit!

Soaking beans overnight, I’m told, is the source of at least some of the resulting windy effect. Anyway, whether that’s true or not, this method is quicker. The secret to good-tasting beans is using lots of water, and a good dose of salt.

Cover 1 lb package dry beans in a pot with water, then add a couple more cups of H2O. Add 1 Tablespoon salt. Bring to a boil, and boil for 2 minutes. (by the clock.) Turn off heat, cover, and let stand for an hour.

Check to see if all the water has been absorbed. If it has, add a couple of cups more. Keep an eye on them and add more water as needed. Turn the heat back on and resume cooking. Beans are done when you take a couple out of the pot on a spoon, blow on them, and the skins burst.

For any recipe requiring beans, except for bean soup, they must be fully cooked first.

beans

Ever had a pasta salad at a restaurant or elsewhere that seems not to taste like anything much?

A big mistake people make when they’re cooking the pasta is in forgetting to season it. You really do need that salt in the cooking water ;>) Depending on what kind of salad I’m making, I add a little garlic or onion powder, Mrs.Dash or freshly-ground pepper to the drained pasta while it’s still hot, as well. This also helps soak up any water that didn’t drain away.

If you’re using a salad dressing as opposed to mayonnaise, try adding half the dressing while the pasta cools. This won’t work with mayonnaise, since the heat of the dish will curdle your mayo, but it’s a good idea otherwise, especially if you’re making your salad the night before. Save the other half of the dressing to add just before serving.

Pasta tends to suck up and cancel out dressings, and that extra bit of attention can make a world of difference!

pasta, salads