Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2012-01-29 04:02 pm
silveradept) wrote2012-01-29 04:02 pm
Entry tags:
Anecdotes of cooking and learning to cook in your own apartment.
(This is the submission of an entry for a giant cooking carnival being put on by commodorified. If you'd like to participate, the kinds of things being looked for in the carnival have been detailed. This entry is also pulling double duty for Shadow Idol, prompt 12: Some Assembly Required. Topic 11 was a free topic - choose whichever topic you would like in my history to count. In any case, feedback is appreciated, especially if I'm not up to snuff for what the carnival is asking for.)
Cooking! Such a wonderful thing. Whether you have a kitchen that makes the professionals jealous or a few pots and a couple bowls, it's possible to create all sorts of good food that turns out to be inexpensive per meal and per person when all is said and done. The perspective I'm going to come from is from the idea of a recent graduate of schooling who is now out on their own and has to figure out that cooking thing.
First and foremost, if you have a friend who cooks, whose cooking you like, and who is willing to teach, take advantage of them. This does not have to be someone close (locationally) to you - I learned a large part of my cooking technique from a friend who already knew how and was willing to write up some lessons. In-person cooking lessons are fun, too, if you can swing them. Picking up technique expands the range of things you can do, as a lot of cooking is variation on technique, where a step, spice, or time spent is different. (Plus, it makes cookbooks intelligible.)
What worked for me as a recent graduate was setting aside time to do cooking on the weekend. Taking an afternoon (or morning), putting on something that doesn't require constant attention (sport is often good for this), and doing preparation cooking often pays off in having more time in the weeknights to do other things, or in reducing the time that post-work dinner takes to create from an hour to fifteen minutes, making it easier to eat in-house.
One of the good tricks I learned from my friend in tandem with the idea of taking time to cook on the weekend (some of the cooking shows are starting to pick up on this) is that some things are bases for your dishes - add a different sauce, garnish a different way, or choose a different side / vegetable, and the same component that you made on Sunday can make enough dishes to last you through the week.
Ah, which reminds me - if you have the capacity to store it safely and the funds to buy enough ingredients, it might be worth your while to make everything for double the people that will be eating it. Rare were the times when I cooked enough for one person for one meal. More often than not, I cooked enough for one for two or three meals - which is handy when it's the morning and you want to take something for lunch - reheat leftovers in the company microwave, and I saved the cost of going out for lunch or getting takeaways / fast food. If you're not the kind of person who can stand eating the same meal twice in a row, then Monday's dinner could become Thursday's lunch - it means a little bit more prep in cooking multiple meals on your cooking day, but the payoff is variety in your lunch materials. (And the jealous looks of your co-workers as they see and smell your homemade materials.)
Most of us have a cookbook...or receive one as a graduation gift as a(n) (un)subtle hint about one of the responsibilities of adult life. And the good thing about those? They're full of all sorts of yummy (or yucky) things, just waiting to be discovered...and the best part? When you're cooking for yourself, the only person who has to decide whether your cooking was good or not is you! It's the perfect time to experiment and find out that you're obsessed with garlic, that cilantro tastes like soap (or doesn't, lucky you), that soy and teriyaki are a great/awful combination, and that if you roast the Brussels sprouts, then salt and pepper them, they actually taste decent. (Everything but for the soy/teriyaki combo, I've learned through cooking. Your mileage will vary.)
Finally, since I hate doing dishes (yes, even with a dishwasher - the one in my first apartment didn't work for squat), I find that there are ways of working with your recipes so that you don't have to use lots of pots and burners. If you know what you have to make, you can usually order the cooking of ingredients so that, for example, you cook the greasy hamburger first, then follow it with the onions that allow you to both infuse flavor from the hamburger and let the onion's oils de-stick the pan so that you can just spatula up the burger leavings along with the onions that are now ready. It might take a little trial and error, but a lot of things can be done in one or two pots, pans, or woks, and at the end, you find that all you have to do is rinse the pan and scrub it a little with soap. Cooking was always easier when I knew that cleanup was one pot, one plate, and one or two utensils.
Lest I seem like a nut about making sure that you always cook all the time, as a recent collegiate graduate, I always carried a couple meals per week that were deliberately ready to eat on short cooking time, or were the kind of meals that you would throw in a microwave or oven, set the timer, and walk away. The nutritional content of the meals I chose might not have been the best, but when I came home from a tough day at work and had no energy to cook, I could always toss something in the oven and go play games for the time it took to cook. If you're not for packaged food, for reasons of taste, nutrition, or budget, a lot of staple foods, like pasta and sauce, make big batches in short amounts of time, which can then be parceled out into various containers and frozen until needed. A little convenience food sometimes saves a lot of sanity. (And sometimes makes for lunch tomorrow, too!)
That's what I learned about cooking when I was just getting out of college. I've also been told that I make a very good macaroni and cheese.
As one might guess, when it comes to cooking, there's one important thing to keep in mind about all meals: Some Assembly Required.
commodorified. If you'd like to participate, the kinds of things being looked for in the carnival have been detailed. This entry is also pulling double duty for Shadow Idol, prompt 12: Some Assembly Required. Topic 11 was a free topic - choose whichever topic you would like in my history to count. In any case, feedback is appreciated, especially if I'm not up to snuff for what the carnival is asking for.)Cooking! Such a wonderful thing. Whether you have a kitchen that makes the professionals jealous or a few pots and a couple bowls, it's possible to create all sorts of good food that turns out to be inexpensive per meal and per person when all is said and done. The perspective I'm going to come from is from the idea of a recent graduate of schooling who is now out on their own and has to figure out that cooking thing.
First and foremost, if you have a friend who cooks, whose cooking you like, and who is willing to teach, take advantage of them. This does not have to be someone close (locationally) to you - I learned a large part of my cooking technique from a friend who already knew how and was willing to write up some lessons. In-person cooking lessons are fun, too, if you can swing them. Picking up technique expands the range of things you can do, as a lot of cooking is variation on technique, where a step, spice, or time spent is different. (Plus, it makes cookbooks intelligible.)
What worked for me as a recent graduate was setting aside time to do cooking on the weekend. Taking an afternoon (or morning), putting on something that doesn't require constant attention (sport is often good for this), and doing preparation cooking often pays off in having more time in the weeknights to do other things, or in reducing the time that post-work dinner takes to create from an hour to fifteen minutes, making it easier to eat in-house.
One of the good tricks I learned from my friend in tandem with the idea of taking time to cook on the weekend (some of the cooking shows are starting to pick up on this) is that some things are bases for your dishes - add a different sauce, garnish a different way, or choose a different side / vegetable, and the same component that you made on Sunday can make enough dishes to last you through the week.
Ah, which reminds me - if you have the capacity to store it safely and the funds to buy enough ingredients, it might be worth your while to make everything for double the people that will be eating it. Rare were the times when I cooked enough for one person for one meal. More often than not, I cooked enough for one for two or three meals - which is handy when it's the morning and you want to take something for lunch - reheat leftovers in the company microwave, and I saved the cost of going out for lunch or getting takeaways / fast food. If you're not the kind of person who can stand eating the same meal twice in a row, then Monday's dinner could become Thursday's lunch - it means a little bit more prep in cooking multiple meals on your cooking day, but the payoff is variety in your lunch materials. (And the jealous looks of your co-workers as they see and smell your homemade materials.)
Most of us have a cookbook...or receive one as a graduation gift as a(n) (un)subtle hint about one of the responsibilities of adult life. And the good thing about those? They're full of all sorts of yummy (or yucky) things, just waiting to be discovered...and the best part? When you're cooking for yourself, the only person who has to decide whether your cooking was good or not is you! It's the perfect time to experiment and find out that you're obsessed with garlic, that cilantro tastes like soap (or doesn't, lucky you), that soy and teriyaki are a great/awful combination, and that if you roast the Brussels sprouts, then salt and pepper them, they actually taste decent. (Everything but for the soy/teriyaki combo, I've learned through cooking. Your mileage will vary.)
Finally, since I hate doing dishes (yes, even with a dishwasher - the one in my first apartment didn't work for squat), I find that there are ways of working with your recipes so that you don't have to use lots of pots and burners. If you know what you have to make, you can usually order the cooking of ingredients so that, for example, you cook the greasy hamburger first, then follow it with the onions that allow you to both infuse flavor from the hamburger and let the onion's oils de-stick the pan so that you can just spatula up the burger leavings along with the onions that are now ready. It might take a little trial and error, but a lot of things can be done in one or two pots, pans, or woks, and at the end, you find that all you have to do is rinse the pan and scrub it a little with soap. Cooking was always easier when I knew that cleanup was one pot, one plate, and one or two utensils.
Lest I seem like a nut about making sure that you always cook all the time, as a recent collegiate graduate, I always carried a couple meals per week that were deliberately ready to eat on short cooking time, or were the kind of meals that you would throw in a microwave or oven, set the timer, and walk away. The nutritional content of the meals I chose might not have been the best, but when I came home from a tough day at work and had no energy to cook, I could always toss something in the oven and go play games for the time it took to cook. If you're not for packaged food, for reasons of taste, nutrition, or budget, a lot of staple foods, like pasta and sauce, make big batches in short amounts of time, which can then be parceled out into various containers and frozen until needed. A little convenience food sometimes saves a lot of sanity. (And sometimes makes for lunch tomorrow, too!)
That's what I learned about cooking when I was just getting out of college. I've also been told that I make a very good macaroni and cheese.
As one might guess, when it comes to cooking, there's one important thing to keep in mind about all meals: Some Assembly Required.
no subject
Otherwise, A+. More stuff like this should be out there: simple, straightforward, "you can do it, it's not that hard" stuff about cooking.
no subject
no subject
The nutritional content of
themmine might not have been the best, but when I came home from a tough day at work and had no energy to cook, I could always toss something in the oven and go play games for the time it took to cook. You could just as easily freeze some spaghetti sauce, chili, gumbo, etc, and use that for your ready to eat meals, without sacrificing any of the benefits of good home cooking. A little convenience food sometimes saves a lot of sanity. (And sometimes makes for lunch tomorrow, too!)...? That's all I got, sorry :-\
no subject