The Great Big Food Post For Food People

So what was I going to write about? Oh yeah, food. Kitchen stuff. Recipes. My great passion in life these days (after you guys, of course.)

To be honest, while I love to eat, I do not actually like to cook all that much. I mean, I like to cook more than I like to take the garbage can down to the road and more than I like to pick up all the puzzle pieces but less than I like sitting in the bathtub with a glass of wine.

Nor I am a particularly good cook. I know people who can look into the refrigerator and emerge with a divine clafouti (the last of the capers, the rind of a brie, a few olives- mon dieu it's amazing) but I am not one of them. I follow recipes with a grim determination and it is only after I have made the same thing over and over again for five years that I am able to start playing with it.

Still, despite my limitations, it would be hard for me to have spent as much time at anything as I have dedicated to making lunches and dinners and not emerge with a few ideas. As a lazy glutton I always try to make something that tastes as good as possible with the minimum amount of effort.

So, just in time for the holidays I offer the following thoughts (with gadget tips!):

ON RECIPES:

For the most part I get recipes from cooking magazines. Fine Cooking is far and away the best one out there. The title makes it sound like it would be too haute for actual cuisine but in truth it is a very accessible, very good magazine. It could make an excellent gift, now that I think about it. I also get Bon Appetit and Cook's Illustrated, both of which have their moments. I can go months in a row with nothing appealing to me in either and then zing! they come up with a few things that work. Oh, and I have been receiving Food and Wine for some unknown reason. Have publishers just started sending out subscriptions at random (maybe they tell advertisers that they have a circulation in the millions and nobody bothers to notice that 200,000 copies are mailed every month to S. Claus, North Pole)? You would think, knowing my proclivities, that Food and Wine would be right up my alley but... I don't know. All of the recipes are a little over the top and I can never find the specific wines (Linda, I AM getting back to you, I swear) they mention. I am not much of a cookbook person, largely because I haven't found one that moved me since The Joy of Cooking. I am open to suggestions, though.

Oh, and in order to actually use the magazine recipes I have a system. A highly organized system that makes life happy and rich and melodious, as all organized things do.

First, I have a binder. The binder is divided into sensible categories like Entree- Beef or Side Dishes.

Then I have four plastic magazine holders that live in the kitchen cupboard next to the binder.

When Bon Appetit and Food and Wine arrive I sit down in front of a nice Timberwolves game and wield my mini box-cutter with alacrity. If a recipe sounds good I slice it out and tape it onto a piece of notebook paper, whereupon it gets put into the binder.

I cannot bring myself to cut up Cook's or Fine, so I just use a little sticky note on recipes that look good to me. Marked issues then get put into one of the magazine racks. If I knew you better I would confess that the sticky notes are colored-coded by food type, but I do not know you that well. So consider it unconfessed.

I start making my grocery list every week by flipping through the binder and the magazines, choosing (more or less) one seafood, one beef, one chicken, one pasta and one freebie. For some reason five planned meals always manages to cover the whole week around here. I know and love people who find the idea of planning a week's worth of meals appalling but for me the thought of revisiting the issue day after day... ugh.

It is a poorly kept secret in the family that I am more or less obsessed with eating, so I get a lot of cooking presents. Some of these are a waste of space but some actually make my life easier and for that I salute them -

THE LITTLE THINGS I LOVE:

Cuisinart mini-prep- My old one emitted an unpleasant burning smell when used, but I did not replace it until last week when a spectacular series of occurrences resulted in its plastic lid being cloven in two. I looked at the wreckage and promptly put my hat on to go out and buy a new one.

Odd-sized measuring cups and spoons- Williams-Sonoma sells a set of measuring cups in 2/3, 3/4 and 2 cup sizes. Ditto spoons in weird sizes like 2 TB. In addition to these I have three sets of normal 1/4 to 1 cup measuring cups and four sets of measuring spoons. Then I have the classic Pyrex 1 cup, 2 cup, 4 cup and 8 cup measuring cups and I use all of them all the time.

Hand chopper- Zyliss makes a great hand chopper. I seem to only use it for garlic but even then I use it all the time. I like the way you get to whack it over and over again until the garlic is nicely minced.

Spoon rest: Mine is a ceramic cat. At some point various people noticed that I cook AND have an abnormal quantity of cats, thus a shopping tradition was born (note: cat spoon rest and cat coasters and cat trivets and cat mugs... Shoot me.) You wouldn't think a spoon rest could make someone happy but it does.

Microplane graters - Um, just because they are cool.

Knives - An extra chef's knife (or two) never comes amiss.

Lots of rubber spatulas - Steve bought me about a dozen in various sizes a few years ago. Very useful so I hope Patrick gives them back soon.

THE MEDIUM THING I LOVE:

12 inch Stainless Steel saute pan- For YEARS I wondered why I could never get anything to brown properly and then I discovered it was the damned nonstick pans I was using. Not that nonstick doesn't have its place but you really need at least one stainless pan. I have heard tell of the new Calphalon ONE which supposedly offers nonstick convenience with the ability to brown. Anybody used one? Are they good?

BIG THINGS I LOVE:

Whole lotta refrigeration: Somehow we wound up with two refrigerators and I have to admit (since I thought it was really really stupid originally) that it is actually very nice indeed. I mean, when it isn't winter here. Now we can just open the door and put things outside to stay cold. It's a little like being an Eskimo.

Whole lotta ovens: This house has two wall ovens and I use the second one more than I thought I would. As a corollary it also has a five-burner stove and you know what? That is just one burner too many. I would rather have four plus a griddle. I'm just saying is all.

KitchenAid Standing Mixer: Makes double-batches of chocolate chip cookies BY ITSELF. Enough said. My in-laws sent it for Christmas last year and it is why I love them. Sort of.

THREE REALLY QUICK DINNERS:

Spaghetti and meat sauce- I will post a link to my spaghetti sauce recipe. I make it about once every two months (actually, I use the same sauce for lasagne so I double the recipe as I go and wind up with about 10 containers to freeze) so I always have some sauce in the freezer. When I am in a hurry I use capellini (also known as angel hair pasta) because it cooks in half the time as spaghetti. Defrost the one, boil the other - voila.

Jambalaya - Zatarain makes a decent boxed Jambalaya mix. I add andouille sausage (keeps in the freezer forever) or sautéed shrimp or leftover chicken to the rice mix. While it is cooking I chop some green peppers and celery and toss it in to the pan after it is done but before it has rested. Meal in a bowl. Don't be sparing with the Tabasco.

Scrambled eggs - Or an omelet if you don't want to stir it. Add: tomatoes, peppers, celery, cheese, ham, onion, sun-dried tomatoes...

RANDOM THINGS:

Bread freezes really well. I buy interesting breads when I am at a bakery and store them for whenever.

Every so often I make double-batches of chocolate chip cookies (or rather, my standing mixer does) and scoop tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto baking sheets. I freeze the dough and throw the frozen balls into Ziploc bags. When we want chocolate chip cookies we just bake 'em frozen adding about 5 minutes to the baking time. I have to admit this does not make for excellent cookies but even a bad chocolate chip cookie is pretty good.

I keep the spices I use most in a drawer next to the stove, face up.

Steve and I drink whole milk. I tried a lower-fat milk once, 20 years ago, and it tasted weird. I have never gone back.

I had Steve cut a panel out of a silverware drawer thing-y for me. You know those things you can buy at Target that keep the silverware separated in a drawer? I bought an extra one and with the slight modification by Steve, it nicely holds my measuring spoons, measuring cups and strange cooking implements (like the pizza cutter) in a drawer on the other side of the stove. 

I store my pot lids in the cabinet under the stove in an aluminum dish draining rack (any day now I am going to send this winning tip into Cook's Illustrated and get my free year's subscription- so don't steal it or I will not get my name in the front with its own black-and-white drawing and I will be pissed.)

I used to make 13x9" lasagnes but we got sick of eating it before we were close to finished with the whole thing. Then it occurred to me to make two 9x9" pans instead. I bake one the day I make it and freeze the other, unbaked. I have since extended this to other things, like enchiladas and everything casserole-y. 

There you go. Four years of my life distilled for your viewing pleasure. If you are not a food person (which makes you weird in my book, but it takes all kinds I suppose) then there is no way you have made it this far in the post. Which means it is just us Normals left and I can ask, do you have anything to suggest for me? Something you did that was just so goddamned clever you are dying to tell someone who will care?

Well, lay it on us.

Tomorrow: How to schedule an IVF cycle from 800 miles away and other stories

Comments

[Sheridan]

love the great long post - especially since it's about food!

For me, I can't live without my Scanpan high sided casserole pot thing. It goes on the stovetop, and in the oven. Perfect for browning lamb shanks on the stovetop and then into the oven to slow cook with tomatoes and wine. Yum.

Also great for any casserole, risotto or pasta sauce, and its really easy to keep clean.

Love your idea about freezing lasagne - do you freeze it in the pan/dish, ready to go straight into the oven?

Check out this food magazine - I love it, and its very very popular in Australia:

www.deliciousmagazine.com.au

Although you probably don't need another subscription, they do post overseas.

Awaiting the link to your spaghetti sauce recipe with bated breath....

[Jody]

What a wonderful post!

My MIL keeps giving me cookbooks, but I've slowly accepted that I always turn to Joy of Cooking first and the rest are all just fancy decorations for the bookshelves on the end of our fancy new island. A friend gave me the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook a few years ago (okay, when I got married, which was SEVEN years ago; fine, fine, fine, I'm getting old). It has decent "impress the new acquaintances" recipes that also aren't impossible to make and do taste good. So I give it props for that.

I'm useless about organizing recipes from magazines and newspapers, so I just don't do it anymore. It was too depressing, the flurry of cut-out stuff that exploded when I opened that particular drawer. Joy of Cooking all the way.

[Laura K.]

Does Cook's Illustrated have a swimsuit issue?! :)

Thanks for all the cooking info - you are a fountain of knowledge for the domestically impaired, like myself!

[MollyD]

Also from Australia, a cookbook called 'The Cooks Companion' by Stephanie Alexander - it's the ultimate guide to ingredients/seasons/recipes... It's my bible...

I like to peel fresh ginger and freeze it, then just whip it out and grate when required.

On a recent trip to the U.S. my friend gave me a chimmichurri recipe that I use all the time on BBQ meats and fish - chop up a bunch of coriander (i think you call it cilantro) a clove of garlic, a couple of teaspoons of capers, mix with lots of good olive oil and salt & pepper to taste... YUMMO!

[manogirl]

I'm 25, and the first major kitchen implement I asked for was the KitchenAid standing mixer. I don't have a blender, but I have a gorgeous shiny KitchenAid, so I'm happy!

And I'm with you on the bread freezing, but I tend to freeze things like rolls and buns. My boyfriend and I can't manage to use 8 hamburger buns before they mold, so I freeze them individually in sandwich ziploc bags. Whenever I need one, I have one. Perfect for the two of us.

[shannon]

Thanks! I am just teaching myself to cook and these are great tips.
I am the opposite about pans, though. I don't have nonstick, but for one for the perfect omlette. I have old calphalon and it cleans up easily enough without official non-stickiness.
My tip is not that special, I think most people do it anyway, but I was proud to figure out that when I can't get fresh rosemary branches to leave whole and remove before serving, I can use dried rosemary in a tea ball. All the rosemary flavor, none of the annoying splinteres in your teeth!

Also, I like Cook's Illustrated, but I don't subscribe. I have their "Quick Recipes" book and it's my favorite. It was my first, and it's good for a beginner like myself, as "quick" translates to "not too difficult." I also like the Joy of Cooking because it has taught me all the little things my mother--who hates cooking, and does it as little as possible--never did.

[Cathy]

I think the Dean and DeLuca cookbook is similar to the Joy of Cooking, just a little fancier. The best funky chili relleno recipe in the world is in there -- chilis stuffed with goat cheese! Yum....

And since we have a winery, we open lots of wine, and I love our standing tripod wine opener. You just stick the bottle in, pull a lever, and the cork is out. Good for those days when you can't wait a second longer for a glass of wine!

[Scully]

I have several cookbooks but I don't use any. I grew up with women who cooked either for a living or would just amazing cooks and a grandfather who was a chef. He oversaw the meals when the UN was first formed. I've picked up his ability to have three ingredients in the cupboard and make a gourment meal out of them. I love playing with flavours and different food items and I really enjoy cooking

I do lots of clever things, but they are the same clever things everyone else does. So I have to think for a moment.

1. I freeze leftover chicken or turkey carcasses and then when I have a few I make chicken/turkey broth and then I freeze that and use it for soups, sauces etc. I freeze the broth in different sizes ie. ice cube trays, small containers, big containers.

2. Whenever I whip whipping cream, I put a wet cloth at the bottom of the sink and I place the bowl on the cloth (this is after I have had the bowl and beaters in the fridge or freezer) and when I whip the cream, all the little bits of cream go into the sink and not all over my kitchen.

3. Like you, whenever I make a big meal of something (ie. soup, lasagna) I make a second batch and freeze it.

4. I use two eggs in my chocolate chip cookie recipe and I'm careful with the amount of flour depending on the humidity that day. And I always chill my dough before I bake it.

5. Whenever possible, I use fresh herbs, fresh ingredients and I experiment, experiment, experiment.

6. When I work with chocolate, I buy good chocolate and I never ever ever let water near it when I'm melting it.

And I would KILL for a Kitchenaid stand mixer. Really, I would plot a murder for that appliance.

[Alicia]

Great post! I love the idea about the lasagne. Even though I am German, I make such a great traditional lasagne and cutting it in half and freezing the other is a fantastic idea! I have the Pampered Chef equivalent of the Zyliss chopper and it's absolutely the ONE thing I could NOT live without! I use it the most with onions because you can chop a whole bag of onions and never touch one. I hate to chop onions, so I chop them all at once and freeze them in doubled freezer bags. Double the bags or buy very very thick bags because otherwise your ice cream will taste like onion and believe me when I say that is NOT a good thing! LOL.

Any other great ideas in your pretty little head? Speaking of which....how is your face? I know that sounds about as nice as someone saying you have a great face for radio, but I am really serious lol. I hope you are now back to normal.

Alicia

[Christine K]

What a great post!! I'm totally going to switch to the 9x9 lasagna plan. I've wanted to for years, but my mom didn't think I could freeze the lasagna all assembled. Thank you for doing that experiment for me. And I'm seriously thinking about whipping up a batch of choc. chip cookies just so I can freeze them in little servings.

I have a ton of cookbooks and rarely use any of them, except two of them. If you do slow cooking (which I did all the time before I quit working, but still enjoy), I really like Fix It and Forget It. But the one I HAVE to try to convince you to get is Beat This by Ann Hodgeman. It's the only cookbook I've read cover to cover. She is hilarious and has all sorts of little comments along the way with her recipes. The book is organized alphabetically instead of by food groups. Her hot fudge sauce is the best I've ever had. And the story of how she made some for friends she was staying with and then ate half the jar and had to make more makes me laugh every time. Oh, and the butterscotch sauce - yummmmmm. Really, you have to go see if you can find it and at least read a few pages. She did a second one - Beat That, but it wasn't very funny and was organized traditionally.

Looking forward to the spaghetti sauce!

Christine

[beaver girl]

Great idea about lasagna because we get sick of it too! I will do that from now on.

I got a chopper last xmas but the garlic stuck in it and therefore couldn't be chopped after the first chop. What did I do wrong? Bad chopper?

I agree on all your utensiles but I also would add the lemon squeezer as a must-have.

[Christine]

I am a little taken aback that you mentioned Cook's Illustrated without mentioning their garlic bread recipe. It's the only garlic bread we make anymore. Sometimes we plan the meal around that bread.

My ceramic cat spoon rest is blue.

[Carrie]

First comment on your blog. I had to come out of lurking to say "I have one! I have one!" You're a woman after my own heart - how to get a good meal on the table with minimum fuss. You know those rotisserie chickens you can pick up in the grocery store? Perfect source of cooked chicken for all sorts of things - chicken salad, chicken to toss in with pasta and pesto, chicken enchiladas. That last one? That one saved step has motivated me to make my chicken enchiladas verde twice as much this year as last. Well, that and the fact that we moved to Minnesota from Texas this summer. Best of luck to you in everything.

[Garrison Steelle]

Wow. I'm not sure which amazes me more: the length of your post (have you EVER done one this long? you're almost at my average length!) or the length of your comments!

Color me impressed ... whatever color that is. ;)

-G

[Jennifer O.]

Julia, Julia, Julia, oh how I adore you. I've been reading since some stage of the iparenting days, but have never commented. I almost creeped myself out with the budding squeal of enthusiasm I squelched while reading this post: Julia's kitchen secrets revealed! Oh, goody!

At the first mention of the cookies, I thought, "I wonder what kind of milk she drinks. Surely, she's not a thin, watery skim kind of girl. Perhaps 2%? Cripey! What if she loathes milk? Could we really continue our relationship?..." Oh, the joy, when I got to the whole milk comment. "Damn, woman. This, THIS, is why I read your blog," I muttered to myself. And the bonus points you earned by finally describing your previously mentioned filing system. I'm overwhelmed.

Hmmm...stuff I make that people usually ask about: a pasta salad with Montrachet, basil, sun-dried tomatoes, and pine nuts...chicken zucchini pie thing...chocolate chip oatmeal pecan cookies.

Oh, and I love my giant Sur La Table stainless pepper mill.

[Brad]

When my grandmother passed I was given free reign to get anything I wanted out of her kitchen. It was truly like someone telling you to go pick out something nice for yourself from the Smithsonian. Anyway, my two favorites: heavy iron plates with wooden holders so I can serve dinner and I get to say, "Careful, the plate is really hot," and an egg poacher pan. I've been making eggs benedict with one of those microwave poachers and a proper poaching pan really makes all the difference. Also, my one good tip: it's all about the sauce. Get a book devoted to sauces and make them all at least once. It's so easy to grill a steak, but a fantastic sauce will make it seem like you devoted the entire afternoon to it. (For the shorthand version, Williams Sonoma has a FANTASTIC collection of "French Finishing Sauces" Green Peppercorn, Bordelaise and Wild Mushroom. They're all three absolutely fantastic on everything from pot roast and mashed potatoes to reheated pot stickers from last night's take out.)

[Judy]

I'm more a 3 ingredients person and viola then a follow the recipe person. That said, tips are hard..

1) letting yogurt sit in a strainer lined with cheese cloth will thicken it to the point that it can be used as sour cream in many recipes (lower in fat, healthier, and tastier)

2) My favorite kitchen gadget is the 'V-slicer.' I think it works much better then traditional mandolins, because it doesn't push your food towards the side.

3) Cheese cloth can be easily cleaned with a little dish soap and re-used. Yes, I'm that cheap when it comes to cheese cloth.

4) Sponges can be sterilized in the dish washer (top rack).

5) Frozen orange juice concentrate will clean the inside of the dishwasher (for those of us without stainless interiors), but don't try to wash dishes at the same time.

6) Minced\diced carrot can be used in place of minced\diced green peppers in many recipes. I don't process pepper well, so finding this out was a God send - especially for Hoppin John and other south of the boarder favorites.

7) Citrus zest adds a great fresh flavor to salads.

[e]

The Zyliss Susi garlic press. I bought mine for $15 14 years ago and use it nearly every day. It is simply amazing.

I love the Silver Palate cookbooks, they are old, but have wonderful recipes in them.

[city girl]

my husband and i got a calphalon one pot set for our wedding this summer and it's GREAT! i am not the advanced cook you are (my specialties include chicken breast and boxed mashed potatoes), but i use the skillet to saute chicken and on the high setting on our electric stove (i wish it was gas!), it gets a nice brown color. i like to cut the chicken into small pieces, "sear" it this way, and then turn it down and finish cooking it with some sauce or marinade. yum!

[Genuine]

Just stopping in to say hello and to congratulate you on your recent nomination at the BoB Weblog Awards 2004.

www.blogmechanics.com/bob

[Emily]

Oh, I'm hooked...the foodie that I am. I've had a subscription to Fine Cooking for years and also won't cut them up. I also cut out recipes from all the others too and keep them in a manila file folder (with sides). My 'cake' file folder is quite fat (well, so am I, kind of see the connection here).

I can't live without my all clad pots and my favorite utensil is my blending fork and danish bread whisk (you'll never overmix pancakes again if you use on of these).

Here's my recipe for a fast dinner: Marinate chicken thighs (with skin) in soy sauce, a little bit of fresh ginger, a garlic clove and chopped scallion. Marinate at least an hour. Bake in a 375 degree oven until juices run clear. About 10 minutes before done cooking, mix equal parts of honey and orange marmalade together in a bowl. Brush over chicken and finish cooking until glaze is carmalized.

[Abby]

Loved this post! And I love my Kitchen Aid mixer. One thing that I did that was pretty smart was buy a 2nd bowl for it (since I couldn't afford a whole other mixer!). It's great if I'm making something like a cake that needs several things mixed. I've been known to use both bowls and my Kitchen Aid hand mixer, but we can't sustain that kind of activity every day!

I actually have a cookbook collection. My husband and I buy them when we travel, which accounts for the fact that I have some that I can't read, like the one from Portugal. I can read French, and my husband can read spanish and swedish, and can figure out italian. But when we were in Hungary I have to admit that I bought the english traslation. Then we have them from different states/regions. My mainstays are The Joy of Cooking (NOT the latest version, the one before that, which my brother gave us 15 years ago when we got married), various Moosewood cookbooks, several cookie cookbooks, Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads, and The Cake Bible. Oh, and 365 Days of Chocolate Desserts. And the Fanny Farmer Baking Cookbook. OK, I'll stop now. Clearly this is an illness! But one neat present that my husband gave me was a turn of the century cook book/household hints book-oy, what they went through! And I have a cookbook that belonged to my grandmother, which is really neat. OK, I'M REALLY STOPPING NOW!

Julia, I wish I could send you a picture of my stove. It's from the early 50's-was the original stove when the apartment building was built. It has 4 burners AND a griddle in the middle, w/a cool griddle cover for when you're not using it (which is pretty much always). It has an oven on 1 side and a rotisserie on the other, but most of the parts to that have been lost. The flame is above though, so it's great for browning stuff.

My daughter is 6 and I work outside the home full time, and I don't cook all that much any more. Lack of time/energy! 'Tis a pity.

Oh, the one things that I did in my kitchen which is really cool is when they were putting in the counter top I bought the biggest marble board that I could find, and had them drop it in so that it's flush w/the counter. My next counter WILL be granite (probably), but this was a good option when we needed to use formica.

[Abby]

Did I mention my collection of cookie cutters? OK, stopping now...

[Lisa M.]

Oh that was a fun one! I don't cook much these days, because that would be completely unacceptable to my son. See, by 6:00PM he has had enough of independent play and insists that I play with him. If I can convince him that I need to cook, he insists that he help. And, he wants the biggest knife.

That being said, I do enjoy cooking and my husband and I have just started getting back into it recently. (Our intentions our good but the carry-out menu draw is just too accessible.) I get most of my recipes from magazines such as Bon Appetit and Cooking Light (I have a tendency to re-make the recipes so that they are less "light"). I have a few cookbooks that I use - Martha Stewart Living, Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread (we are big soup eaters), my mom's very old copy of Joy of Cooking (the blender hollandaise is so good and so easy) and The Simply Healthy Cookbook. The last one may sound scary but really it isn't - think recipes like Sauteed Chicken with Lemon-Basil Pasta and Penne with Asparagus, Parmesan and Pecans. I also get a lot of recipes off the internet. Try the Food Network's foodtv.com.

I am quite envious of your kitchen supplies. I have the basics, but my kitchen just cannot accomodate much. We have one of those mid-Atlantic "cozy" brick colonials. Since we plan to move in the next few years, my husband and I have vowed to do NOTHING with the kitchen. It really is ok but so very, very far from my dream kitchen. There simply is no room for a Kitchen Aid mixer.

While I struggled emotionally when Sean weaned, it was a wonderful excuse to start buying whole milk. I tried to switch myself back to 1% but who the hell wants to drink 1% when there is whole milk in the house. I still use Sean as my excuse to buy whole milk. We've even switched over to whole milk yogurt. Should you make a trip to the town of your alma mater (PLEASE, PLEASE DO!) you should swing by the re-developed Belvedere Square Market http://www.belvederesquare.com/. Atwater's sells milk from a local dairy. It comes in a glass bottle and with a layer of cream on top. Before grabbing a bottle from the cooler, grab a seat at the counter and induldge in some of the best soup and bread around.

Ok, now I know that you real foodies will cringe when I say this, but I just must. I use a Crockpot. I can make an Italian pot roast (Italian because the meat cooks in lots of wine) and it is so easy to make shredded chicken, pork or beef for whatever recipe you like. I also find it the easiest way to make various forms of chili.

Long post for one that doesn't cook much anymore but I think I may have been inspired to change my ways.

Lisa

P.S. Cashier's checks in large sums are a much better exfoliant - less residue than those filthy $50 bills. But then again maybe you have a line on those newly printed bills that the rest of us just cannot get our hands on.

[Kimm]

I like to freeze lots of chicken carcasses in individual bags and then throw all the bony, freezerburned corpses in the trash one day after throwing a fit over my chronically overstuffed and poky freezer.

Those bins in the fridge that other people call "crispers" (so precious!) are called "rotters" in my house, the place where fresh vegetables and pricy herbs go to transform into slimy, putrid stink bombs.

Do I have any useful information? Three ring binders and a three hole punch (as I imagine Beck chanting ...). I like cookbooks, but the internet has gotten very useful for recipe sharing. Epicurious.com and the food section of the NY Times (Wednesdays) are my favorite sources to copy and paste recipes into a Word document saved on my desktop. I organize them by category and then print front and back (binders get full really fast), punch some holes, and in they go. Those manila dividers with color coded plastic tabs work well here. You could probably do this for your Cooks Illustrated and Bon Appetit recipes if you want to save the issues. They should be available on their respective websites.

Oh, and a well seasoned cast iron pan is great for the biceps and fantastic for cornbread. Seriously, I thought that I must have a cornbread disability until I started baking it in a cast iron pan. Add a small can of creamed corn to the recipe on the cornmeal box, pour batter in a hot oiled pan, and brush the top (once it's baked) with a little maple syrup. Perfecto! Be careful of the hot pan handle though unless you want a really strange tattoo.

Julia, I dream of growing up one day to plan a week's worth of menus like a real home economist. No, for real. Can a rotter ever become a crisper again?

[jen]

Hey Julia,

THanks for a great post. Good to see another foodie cat-lover! I read with green eyes the fact you have 2 fridges (TWO!), when i suffer with one tiny box of cold (no freezer!) in a kitchen two-foot square (cats aren't allowed in since they learned to jump on the gas stove!). BUT - it means that I have an excuse to buy kitchen gadgets to alleviate the frustration, so I will share.. I do not take any responsibility for dents in credit cards as a result!

Knives - mm, nice - at the expense of sounding like an axe murderer, these are my kitchen fetish. I got one from http://www.japaneseknifecompany.com for CHristmas last year, and a new one in November. Hideously expensive (though the second knife we bought was 1/2 price) but like a crack whore, I now can't buy anything else and pimp them to all my friends. The ceramics are great for chopping up little things like bell peppers, chilis etc. The large metal ones (we got this one http://www.japaneseknifecompany.com/knives_tools/laminated/ml/ml01.htm) goes through large pumpkins and sweet potatoes like soft butter, and is SO well balanced... sadly there are fights in this kitchen over who gets to use it. I'd get another of these in a second.

Mixer - I bought a Kenwood food processor for my fiance in April and we haven't had a day go by without using it since. It juices, it mixes, it beats, it chops, it makes tea.. (ok so I lied about the last, but it does try). It has a minibowl so you can use it for small portions, it has a liquidiser bit that fits onto the main base to do smoothies, and a small nut-chopping bit. Best of all it fits in our 4mx3m kitchen! It does have an annoying design flaw which means turning the power control is hard with wet hands, but otherwise...

Cookbook - World Food Cafe - my fiance is veggie so we eat a hell of a lot of beans and pulses and tofu. I would never give up meat, but it seams silly to cook 2 meals each day, so I find ways to make MORE lentils seem interesting. This book is great for foodies - proper curries etc from all over the world made from scratch. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1579590721/qid=1103016230/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-7152622-6382417?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 (there is a second book which has good fish recipes too). The other recipe source which is way cool is http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes which has all the recipes from all BBC food shows, and allows you to 'save' your favourites in a virtual binder. We cut and paste into our Palmpilot and voila, we can shop on the day for what we want (sadly we can't plan in advance as we have no fridge space!).

We got two very cheap ceramic pepper grinders from Ikea - one for pepper, and the other for grinding spices for making curries. They walk all over any other kind of grinder and are a quarter of the price. http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10101&storeId=12&langId=-1&productId=34539

Saucepans/frying pans - we do all (and I mean all) our cooking in one skillet pan and 2 saucepans (due to lack of kitchen space). All are non-stick. The skillet is 28" wide and about 3.5" deep and has a very heavy base and glass lid. It is the best pan in the world - it browns, sautes, casseroles, stews, steams... you name it - we do pasta sauces, curries, soups, stir fries, everything in it. It goes in the oven, too -great for spanish omelette when you need to brown the top. It behaves like a cast-iron skillet, but cleans easily in warm soapy water with no scrubbing required. We get ours from Food shows - but you can buy online -see http://www.cookware.co.uk/index.html?code=1740

Oops. SOrry for hogging the comments box...

[Tory]

The day I decided my boyfriend was the man I was going to marry was the day he surprised me with a factory refurbished cobalt blue 6 qt Kitchenaid mixer. It was definitely true love. Since, he's added the blender, the food processor, and several of the mixer attachments (the pasta roller/cutters and the food grinder) to the collection. The pasta rollers are a godsend when it comes to fresh pasta, finally leaving me with enough hands to feed and catch while not having to turn a crank, like on my mother's Italian machine. (The cooking obsession is hereditary... Mom went on a bus-tour of Italy with other military wives. Everybody else came back with Italian gold; Mom's only souvenir was an Imperia pasta machine that she'd lugged all over Florence.)
Tips. Right. For the people with self-created recipe binders, I highly recommend page-protectors. You can pop a page out of the book to post on the fridge (next to my prep counter, for me) or the stove hood (as we did in my old apartment), and not have to worry unduly about getting anything on the recipe, if you've got floury/eggy hands or whatever. Currently, I'm working on converting The Blue Ribbon Country Cookbook into a binder-style book, as the spine broke at the recipes I used most often, and I was in danger of losing the snickerdoodle/peanut butter cookie page.
Also, we recently added a magnetic knife strip to our house, and got rid of our old knife block. More counter space (which, at our house is at a premium), keeps the knives out of reach of my niece and nephew, and you can tell at a glance (because we of course keep the knives in size-order) what's available for use, and what's probably in the sink somewhere.

[Diana from WI]

Lovely, lovely post.

I can't live without my bread machine but never use the full cycle. The consistancy is never right. Mine has a dough cycle, which takes about 90 min (less if you use warm liquids at the start), which I use exclusively. I then kneed it, shape it (the fun part), let it rise and bake it. We have homemade bread with minimal effort a couple of times a week. The types of bread are endless and often form the backbone of a meal with a salad and some good cheese or chicken. With it so easy, I don't freeze bread, leaving room for other things in the freezer, like ziplock bags of pesto and quarts of chicken stock.

Diana

[Julie]

I make lasagna for the freezer in loaf pans. Perfect for two. And we are spice drawer twins.

I am desperate and anguished in my desire to see pictures of your kitchen and filing systems.

[Julie]

Also, Fine Cooking is indeed the best, but I also enjoy Cuisine at Home. Cook's Illustrated lost me a few years ago, to be replaced by Cuisine at Home, which has -- get this -- photos. In color.

[Heels]

1. Our second fridge is called the Beergerator.

2. http://www.sks-bottle.com/340c/fin7a.html
Martha-style spice tins for 1/3 the cost of Container Store tins. Of course, no one needs a gross of tins, but your friends will appreciate the leftovers.

[BethanyG]

*Steps out from behind lurkdom drape*

Hi Julia! The standmixer does it all for me too. I've had it seriously repaired twice in the last 7 years that I've owned it. (Can't say I recommend softening frozen butter with the KitchenAid!)

The best cookbook I have in my collection is from Cook's Illustrated: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0936184388/qid=1103035863/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-2201465-3189610 called Best Recipe. They even have a "New Best Recipe" out. Oh, how I long for that one too! Truly, I've never ever had a recipe fail outta that book. Love it. Best pie crust recipe ever.

And I'm in k(itchen)lust with my microplane grater too. Damn.

Ok, and if you like more regional foods, there is a series of cookbooks from which I have the "1,000 Mexican Recipes" which is just fantastic... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764564870/qid%3D1103036056/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-2201465-3189610

They also have this in Indian food which gets a big 5 stars: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0764519727/qid=1103036164/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/002-2201465-3189610?v=glance&s=books

Oh, one trick I have for my chocolate chip cookies is I preheat my pans while the oven is preheating. And then I *undercook* the cookies themselves. I'm at about 6,500 feet, so maybe that makes a difference here but nowhere else, I don't know. But the preheat and only baking them for about 8 minutes (I KNOW they don't look done when you take them out, but trust me) makes an incredibly soft, chewy cookie.

And All Clad stainless is my favorite for browning. Really. DH indulged me in a set a few Christmas' ago and I would never go back.

Ok, enough already.

Bethany

[Queenie]

It is possible to brown stuff using Calphalon nonstick, but you have to have the professional-grade Calphalon and you have to use about four tablespoons of very hot oil, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of nonstick. Other than the browning issue, chef-level Calphalon (the huge 14-piece set!) was by far the greatest wedding gift the King and I received. And I'm snooty enough to be thrilled that it came from *my* family, not his, who almost exclusively gave us ugly picture frames.

[Angela]

I thought my mother and I were the only two that planned out a week's worth of menus! It is nice to see we are not alone, and I couldn't think of any better company to find myself in! Besides, if you don't know what you are going to cook, how do you know what to get at the store?

My current favorite cookbook is Rachel Ray's 30 minutes meals- vol. 2 (from the Food Network). It has a very good variety of meals that really can be completed in 30 minutes- but I like to go a little slower, so they usually take me 45. I must have everything chopped/minced/grated before I start- I can't take the pressure of multitasking! There is a veal scallopini served with pasta with citrus cream sauce that is wonderful! The thing I really love is the cookbook is set up as complete meals- entree, side dish, and salad or dessert. I highly recommend it!

Love your blog, BTW. I think I might have commented before, but I am mainly a lurker. My love of food made me post!

[Kerry]

I read you all the time, but only seem to delurk when there's food involved...

Have you tried or considered canning your spaghetti sauce? My Mom was always like you, make huge batches of sauce once every couple of months. When I was a kid she always froze it too, but some time in the last decade she learned about canning. Now she divies the sauce into several wide mouth mason jars, screws the lids on loosely, pops them in the oven at around 350 until they are bubbling. Take them out and let them cool until the lids seal (they make a very distinct popping sound). Tighten the lids and put them in the cupboard. Saves space in the fridge and freezer, and I tell you, after growing up on frozen sauce, canned sauce is so much better. It still tastes like the day it was made. She cans left over turkey too, and how great is it to have delicious turkey in February?

[Summer]

Julia, how could you mention knives and not specify? You must have good knives. Are you a Wustof or a Henckels girl, or do you have something rare and fancy and possibly Japanese? (Me: Henckels.) Good knives make such a difference. I've even learned to sharpen them, which makes an even bigger difference.

I'm an impulsive cook, and I don't tend to use recipes. Thus I don't have special recipes to share, but rather cooking tips.

1. Brining. You said you don't do it in your Thanksgiving food entry. Try it sometime with a chicken. You don't need a recipe, just throw a big handful or two of salt in a big bowl or stockpot, add warm water to dissolve the salt, then toss in your chicken and add ice and cold water until the chicken is fully submerged. (You can also add spices like peppercorns, rosemary, sage, whatever, when you add the warm water.) Put the bowl in the fridge, and leave it there for at least 3 hours. Then just bung it into a hot oven and roast it; you really don't need to do anything to the chicken other than pat it dry a little bit. Yum.

2. Chop the chicken. To speed up the cooking of a whole chicken, chop it in half lengthwise, along the back bone. Place the two sides skin-up on in a baking dish and roast. This makes it very easy to serve (cutting it into quarters takes just two more strokes of the knife), and results in crispy skin all over and juicy breast meat.

3. My world famous Miso Salmon: contains two ingredients, salmon filet and miso paste. Slater miso paste on both sides of the salmon, then fry on a hot griddle. The paste will form a black crust, which may partially fall off. Doesn't matter. It's not the prettiest thing, but every time I serve it I'm always told that it's the best salmon ever. (It really is world famous! Lucinda wrote about it on her food blog - http://rainbowcake.typepad.com/coffeekisses - and she's in Australia, thus "world famous".)

Great post. Food rules.

[Libby]

Love posts about food! I love cooking, but I adore baking. I used to be militant about making cakes from scratch but then Linda http://indigogirl.typepad.com/ wrote about the wonders of a book called the "Cake Mix Doctor". You might have heard about it, but it uses cake mixes (gasp!) as the base of the cakes. I absolutely love this book and the cakes are really awsome. I higly recommend it.

I also like cooking light magazine. Great recipes low in fat.

I love that you have all your recipes so organized. I love recipes. I bought this really great binder type thing, were you can write your recipes, and it has little plastic sheets were you can put a recipe written by your mother or whaterver. It is really neat. I am trying to compile all of my recipes, as well as recipes from my mom, my dad (an excellent cook BTW) and my MIL. I hope that "cook book" is passed on from generation to generation starting with Sofia (my daughter). I think that there is so much more to a recipe than just instructions. I have several of my grandmother's handwritten recipes and she wrote little tips along the margins, I treasure them. I believe it is really important to preserve family recipes. Lucky Patrick (and future children)to inherit such a rich (and carefully organized) collection. A real treasure.

[amy]

What a delightful post.

1. When making fresh pesto, make extra and freeze in ice cube trays (put a little oil in the trays to keep cubes from sticking). Then pop the cubes out and store in freezer bags. Grabbing a few cubes is vastly easier than trying to get a few scoops of pesto out of a frozen block in a bowl.

2. You get tired of lasagna? Woman, are you and your husband inhuman? I've been _doubling_ mine and freezing one (assembled but unbaked) for years. If you're lucky, you'll have one around when a friend is recovering from illness or can't cook for some reason. You can bring it over and look like a hero.

3. Finally got rid of the original Moosewood Cookbook by Molly Katzen--that curly, headache-inducing typeface had to go. Also: you can NOT use applesauce to replace sour cream in soups and baking. If you don't want fat or dairy, make a different dish that isn't pretending to be something it's not. You can doctor a recipe up with slightly lower-fat products, but removing all fat from fat-dependent recipes makes for bad food. (I still like the Moosewood restaurant cookbooks, though. The recipes are more straightforward and reliable, and, well, they taste better.)

[genie]

Don't really have anything to add, but I appreciate the post. I love, love, love the food, but hate, hate, hate the cooking. I am just not very good at it, and it seems that if it can't get done in 20 minutes, there is a mutiny in my house... Maybe someday... I must thank you from the bottom of my heart, though, for the fancy oatmeal pancake recipe. Though my "nachos are gourmet cuisine" husband did quietly mention that he preferred Bisquik (bastard), I loved them and will be serving them next week for my christmas company.

Keep the tips coming. Oh, and I am glad to read someone else has a beergerator. I thought I was alone in the world.

[dish]

Love the idea for the two smaller lasagnes! So simple, yet not something I've done. Actually, we will usually bake the whole thing and freeze the leftovers in single-serving portions and then take them frozen in lunches when we're inspired for lasagne again.

One addendum on the bread freezing (I hope I'm not repeating an earlier post) is that if you thaw it in the oven on a low temp, you'll get a nice, crispy crust and the resemblance to fresh-baked. We have lots of frozen bread and hate the soggies that you get when thawing at room temp or in the fridge. Oven is the way to go!

My favorite kitchen idea? Hmmmm. Probably freezing peeled garlic cloves and fresh herbs so that they are right there and ready when I need them. Otherwise they rot before I get a chance. It's not earth shattering, but it keeps me from wasting food.

[Rachel]

I think I love you. I also love my microplane - when recipes used to call for zest of one lemon, they always used to involve zest of my left knuckle. No more!

I swear by Marc Bittmann's How to Cook Everything - when combined with Joy of Cooking, it's a powerful force. Also Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, even though I'm not a vegetarian, like, at all.

[Jill]

Hi! As a longtime foodie, I loved your post. I'm just delurking to share a tip that I learned in a French cooking class: if you microwave a lemon for one minute before juicing it, it will yield twice as much juice. Bon appetit!

[cadbut]

The best lasagne recipe I have found was in Real Simple magazine...you layer frozen ravioli with pasta sauce and cheese (and a box of frozen spinach, if you want) and then bake. Really easy, tastes good. Love it.

[Tonya]

A hand chopper? Really? I hate mine. It seems like more work to use it and to get it clean than to just chop up the onion. I am a fan of so many of my cooking utensils, but the one thing that I use on almost a daily basis is my garlic press. I have a pampered chef, but the zyliss is really good, too.

And thank you for the spice tip. It seems obvious to use that method, but I've been employing the tupperware box with the spices all stacked up. It would be an understatement to say it has not been working. I go in for the tumeric and the saffron, chili powder and vanilla beans come tumbling down.

[atomic]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, so, The New York Times Cook Book. It effectively replaced Both my copies of The Joy of Cooking (old and revised) as my favorite cookbook.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060160101/qid=1103050641/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-4308281-6988847

Everything in it, ok, 97% of the things in it, are Easy Breezy Beautiful and the 3% of things that are not so easy (read: quick) are well worth the effort.

[AyEnDeeAreEeAyAitch]

Do you not crock pot? Have you no soul? Maybe I am too white trash because I do crock pot but I have real good crock pot recipes.

I know there is a white trash cookbook already but I sould start a crock-pot and hardly-any-food-left-in-the-fridge-but-i-can-make-a-meal-anyways- cookbook. Sort of a step above white trash. Just trash I guess.

But yes, noodles and butter anyone? Potato chips and american cheese slices topped with a bit of jarred salsa melted to make ghetto nachos?

Hot dog or hamburger buns with melted butter and sprinkled with garlic salt and dried parsley...toasted in the oven....Mmmm..Poor mans garlic bread.

[alice]

1) add parmesan or another dry cheese to the poor man's garlic bread and it makes a world of difference.

2) little binder clips - I always have small amounts of things to store, or they won't fit well in the containers I have, and these are great for getting bags closed. (The giant clips that you get at the supermarket never keep things tight enough for me.)

3) store 'fancy' bread (i.e. nonsliced bread) in its paper bag inside a plastic bag. Just in paper tends to make things go stale and dry fast, and just in plastic tends to help mold develop. Somehow, the paper absorbs enough moisture to keep things balanced. I don't use ziplock, so I don't know if a seal that tight would change things, though.

4) Julia - you rock. I have little patience for the kitchen, so may not end up *using* any of these things I've learned, but it's nice to have all this good knowledge in case I ever get bitten by the productivity bug.

[Sara]

Tomato paste tip: open both ends with a can opener, turn it over a plate and push one end. It squirts out like toothpaste. Yum.

[Knives]

Global. There is no substitute.

[Danielle]

Hi Julia:

When it comes to cooking, I'm just like you. I won Eric over with my cooking during our first dates but as soon as I had him wrapped around my little finger I cokked him a fish stir-fry... From then on, he took over and the food has since been spectacular.

For more than one reason, he's fallen head over heels for Nigella. I think he now owns all of her cook books. The recipes are finger licking good and I drool just looking at the pictures!

What we like about her cooking is her mix of no nonsense snootiness with a touch of Tuscany.

Danielle