Like every good bisque it starts with bacon--cook it crisp, crumble it, and use the fat to sautee the vegetables. You
cut corn off the cob and then simmer the cobs in heavy cream and chicken stock to create a base. There's a bunch more steps involving the bacon fat and onions and leeks and chanterelles and sherry, and at some point you add potatoes and then the corn. At the END you sauté crab meat in butter and add it. Serve with fresh herbs on top. I'd never made it but it seems like the perfect luxurious dish for my valentine.I still use cookbooks, and I have file folders bulging with recipes. But these days my go-to site for recipes is Epicurious. It's loaded with wonderful ideas, and often I'll print off 2 or 3 same-but-different and merge them to my taste. Frankenfood.
The comments are helpful and sometimes crack me up. Like this, for one of their recipes for soft shell crab with wilted spinach:
"I substituted red snapper for the soft shell crabs and kale for the spinach, and cut down on the amount of vinegar. It turned out very well."
When you want to cook up something sensational and special, where do you go for inspiration?
RHYS BOWEN: Valentine's dinner was garlic jumbo prawns in a balsamic glaze, with crispy garlic potatoes and asparagus. Yummy.
When I was young I used to try out new and complicated recipes on guests, much to my husband's dismay. You've never tried this before? He'd wail. Usually they turned out okay, except for the turban of sole that collapsed in a big mess all over the plate when I turned it out.
These days I stick to tried and true recipes, ones we know we love. We often serve guests a curry, which John does awfully well, or a leg of lamb with roast potatoes. Sometimes I browse my many cookbooks, especially for appetizers and desserts, or look online but I have to confess we often wind up taking guests to a nice restaurant!
LUCY BURDETTE: Mmmm, That crab and corn bisque sounds
divine! I save recipes all the time, from the New York Times, the Washington Post, a variety of email lists I belong to... and if I want to make something I haven’t tried before, I usually start by googling. Then I skim over the recipes that show up and pick and choose my ingredients and methods. I also get obsessed with ingredients from time to time – this year it’s Rancho Gordo. I can’t wait to make the shrimp and hominy stew that came in their latest email. I had to order a bunch of stuff just to be sure the hominy and the smoked pimento were on board in my kitchen!
JENN McKINLAY: That bisque sounds delicious. What a lucky Valentine, you have. I actually loathe cooking. I find the day to day
meal planning to be utter drudgery. Thankfully, I married wisely and Hub and I split the cooking, which makes it tolerable. I should say that while I find daily cooking tedious, I love to bake. I am a cookie, pie, and cake machine and bake every week, usually a couple of times so there is always a dessert around here or two. I love cookbooks and have a solid collection. For fresh inspiration, I hit Pinterest and I have a subscription to All Recipes (a website inspired the print version) both of which I enjoy.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, Jenn, the planning! Is the worst. I say: just TELL me what to make, and I make it, but don't make me think of it.
That said, when I get inspired with an idea, I go to various cookbooks and online to see the different ways people
make it--say, beef bourgignon or lemon chicken, and take the parts from each that I like. For Valentines day, ooh, I forgot it was valentines day, But my cooking fun is to see what's in the fridge, and then see what I can make from it. So we had sirloin tips on fresh spinach with yellow tomatoes and black olives and bleu cheese. it was SO pretty--and delicious!
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I actually don't mind the meal planning. Usually I do it on Saturday or Sunday, and then do the shopping for the week.
My downfall is not managing to cook everything I plan
and so I end up wasting stuff at the end of the week. My other downfall is cookbooks, which I am just swoony crazy about. I made a resolution that this year that I would try to actually cook one thing from every cookbook I keep on my shelves! But, alas, aside from the standards that pull up again and again, I am much more likely to try something new that I find on the Internet when I'm looking for ways to use that food in the fridge! (What can I do with fresh English peas and butternut squash, for instance, when the hubby likes neither...)I like Epicurious, too, Hallie, and love the NYT recipes. Oh, and I follow cooking blogs (big trouble) my most favorite being Deb Perlman's Smitten Kitchen. She's such a good writer than it's even fun to read about things I'd never make.
Rhys, I want your balsamic shrimp recipe! And, Jenn, I wish I had the metabolism to eat all those goodies you make. I'd probably be a better baker...
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Jenn, I, to, suffered the "I hate to cook" period, and why not - when you're cooking for hungry teens, it's all about shoveling the greatest amount of calories and nutrition for the most reasonable price, in a form they won't turn up their noses at. It has a lot more in common with being a coal stoker on a steam engine than anything else.
That being said, I'm starting to enjoy cooking much more these days, mainly because the only person I have to please is me. Vegetarian? Fine. Ancient grains? Bring it on. "Weird" soups? Okay.
HALLIE: PS on the crab bisque. It was a near disaster. I'd bought dried chanterelles which turned out not to be 'dried' so much as petrified. The plastic package was broken, and they must have gone bad because no matter how much hot water I used to reconstitute them they remained woody. I had to remove them from the soup, tiny piece by tiny piece.
After that, it was delicious.
What are your go-to places for meal-planning inspiration? And it's ok if it's your takeout menu drawer.
Hallie, your corn and crab bisque sounds absolutely wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy cooking [and baking] . . . I have tons of recipes, both printed out and on my computer as well as a gazillion cookbooks, but I find that it’s my mother’s recipes that get used the most.
Sometimes, when I’ve discovered something new to me [like cookie butter], I enjoy ignoring the recipes and experimenting a bit . . . .
Cookie butter??
DeleteCookie butter?????
DeleteMy mother was a great eater who took great pride in the fact that she did not GO into the kitchen (except for ice cubes... but that's another story.) We had a wonderful cook who'd grown up in Louisiana and cooked without recipes. My mother was, however inspired when Julia Child came along and, on cook's night, off she'd make things like chicken paprikash. And leave the kitchen a disaster zone. She did not like doing dishes.
Joan, what were some of your mother's recipes that you still make?
Cookie butter??? DO tell. The baker in me is salivating. I have boxes of my grandmother's old recipe cards. She was the sort of woman who could make a five course meal out of three ingredients and she was a fabulous baker :)
DeleteMany of my mom’s recipes are from her mom [and, presumably from her mother’s mom], so some of them have minimal [or no] measurements/directions. My favorite is “Roll thin -- Bake quick” in a sugar cookie recipe!
DeleteWhat do I make from my mom’s recipes? Cheesecake . . . an amazing mayonnaise cake . . . seafood newburg . . . bread pudding with cornstarch sauce . . . egg custard.
There are many more, but there are no recipes for them . . . I just know how to make them the way my mom did . . . .
Cookie butter is a spread similar in appearance to peanut butter. It’s made by the folks who make Biscoff Cookies. It comes in smooth or chunky varieties and is used in a gazillion [mostly dessert] recipes. Google “Biscoff cookie butter recipes.”
You can read about cookie butter here: https://www.biscoff.com/indulge/biscoff-cookie-butter
Jenn--don't you have a character named Biscoff? I burst out laughing...
DeleteI'm in Hank's camp when it comes to cooking. I look at the ingredients on hand and see what I can come up with. I like to cook when I have the time and the energy, but even on weekends I sometimes get stuff out of the freezer, have my whole meal planned out, and then drop for a nap that takes longer than planned, missing my window of opportunity for the elaborate meal prep.
ReplyDeleteI do like cookbooks. My most recent purchase is Samin Nosrat's "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" which isn't so much about recipes as it is about how ingredients work together to make delicious stuff out of what you've got. I'm afraid she kind of lost me on all the different kinds of salt and how you should use them days in advance, though. Again, when do I have the time? And Valentine's Day? I was down with the seasonal crud, so I'm pretty sure dinner that night was a ham sandwich. The dogs love me anyway.
Do you know the Blue Strawberry cookbook ? Same thing—it’s how and why what works. Taught me how to cook—and I still consult it all the time.
DeleteGigi, are you watching Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat streaming on... netflix or amazon, I can't remember which? It's a great way to think about food.
DeleteMy grandson loves to cook, and last year I gave him a book that explains all kinds of cooking lingo, processes, and ingredients. I can't remember the name of it, but he was fascinated, and comes out with random bits of info from it.
DeleteA young friend is a chef, and she is a big fan of the Netflix show.
Gigi gave me the book for Christmas, and it's fascinating. I also just started watching the series this weekend. It's on Netflix.
DeleteNo, I haven't been watching the series, but I did listen to an extended interview with her on NPR. I love that she honors all the grandmothers who have kept us fed for millennia. I'll have to look for the Blue Strawberry cookbook, Hank.
DeleteI also love cooking, but not every day. I, too, find recipes online instead of in the forty cookbooks on the shelves, alas. When I do crack one of the books, it's usually the New Basics, Julia Child, or my workhouse muffin cookbook.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the best meals come from no recipe at all. I'd ordered halibut at a restaurant on Valentine's Day and it turned out dry and without much flavor. But hey, I'm a Scot, so I brought it home. The next night I mixed it with some tomato sauce, added lime juice and cumin, and layered it into stacked enchiladas for two with refried beans and cheese, topped after they baked with lettuce and avocado slices. It was yummy and I'll never be able to make it again!
I love remaking leftovers! And you are so right—they are one time only.
DeleteHa ha! Every once in a while I'll make something like that, Edith, and my husband will rave and say I have to make it again, and I say, in your dreams. Because I have no idea what I did.
DeleteIsn't that the way? So often, those inspired fabulous meals come from what happens to be on hand at the time.
DeleteFish enchiladas sound wonderful, Edith.
So? You just have to go back to that restaurant and order bland halibut again, Edith.
DeleteI did most of the cooking the last few years that my mom was alive. Nothing fancy but we didn't starve. With it being just me these days, the only cooking inspiration I have is deciding which sub shop or restaurant will be cooking my dinner.
ReplyDeleteWhen I do try to cook something at home, it usually involves a can of soup to go along with a sandwich.
How great is canned soup? I haven’t had it for a while... but it’s a treasure.
DeleteRemember when we used to pour condensed cream of mushroom soup on everything? I still love it.
DeleteI still love cream of mushroom on my tuna casserole - learned that one from the ex-fiance's stepmother. Although I had to bully her into giving up the Velveeta (good lord) and using real cheese.
DeleteBut you really need to try cream of bacon soup in place of the cream of mushroom soup . . . .
DeleteOkay. Just for clarification purposes, I do chicken noodle soup and that's it. No other soups need apply.
DeleteHank, canned soup is fine by me. Less than 10 minutes and I've got a bowl of soup. And, I have no real desire to have my "cooking" take any longer than that anyway.
Unless I'm really scraping the bottom of the food barrel and "cooking" up fish sticks or a chicken patty. Or maybe an English muffin.
Hell, I don't even really make breakfast foods either. I get a bagel sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts or when I get so inspired, I go to get one of those Big Breakfast plates from a local diner that has pancakes, eggs and bacon. I buy my own syrup though because I'm a snob and ONLY use Vermont maple syrup.
Oh Hallie! I feel for you with the mushrooms! And it must have felt like there were a million of them. But wasn’t it a triumph to save it?
ReplyDeleteIt was... A million and a half. Fortunately the bisque was white and those infernal chanterelles were dark brown.
DeleteI have a ton of cookbooks I have collected over the years and I enjoy looking through them but when I get hankering for something I generally go online first. I really like to read the comments and see how much other folks liked the recipe. Or not. Still, I'd rather bake than cook a main dish, but it does have to hapen from time to time.
ReplyDeleteI thought that crab bisque sounded delish!
I'm the same - I enter the ingredients I have on-hand into the search engine and see what comes back.
DeleteI think you could call me a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants cook. I have a cook book collection, now consisting of books published no later than the 1960's. Sometimes I venture into uncharted territory putting odd ingredients together to see what works (dyeing lamb green for St Patrick's Day doesn't). Out of boredom,I will use the restaurant featured in the NY times hungry city column and cook from that. I still make 'exciting' mistakes. Early on, I had to announce to my dinner guests, "dinner will be delayed a bit.. the oven is on fire". Old dog did not learn, this morning I set a potato on fire in the microwave. Good thing I don't live alone.
ReplyDeleteGreen lamb? Seriously??
DeleteAnd I did not know it was even possible to set a potato on fire in a microwave.
food coloring, and I was about 14 years old. Yes to the microwave disaster, used a small potato and hit bake potato, Boy, did it.
DeleteI've exploded a potato in the microwave, but never set one on fire.
DeleteI try recipes in the NYT and WaPost, and have old stand-bys from cookbooks. If I'm thinking of trying something new, I scan the recipes in Cooks.com and combine several. One of Diane Mott Davidson's recipes for a sausage, egg, and potato casserole, has been our go-to Christmas morning brunch dish for years.
ReplyDeleteI've got a casserole recipe from Moosewood Cookbook - that's like that, only smoked salmon instead of sausage, and lots of cream cheese.
DeleteI love DMD's mysteries and the recipes are top notch, too.
DeleteI once tried a prunes cake from DMD's book and it was delicious.
DeleteMy approach to cooking is similar to Hallie's. I am an enthusiastic cook, and I consider the planning part of the fun. The pattern Bob and I have settled into is that each weekend we compare calendars and identify the nights we will be home together that week. It is rarely more than three, four tops, so I then plan that many meals and buy the needed ingredients. (I also know that my enthusiasm for cooking will be lower later in the workweek, so it is not uncommon to plan using up the leftovers on Thursday.)
ReplyDeleteI am a big fan of soups in the winter. In fact, a few years ago I established a pattern of making a pot of soup each weekend during the cold months. We have it for dinner that night, then I carry the leftovers in my lunch through the workweek. This fall, I set myself a little challenge: go through the soup season without ever repeating a soup. I knew I had MORE than enough soup recipes on hand to make that happen, it would just take some focus. So I sat down and identified close to 30 soup recipes that we either already loved or that looked very appealing, and I have chosen from that shorter list each week. We are 15 soups in so far, with plenty still on the list to get us through the remaining weeks of winter weather.
Though I used to be fond of cookbooks, I almost never look at new ones any more, preferring to download new recipes. But the best cookbook I ever bought, which has easily a dozen recipes in it that I still use often, was Skinny One-Pot Meals by Ruth Glick. These are consistently healthy, relatively easy to make, and delicious meals. I have no idea if it is still in print but if you see it, grab it!
30 soups!?!? I am impresed.
DeleteSusan, I love soups, too. So impressed by your 30 soups plan! If you run out of ideas, my all time favorite cookbook is Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread by Crescent Dragonwagon, which I've probably mentioned before. (the source not only of many of my soups, but also my Skillet-sizzled Cornbread. Yum.)
DeleteI LOVE to cook, bake, and feed people. So this past month with my right arm in a sling has been a PITA. However yesterday I got brave and made red bean and rice with corn bread, a la NOLA.
ReplyDeleteThis Sunday's NYT had be very best supplement in a long time, can't remember what it was called but it was all about cooking without a recipe. Very well written, included veggie options, but mostly it was written for people like my Julie, who grew up making reservations instead of dinner. Those of us who are cooks already know how to open the pantry/fridge and make a delicious meal for however many show up out of whatever is in there, particularly those things that are a day from past it.
I've pared my cookbooks down considerable, keeping a couple of Julia Childs, the NYT cook book and the Joy of Cooking, and Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, essentials, and a few more, including the Better Homes and Gardens of my youth. Plenty of canned soup uses in that one. I have a sizable file of go-to recipes, but I confess to using them mostly as guides.
I'd love to have all of you to dinner one day. We could combine our talents at the range, and the non-cooks could sit around the island and drink. Works for me.
Thanks, I fly non rev, will be in Rochester withing 72 hours.
DeleteI'd happily bake something for the occasion, Ann! I make an amazing three layer checkerboard cake - just sayin'!
DeleteJenn: THREE LAYER CHECKERBOARD CAKE?!?!
DeleteAnn, I thought that insert in the Sunday NYTimes was excellent, too. Cooking without a recipe.
I have never made a checkerboard cake. Jenn, you’re on! You, too, Coralee and Hallie. We can sleep seven before resorting to couches and air mattresses
DeleteWe have a new paper carrier and I didn't get my NYT on Friday or yesterday!! Grr. Does anybody know what the supplement was called? I'll see if I can find it online.
DeleteAnn, is Artisan Bread where you got your bread recipe? I have one called Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg, I think.
DeleteHi, Deb, the NYTimes just kept it simple with the supplement and named it You Don't Need a Recipe. And it has lots of great suggestions for people who aren't confident about their ability to cook a dinner off the top of their head. I'm a big fan of the NYTimes recipes and also Food52 online. And I'm a huge cookbook fan, but I limit myself to no more than 4 new ones a year. And still rely on favorites--Jerusalem will likely be one of my favorites forever. And I'm slowly baking my way through BraveTart. (I know! The name alone!) I love the author's inclusion of some of the history of the recipes and why, scientifically, they work. Happy eating, all!
Delete-Melanie
Yes Deb. I have be of his older books. But it’s the same guy.
DeleteLiving alone and liking simple food, I mostly plan my meals with what is on promotion in the two groceries publicity fliers of my town. I prefer to cook than to order because I know what is in my food and I like healthy food.
ReplyDeleteMy only cookbook is La Cuisinière Five Roses ( Five Roses is a flour brand in Canada) that I bought when I was a teenager wanting to learn cooking.
Over the years I copied tons of recipes from newspapers, magazines, cookbooks borrowed at the public library and then from blogs (Mystery Lover's Kitchen) and internet sites. Those I use when I'm inviting guests.
I've got a ton of torn-out and jotted-down recipe, and the challenge is finding the one I'm looking for. Any tips on organizing the clippings??
DeleteLast year I went through the lot and kept my favorites by theme in different report covers, using transparent plastic page holders in which you insert your recipes of each category
DeleteHallie, I use an accordion file. Line up similar recipes on your printer thingie and copy them. Then file according to Whatever system. I do it by meat, chicken, pasta, fish, etc
DeleteMine are a mess, too. Another project, not enough time...
DeleteI have recently had to re-organize as I outgrew my previous method. The new plan (not fully implemented yet) is one binder, divided with tabs, for the "tried and true" recipes. Then I think I'm going for an accordian file for the larger set of recipes that I've cut or downloaded or whatever, to hold them until I try them once (or more if uncertain) and decide they should become regulars.
DeleteNow there's a teenage boy in the house, I'm cooking all the time. Monday I make something big in a crockpot or a big meatloaf, and hope it'll last through Tuesday. He's not keen on leftovers but he'll graze right through something he likes. Sunday nights I make air-fried chicken wings as homage to my mother's Sunday night fried chicken dinner. I eat 6. Last night he ate 16. I stock several frozen pizzas for those nights when he's wiped out the larder.
ReplyDeleteAir-fried chicken wings? How how how??
DeleteI have a large cookbook collection that I use regularly. It holds several Maine-centric cookbooks (Dishing up Maine by Brooke Dojny, Recipes from a Very Small Island by Linda Greenlaw (the boat captain lauded in The Perfect Storm, who also writes crime novels, BTW) and her mom, Martha Greenlaw, and Maine Home Cooking: 175 Recipes from Down East Kitchens, by the marvelous food historian Sandra Oliver. I like these cookbooks because they call for ingredients I'm likely to find easily, like fish and the sort of produce that grows here. But another part of their appeal is how they speak to the cultural food traditions of Maine.
ReplyDeleteAll that said, I also enjoy cooking from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty, the Cooks Illustrated New Best Recipes, Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, my battered, dog-eared Joy of Cooking and good old standby, Moosewood. Oh, and a slender volume called The Provincetown Artists' Cookbook, a gift from some cousins many years ago, which includes many fish-focused and some wonderful Portuguese-influenced recipes.
I need to get one of Ottolenghi's cookbooks.
DeleteI have two, Hallie. They are so gorgeous. But have I cooked much from them? No. As usual, the picky husband issue.
DeleteIt's not built for fast meals, but satisfying ones.
DeleteHallie, I can relate to fishing out clods of old mushroom from an otherwise amazing dish. Glad you were able to resurrect it, after all that trouble. And expense!
ReplyDeleteLike Hank, I really hate being responsible for the contents of everyone else's stomachs. When the kids were home it was so dicey: dishes and ingredients they hated or adored the previous week were suddenly either madly desired or loathed, for no good reason. And I was expected to read their minds about which. Ha. We had a rule, though, that they needed to at least try what was on the table, and now they are all very adventurous eaters, thank goodness. They all travel a lot, so that's helpful. My middle daughter will still not eat "pink meat": ham, or any byproduct thereof. Which was a problem when she lived in Spain for over a month.
So now I cook for myself. My husband lives to eat, but he doesn't really discriminate about what he eats. I have to remind him to taste and savor, and appreciate, for crying out loud. He rarely has foot-down preferences, except Valentine's Day, when I wanted to make Venison Stroganoff. He grilled the thawed meat, instead. It was good, but I would have enjoyed both the process and the results of my choice. (After Ann Mason's inspiration.)
I recently made Chicken Piccata for book club, using a recipe from The Joy of Cooking. I usually make it a different way, but not any more. The chicken turned out delectably tender, and was a big hit. I like the Joy cookbooks so much I have four different editions. Ethan Becker, descendant of Irma Rombauer, the original author, lives in our community.
The comments on recipe sites ARE hilarious. Half the time, the recipe they criticize bears almost no relationship to the one they made.
I love Chicken Piccata - and I have The Joy... it would never have occurred to me to find that in there. Joy is my source for biscuits, apple pie, and questions like 'what's a chanterelle"
DeleteI have two editions of The Joy, and I'm not sure I've ever cooked anything from either. Maybe I should start with the Chicken Piccata.
DeleteThe lemon meringue pie in the Joy of Cooking is the best ever I make it at least once a summer.
DeleteBrussels Sprouts Cockaigne, and Flourless Chocolate Torte are my favorites, but I also refer to it for Chicken Cacciotore, and pesto, and chimichurri, and every other kind of sauce, as well as Mushroom Tart and Tomato Tart.
DeleteMy husband just likes to read it. The information on every aspect of cookery is fascinating.
The Joy recipes ALWAYS work! Mine is all spotty with splotches of whatever I made using it.
DeleteMost of my cookbooks live in the top half of our free-standing kitchen cabinet. Two shelves, with sliding glass doors. I couple of weeks ago, my interior designer friend came over and wanted to rearrange my cookbooks by color. It would look less messy, apparently, with the books grouped in "color blocks." Can I just say that this has driven my absolutely bonkers? Now there's no logical order, and I can't find anything!
ReplyDeleteOh Deb. That’s a murder plot waiting to be written.
Delete“Interior decorator found in London cal kitchen, throat slit.”
Local, not London
DeleteIn a bit of really good timing for today's blog topic, Samin Nosrat, author of SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT is on NPR's "On Point" today (the second hour.) If it hasn't gotten to your time zone yet, you can listen to it live; otherwise, you can stream it from wbur.org/onpoint. It's WELL worth a listen.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip! I'll watch it tonight.
DeleteHalf of mine are on the clean side of recycled paper taken down illegibly while watching PBS, but I love having them as as well as tons of real cookbooks. Sometimes I just reach in, like grabbing a card in a card trick, since if I really look for something specific,I spend all afternoon. Hallie, that bisque sounds superb!
ReplyDeleteHa ha! I just attempted to 'organize' my scraps... took hours.
DeleteI have a rather limited amount of cookbooks. I still use my Pleasant Hill Shakertown (Kentucky) "We Make You Kindly Welcome" that I got as a wedding gift in 1976 and the followup cookbook, "Welcome Back to Pleasant Hill" that I bought for myself in the 1980s. These two small cookbooks are full of the kind of dishes I grew up with, some great Southern cooking, including desserts. If you're interested you can still order these two gems from the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill website for only $3.50 and $3.00, https://shop.shakervillageky.org/collections/svph/products/we-make-you-kindly-welcome-cookbook I admit that I am also a sucker for recipes that show up on my FB feed, and I've actually fixed some of them. Of course, there's nothing better than the "cookbook" of family recipes, consisting of index cards and scraps of paper, in my drawer where I keep those and my Shaker cookbooks. Oh, and I occasionally google something if I'm looking for a specific way to fix something, like asparagus (besides the casserole dish recipe I have for it).
ReplyDeleteJulia, I do love the Southern Living magazine and drooling over their recipes, but I don't know that I've actually fixed one of the recipes. Still, the pictures are amazing.
LOVE Southern cooking. It's a revelation, as long as you're not trying to cut back on fat.
DeleteBy the way, my lack of enthusiasm for cooking doesn't extend to me watching (or at least I used to watch) a bunch of cooking shows.
ReplyDeleteJulia Child of course, but there were shows on the Food Network and I loved America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country Kitchen as well.
I've learned so much from those shows... Just for instance, I never realized how useful pot lids are. For pan roasting you brown without the lid, turn it down and finish cooking lidded. Keeps it from burning. Brilliant!
DeleteJungle Reds, I am drooling over your food photos and stories. They all look and sound delicious. It was so cold on Valentine's Day that we had grilled goat cheese sandwiches and tomato basil soup. We find inspiration every where. From our hosts' dinner parties to baking shows on pbs.
ReplyDeleteDiana
Grilled goat cheese and tomato basil soup - YUM!
DeleteI often go online for inspiration on meal planning. NYT, epicurious, and food52 are great! Cookbooks are great fun and I love browsing through them but am often short on time. But hopping onto my computer and typing my main ingredients pulls up a plethora of possibilities. Beloved hubby was travelling so Valentine's Day was celebrated with a glass of wine and a skype call. It saved on the cooking, but I would not have minded cooking for two.
ReplyDeleteI was raised by a mom who rarely used recipes once she made something a couple times, I think I do the same - Deana's version of Mom's version of Grandma Jeanette's potato salad comes to mind. I do have favorite cookbooks, Childproof Recipes from my preschool, Bon Appetit's Appetizers, part of a series printed awhile back. But my favorite one is The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, from World War II. It has a special section, printed one green paper, with recipes and suggestions for rations. My sister has Mom's copy. It opens up, automatically, to the flannel cakes recipe that worn, sploched with grease, from the bacon we always had with flannel cakes. My first time making bread was with a recipe from that book. Cooking for one is not fun. Can soup is a great standby, always has been but reading ingredient labels is a pain, I am allergic to soy protein and many cream of..... soups use it. My favorite is split pea.
ReplyDelete