We know it’s way cheaper, and usually more nutritious. So why do we have trouble cooking during the week?
Foodista Twittered around to get some tips on how to start cooking and stay at it.
When the husband was working and I was not, I cooked several times a week. And for years at a time I’ve made it a habit to cook Sunday dinner, at the very least, at home. I usually tried to generate leftovers for the coming week, as well. (We haven’t done that since we’ve moved; instead, we’re more likely to go grab breakfast after mass—or a coffee-shop supper if it’s an evening mass. Those are inexpensive indulgences that serve as a way for us to discuss the homily without the intervening distraction of me throwing breakfast/supper together. These are probably the last “meals out” we should give up, in fact.)
But I’ve become increasingly irritated lately by our overreliance on Progresso soup. Don’t get me wrong: I love Progresso soup. But canned soup is often oversalted. Besides that, I knew that if I started cooking beans and cheap cuts of meat at home—even if only every second or third day, so we could coast on those leftovers—we’d save a fortune.
So I did, and we have.
The key is looking in the freezer first, before you plan the menu, because I can almost guarantee you there’s something in there that needs to get used up before it gets freezer burn. And check the pantry: there are a few items in there that you used to love but forgot about, too.
If there aren’t, and they aren’t costly, buy ’em. Have food you love around the house!
In the past week we’ve been getting more protein and fiber than we had in some time, and I’ve expanded the vegetable component from a-few-in-the-pot-with-the-stew to some-on-the-side to three-in-the-main-dish-and-two-on-the-side. So we’re achieving vitamin/micronutrient awesomeness as well.
Furthermore, I’m inventing it all as I go along, instead of using recipes; it’s a bit more fun that way. (Yet I’m taking notes–keeping a log as I go along so that anything we like a lot can be duplicated in the future, and so that mistakes can be corrected the next time. And, yeah: the favorites can turn into recipes later on, if need be.) I have nothing against recipes; in fact, I’ll probably start using ’em next week, or at least using them as jumpoff points. But it’s fun to simply throw dinner together in a more swashbuckling fashion.
Last night’s innovation: make a “dirty stock,” using ingredients that will have to be strained out, at the same time I make a “clean stock” from scratch, and turn that into a soup that will be supper that night. The dirty broth uses the ends chopped off from the veggies in the clean soup, and trimmed bits of onion, including the onion paper, along with a few turkey bones from the freezer. Both these broths are good, but of course the dirty broth ends up tasting even better. At the end of the evening, I strain it out, thereby making it clean, and add it to the main soup pot. So when we reheat the soup, it’ll be even better.
Basically, this is a similar maneuver to adding leftover Thanksgiving gravy to the post-Thanksgiving soup, which is then that much thicker and richer.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Some of my favourite dishes (YMMV, I’m mostly a meat eater and don’t care how the meat ends up in my stomach much);
1. Chicken wings. In Aussieland, the cheapest cut of the chicken, and tearing into them with your hands and teeth is the most fun thing imaginable. Usually I BBQ them (soya sauce, pepper, some herbs like thyme and rosemary, and if you can get something called Chinese Five Spice Powder that’s good too, honey), but some soya sauce and stir fry works as well.
2. Vege soup. No green leafy stuff, but broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower work fine. Just boil it all up, add some sea salt, tomatoes if you want, and then put it in the blender. Make it right, and you have something fairly delicious and nutritious you can drink all day.
3. Steamed fish. Whole fish if possible, with soya sauce and fried ginger + garlic + shallots on top. If you’re steaming cod, then just finely chopped fried garlic and soya sauce is needed.
4. Pork ribs. Well, I’m sure you know better how to cook these. But if you can find a shop selling Malaysian products, looking for something called Bak Kut Teh (just search it if you want to know what it looks like) works well. You’ll need many types of mushrooms, variety meats if you like them as well.
Chinese use a lot of garlic in our food; it makes for an interesting smell in the office (and the kitchen!) but it’s a relatively cheap way to spice up bland foods. Oh, that and oyster sauce. But make sure you don’t buy a Made in China (any part of China) sauce; there have been some scare stories about mercury levels and stuff.
If you buy something like bok choy or some other leafy Chinese veg, stir-frying with oyster sauce and chopped garlic is the standard way to cook ’em. You don’t even have to cook for long, so they remain crisp (and you lose less nutrition or something, I’m not quite convinced).
Got a crock pot?
My mom swears by it– they both work all day, so she’ll do things like make a roast on day one, cut the meat still in the pot and put it in the fridge for the next day’s lunch and turn the drippings/bits that fell off into stew for dinner day two, add the leftover sliced meat for lunch and dinner soup day three…. Same thing works with leftover turkey.
Elf and I love fried rice made with leftovers, on the other hand.
Or go really overboard.
Your might remember this piece I wrote a few months ago, since you linked it. I just checked eBay; there’s 10 copies of Soup Wisdom by Frieda Arkin out there for less than $5.
I also heard on the radio this morning that a lot of food manufacturers, including Campbell’s and Chef Boyardee, have been quietly reducing the amount of salt in their products for the last few years. It’s been a gradual process, but one company has cut the added salt by over 50 percent. I still prefer to make my own soups, but there’s times when it’s nice to pop open a can.
You’ve done been linked.
While a crock pot is good for slow things, I’d recommend a pressure cooker. For instance, you could slow cook one of Marta’s cuban dishes, but it takes a grand total of 30 minutes under pressure.
I love cooking and it keeps everyone away from
me after work while I depressurize from the day. Crockpots are great when I will be back late. Bread makers with timers are good to set up I the am when we are having soup for supper. I love my ricesteamer especially when making a curry or stirfry that at least one veggie hating kid will whine about. We grownups have dinner leftovers for lunch most days. the pressure cooker is great also. Mostly I use my cast iron skillet and sauté something. We try to eat meat only once a day and spin it out w beans, veggies, etc We make most of our own bread and this stops grumbling about simple meals (gobs of butter help!). We grow many of our own veggies plus blueberries, apples, rhubarb and blackberries which the family like better than storebought. But we all bake too much when bored! Quickbread, pie, cake, muffins, brownies, cookies…in the seasonal penitential dieting phase now so making boring roasts for the family while I cut back myself.
Upon further review, my first comment can be read as rather snippy, which was not my intent. Joy is a busy girl, and writes many posts, and has far too many male admirers to keep them all in memory!
Gregory,
Chicken wings used to be the cheapest cut of the chicken here, too. But since a little bar in Buffalo NY came up with a spicy snack for its customers, wings now often cost as much per pound as breasts–at times I’ve seen wings cost more. It’s a shame, since my smoked chicken wings are really, really good, and low in fat since I don’t fry them.
For soup flavor, I can get chicken necks and backs for about 40 cents per pound. I get mine from a wholesaler, 40 pounds at a time. My guy there calls me if he’s got a good price on something. One day they had to do a ton of breasts for the airlines, and as a result he had way too many leg quarters on his hands. I got them for 52 cents per pound.
I get really good deals on the thigh-portion of chicken at Walmart– towards the end of the sell-by date, you can get a ten pound bag of mechanically quartered chicken for three dollars. (I guess they figure that 30c/lb is better than having to dispose of it.)
It’s not very good quality meat– I call it Tofu Meat– but it’s dirt cheap, and it’s protein.
I love the ideas. There is the complication that The Spouse doesn’t like dark meat, and he’s the one who eats more. So I use the dark meat for stocks. I haven’t yet had to resort to buying and roasting turkey breasts on their own–which is probably expensive–but I might.
Also, this is the second residence in a row wherein I’ve been stuck with a side-by-side fridge-freezer, so space is a little limited. I shan’t let myself get a chest freezer: more money for electricity defeats the purpose.
And I do OWN a slow cooker, but I fear that it went into storage when we moved, along with all of my best books. Blame you-know-who, the light of my life/apple of my eye. I could justify a pressure cooker, though, and the husband is gradually digging my missing kitchen equipment out of storage.
Shockingly, for a meat-junkie Mr. Spouse is very chicken-wing tolerant, and he loves legumes (which he might have gotten turned onto by his health-food freak friends during his Heavy Running years). So I’m indulging a few flashbacks to my vegetarian days, but supplementing with a bit of cheap meat here and there. (I always used leftovers a lot: if someone took us out for steak I’d re-cook the leftovers from my meal by cubing them, frying them in olive oil, and putting them into an omelet for him.)
Oooh! Oooh! Miss Attila! Miss Attila!
If you have the space for one, a chest freezer is NOT an electricity expense. They actually use very little–much less than your fridge does. It’s a money saver many times over because it allows you to take advantage of bargains.
It does pay to keep a piece of paper taped to the top, upon which you keep an inventory of what’s inside. Otherwise stuff gets lost in the depths….
They also have this rather interesting device, which is half-pressure and half-slow and half-not sure cooker.
You cook your food about halfway in a metal pot, and then you put that pot into its insulated sleeve. About 4-5 hours later, the food’s fully cooked (and still piping hot) and if it’s meat, fairly tender. I’ll have to call and ask my mum what it’s called later.
A thermal cooking pot. One (expensive) version here: http://www.jlifeinternational.com/Tiger/tigernfa-B300.html But the brand, Tiger, usually cheaper than the Rolls Royce grade Zojirushi. You can find them sometimes for about $100 at Asian cookware suppliers online. But nice not to have the electricity (won’t burn the food or the house if you forget about them and fly on a spontaneous junket to Tahiti)
I use a similar technique when I’m smoking ribs, brisket or pork butts. At a certain point in the cooking process I take it out of the smoker, wrap it in foil, then a towel, and put it in a beverage cooler. The cooking finishes very gently this way. Sometimes I’ll use a prewarmed oven instead of the cooler, and skip the towel.