Amanda and the Ferocious Feast
3.1.10: Saving Myself From Myself
Things are absolutely slammed at work right now, and I’ll admit it: the very last thing I want to do when I get home is cook. If I’m home, that is. I’ve been on the road so much, I’m considering putting a mailbox on the side of my car and trying to convince the post office it’s a permanent residence. Anyway, the thought of doing so much as cracking an egg makes me feel like I’m about to break out in hives.
I don’t want to go out for lunch and dinner everyday though, either. So what do I do? Not eat? I’ll be honest, it’d free up a lot of time I could spend working.
Unfortunately, biology has pretty much made eating a necessity (stupid biology), so something has to be done. And, lucky me, many moons ago when I wasn’t working sixty-five hours a week, I used all my glorious free time preparing for days (Months? Oh please, don’t let it be months.) like these.
I have frozen gyoza (lovely little Japanese dumplings) from New Year’s, vegetable broth, leftover soup, tortillas, bags of vegetables, mini pizzas, stir-fry, and holy cats, I’m about to eat my own hands, this paragraph is making me so hungry…
The point is that a little bit of prep a few weeks ago is keeping me well-fed now, when even sleeping seems like a waste of time. And even if you’re not as busy as I am, you can benefit from freezing leftovers (or making extra and freezing uncooked portions). If you’ve got something solid, just toss it on a metal cookie sheet and “flash-freeze” it before putting it in an airtight container. If you’ve got something liquid or semi-solid, let it cool in a plastic container in your fridge before covering, labeling (believe me, you’ll appreciate labels when you roll in at 10:00 PM and can’t even remember your own name), and freezing.
Your homemade goods won’t be as shelf-stable as a frozen meal you buy in a store, so you’ll need to keep track of dates. But it’s not unreasonable to expect your frozen foods to last anywhere from three to six months. And you won’t only save time, you’ll save money. It’s win-win.
Now if I could just figure out how to freeze time, I’d be all set.
–Amanda Mitchell
Email Amanda at theferociousfeast@gmail.com
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2.22.10: I want to be THAT mom
I have a secret: deep down, I want to be THAT mom. I don’t have kids, and I’m not even sure I want to have kids, but the thought still crosses my mind. I have dreams about baking perfect cupcakes for a class full of six-year-olds. I have fantasies about throwing the best birthday parties in the neighborhood.
So it should go without saying that a book like Janeen A. Sarlin’s Princess Tea (Chronicle Books, $19.95) is right up my alley. From the sweet pink cover to the gorgeous photographs, the book feels like Donna Reed’s Guide to the Good Life. There are homemade costume and party decorations, tantalizing recipes, candy-colored confections, and even perfectly planned menus to help you throw all of these elements together into one memorable tea party. Heck, why stop at one? Princess Tea has several different themes to choose from.
And, if you’re like me and don’t have kids…it’s okay. Just borrow a few from your friends. You may not be THAT mom, but Favorite Aunt is a heck of a consolation prize. Or, if you’re not just like me, but actually me, you can just throw yourself a tea party and call it an excuse to cook. Princess Tea’s lavender cupcakes are to die for. All the good stuff gets wasted on kids anyway.
–Amanda Mitchell
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2.16.10: The Dreaded “P” Word
I think the Number One enemy of cooks is preparation, specifically lack thereof. It’s ambushed me more times than I care to admit. I’ll be making something to eat, something I’ve never made before, and I think it’s going well, when I look at the recipe and notice that it calls for room-temperature (not melted!) butter. I keep my butter in the fridge. I know you might not believe me, but you know those old war movies where some kid is talking about going back home to marry his best girl as soon as the war is over, and you know he’s going to get garroted by a cultural stereotype within ten minutes? That’s how it feels. Culinary death by butter.
But being ill-prepared is no one’s fault but yours (or mine). Recipes don’t add new directions to themselves while you sleep, after all. You should have all the necessary ingredients on hand when you start cooking. Some are special, one-time-only ingredients, sure, but if you’re prepared, you could probably have everything you need on hand at any given moment, whenever a craving strikes. (And those are as sneaky as room-temperature butter.)
And that’s exactly what this week’s blog is about. Because if there’s any one ingredient that I think can make or break a recipe, it’s broth.
Beef, chicken, veggie, even dashi, the Japanese stock made from seaweed and dried fish… Broth is a cheap, easy way to add flavor and nutritional value to a basic soup, stew, or side dish. But–and you’ll get sick of hearing this from me–don’t automatically assume you need to reach for the salty canned stuff. Homemade veggie broth is as easy as making boxed macaroni and cheese. All you need is a little preparation.
If you’re eating your vegetables like good boys and girls, you ought to have a lot of peelings and scraps piling up in your garbage can. Stop throwing them out. Save them, put them in a large freezer bag, and stick the bag in your freezer. Don’t worry about mixing different vegetables either; variety is the spice of life, and it makes for some awfully tasty stock, too. Add potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and squash, throw in some leftover frozen broccoli, cauliflower, or peppers. You might even notice that your broth takes on different flavors depending on the season, climate, or a whole host of other factors. But no matter what you use, when the bag gets full, you’re ready to make your own broth.
Toss your bag of veggie scraps into a large stock pot. (Clever name, right?) Cover with cold water and bring to a gentle boil before turning down the heat and allowing the whole mixture to simmer for about 45 minutes. Then use a fine mesh strainer to fliter out all the (now mushy) vegetable bits as you pour your broth into a large bowl. (Cheesecloth works too, but I have a hard time finding it sometimes.) If you don’t have a strainer, you can just pour the whole thing into a large bowl and stick it in the fridge overnight, then, when all the bits have settled, use a ladle to scoop out the clear broth.
Here’s another preparation tip: save plastic containers with lids. They’re great for stuff liket this. You can freeze your homemade veggie stock in one-, two- or three-cup portions and have it on hand whenever you need it.
I got this idea from my mom, Carole, and you might have noticed that it calls for no spices whatsoever, not even salt and pepper. That was intentional: my mom and I both feel that the problem with canned broth is that it’s too salty, and this taste overpowers anything you add it to. So we make our broth as plain as possible and then season it appropriately when we add it to our recipe.
If this seems like too much work, then, by all means, keep on buying the canned sodium bombs they sell in the grocery store. But it’s really not that difficult. It just requires a bit of prepar–
Hell, if you haven’t gotten it by now, there’s just no helping you.
–Amanda Mitchell
Email Amanda at theferociousfeast@gmail.com
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1.25.10 – Cabinet Meeting
I have this friend who keeps running out of food, and for a while, I couldn’t really understand why. But when I took a look at my own kitchen, I realized that my friend must have the most poorly stocked pantry of anybody I know.
It would take me a solid month (at least) to run out of food. That doesn’t mean I’d be eating my favorite meals for thirty days, but I would be eating. This got me thinking about what I could do to help my friend—or anybody else—build a starvation-proof pantry.
As I’ve learned to cook, I’ve figured out that it’s not all about throwing together elaborate, multi-course meals. To me, part of being a creative, successful cook is being able to throw together something relatively nutritious from things you already have in your house.
Fresh ingredients are wonderful, and I encourage everyone to use them when they can. But if you run to the store every other day to restock fresh fruits and veggies because you don’t have any of their frozen counterparts to substitute in a pinch (or a short paycheck), you’re doing yourself and your wallet a disservice. Canned vegetables are nice too, but, personally, I don’t care for all the sodium in most canned foods. However, many of the fruits and veggies you find in the freezer section these days are flash-frozen, meaning they’re frozen at the peak of ripeness (and nutritional value). The cost also can’t be beat, especially if you can hit up a good sale.
Dried beans have changed my life. I have dried chickpeas, dried kidney beans, dried lentils, dried navy beans… The list goes on. I soak them in cold water (in the fridge) overnight, toss them into a slow cooker, add some frozen veggies, spices, and some water or homemade vegetable stock, set it on low, go to work, and when I come home, I have a great, hearty bean soup. Again, canned beans are a perfectly good option as well, but I try to cut out sodium where I can, so I forgo them. Also, soaking dried beans overnight breaks down a lot of the stuff that makes you less fun to be around when you eat beans. You know what I mean, toots.
White rice, brown rice, wild rice, and any other kind of rice you can think of keep for a long time anyway, but they’ll keep even longer if you get a few plastic containers and toss them in your fridge. Use them in soups, casseroles, or anything else you can think of. Except maybe pancakes.
Flour (white or whole wheat, corn, buckwheat, spelt, etc.), sugar (white, brown, and confectioner’s), baking powder, baking soda, and yeast are found together in a lot of recipes for a reason, (hint: they’re magic), so you should probably have those on hand, too.
Finally, we come to spices and sauces and oils and all the little things that really pull a meal together. I wouldn’t try to cook anything without kosher salt or ground black pepper. You’ll want to add cinnamon, cilantro, cumin, and coriander (mostly because alliteration is cool), oregano, nutmeg, and the Simon & Garfunkel quartet (parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme). Because spices can get expensive, I started with what I knew I’d use most often (oregano, cinnamon, and rosemary) and then bought another spice every couple of weeks when I went grocery shopping. Just don’t feel like you need every spice known to man. “Pumpkin Pie Spice” is cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. If you’re willing to spend a few bucks on that instead of tossing the ingredients together yourself, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, too.
Don’t forget the goopy stuff, either. Honey, mayo, mustard, ketchup and salad dressings are far more versatile than they often get credit for. I’ve got a great yeast-free whole wheat pizza crust recipe that completely depends on a tablespoon of honey. Seriously, it falls apart without it. Who’dathunkit?
The point of building a pantry is that the dilemma my friend so often finds herself in can’t happen to you if you’re prepared. I haven’t really done a major trip to the grocery store in more than a month, and I’m far from running out of food. I could throw together a quick snack for myself or a meal for eight people from things I’ve already got in my kitchen. Can you say the same?
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1.15.10 – Entree Nous
First thing’s first: I am not a cook.
Also, my sense of humor is apparently not so topical. But bear with me.
Anyway, I’m not trained. I don’t have memories of cooking or baking at my mother’s or grandmother’s elbow. I have no family recipes, just vague recollections of foods I particularly enjoyed as a child. My parents both worked full-time, and while my mom and dad cooked, they hardly spent hours and hours and hours in the kitchen preparing elaborate meals. If not for the invention of the slow-cooker, my whole family probably would have starved to death. (Or gone broke eating fast food all the time.)
I didn’t really learn to cook until I moved out on my own. And even then, I didn’t really learn how to cook until I figured out how much money I was spending going out to eat all the time. And even then, I didn’t really learn how to cook until I figured out that heating up a can of soup might suffice in a pinch, but all that sodium was making me bloat like a Macy’s balloon.
So if you’re not a cook, or if you’re intimidated by people who are: Hi. We’re gonna be pals.
The only advantage I might have over you is that, when I started really cooking for myself, I discovered that I actually enjoy it. I work full-time and juggle many responsibilities, so my recipes will reflect that aspect of my life, but I don’t mind coming home and spending some time in the kitchen in the evening or on weekends because I enjoy preparing homemade meals. I find it relaxing. I joke with my friends about Zen and the Art of Sautéing Zucchini. So if you hate to cook and are looking for someone to commiserate with about how everyone doesn’t have the time to let some beans soak overnight: Bye. You most definitely won’t find that here. I’m all for making things easier for people who have other things they’d like to do (like play sudoku on their Nintendo DS while their dinner bakes itself in the oven), but I’m not going to let you off that easy.
I hope that some of you who think you hate to cook might discover that you don’t really mind it much after all. I hope that, after you see how easy it can be to throw together a Crock Pot full of ingredients before work one morning and come home to a delicious, nutritious meal only hours later, you’ll catch this bug, too.
And I hope those of you who are better cooks than I am will bear with me while I make mistakes and mess up terminology and reveal just how new to all of this I really am. General advice and kitchen wisdom are always, always appreciated.
A few other things you should know before we get started:
- I’m a pescatarian, meaning the only meat I consume is seafood. This is for health, rather than ethical, reasons, so don’t worry: I’m not going to start preaching the gospel according to PeTA here. My boyfriend, family, and friends are mostly omnivores, so beef, chicken, or other meats might occasionally show up here. But, for the most part, prepare to see lots and lots of vegetarian (and occasionally vegan) recipes. I never eat seafood at home, only very, very occasionally when I go out for sushi.
- Most of the time, I’m cooking for one, so be prepared to adjust the recipes accordingly for two or more people. Any readers who have cooked for one know what a pain it can be, so in addition to recipes, expect a fair amount of tips on freezing, reheating, or repurposing food.
- I cook by instinct more often than not. This means I’ll give you instructions like, “Put 1/2 a cup of flour into a large mixing bowl, then add some cinnamon.” How much cinnamon? Whatever you think is best for you. If this type of instruction drives you insane, don’t worry. I’ll try to tell you how much I used, or, if you’re that curious, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to steer you in the right direction.
- I will definitely make mistakes. If they’re funny, I’ll post about them in detail. If not, I’ll still probably mention them, but only when I’ve figured out where I went wrong, so I don’t lead you down a soggy, charred, half-cooked path of culinary destruction.
- I have a fairly large kitchen, but I live in a studio apartment, and I’m on a budget. This means that my kitchen is also a dining room and a storage closet. This means that I don’t have one of those awesome stand mixers that come in cool retro colors. This means that I have very, very basic tools, so I never make anything that requires I drop a couple hundred (or, let’s be honest, more than ten or twenty bucks) on ingredients or gadgets. The fanciest kitchen tool I have is a tamagoyaki pan I ordered from Japan. Otherwise, most of what I have, you probably already own, too.
- I advocate using certain kinds of ingredients whenever possible, but I understand what it’s like to live on a budget, so believe me when I say that I’m rarely, if ever, a food snob. I use frozen fruits and veggies all the time, and dried beans have changed my life. (They’re cheaper and healthier than canned ones! But, seriously, did I mention they’re cheaper?!) I might recommend you get the freshest mozzarella you can afford, but if I ever harass you into buying a $17.00 bottle of organic truffle oil, you have my permission to assassinate the evil clone who has obviously dispatched me in what was probably a bloody fashion and taken my place. Tell my mom I love her.
- I. Can’t. Stand. Picky. Eaters. Sure, we all have our likes and dislikes. Me? I don’t like beets. I’ve eaten them pretty much every way one can eat a beet, and the flavor of that particular root just makes my tongue want to leap from my mouth and run away from home. But a tantalizing recipe that calls for beets would never stop me in my tracks; I’d just substitute something else. I expect the same from you. If I post a recipe that calls for mushrooms and the thought of eating a shiitake makes your skin crawl, don’t use them. Use asparagus or broccoli or any other ingredient you think sounds good. I mean it. I don’t ever want to read a comment like, “Wow, this would be good if it weren’t for the __________ in it.” Comments like that break my heart. Trust me, you almost never have to follow a recipe exactly. No one’s keeping score. Cooking is an art form. Think creatively. And if you come up with a variation on a recipe I post, please let me know about it. I might want to try it, too!
Now that those things are out of the way, I think I’m ready to move forward. I’m excited to have this space in which to write about one of my very favorite things: food. Because the real reason I’ve had to learn to cook is that I love to eat. For me, it’s more than just a will to survive. Good food can bring people together to make the kinds of memories that last, the kind that can come rushing back at the slightest whiff of cinnamon, at the sound of vegetables sautéing in a pan, at the taste of freshly baked bread. A home cooked meal can tell someone that you love them without words. Personally, cooking something wonderful for me–just me–can raise my spirits better than buying a new handbag or pair of shoes. I hope that, if you don’t already feel this way, you soon will.
Bon appetit.
Email Amanda at theferociousfeast@gmail.com
