Helpful Real Food Cooking Tips

In the past few months I have been reading more and more cookbooks and books about food in general. Some of these books have been duds (The Taste Thesaurus? Blah) but others have been gems. You might be wondering if I have become obsessed with food and you might be onto something. I do like food, A LOT, but cooking? Not so much. Being on the GAPS Diet, also known as the "no processed anything diet" requires me to spend a lot of time cooking. You might think that having been on this diet for 16 months! now I would have acquired a love of cooking given the many hours each day I spend in the kitchen but you would be sadly wrong. If nothing else I probably dislike it more. In my quest to make cooking less painful I have stumbled upon a few very fabulous tips that help me spend less time in the kitchen and help me save money to boot.

The first tip comes from a cookbook that I haven't even read yet and probably won't unless the price goes down:

The author of Well Fed offers a thirty-page teaser preview on her website which was so awesome that I was almost willing to pay $30 for the cookbook; almost. What is magical about this cookbook besides its delicious recipes which include, amongst others, chocolate chili? Melissa Joulwan comes from a family of restauranteurs which means she knows how to cook food FAST. Once a week Joulwan does the majority of her food prep for the week, usually within a day of her shopping trip. In two hours she browns ground beef, cooks chicken breasts and sausages,  roasts sweet potatoes and spaghetti squash, steams broccoli and cabbage, chops up raw veggies for snacks, boils a dozen eggs and much more.

As I read this idea it astounded me. In years past I had subscribed to a menu mailer that advocated such weekly prep as this but it didn't really work for me because I didn't like all the recipes included in each weeks mailers. Joulwan, however, doesn't worry about such things as "recipes". She only makes 2-3 real recipes every week. The rest of the time she makes what she calls "hot plates." Basically, she takes what prepared items she has an assembles them into a meal. She decides what flavor she wants (Mexican, Indian, Asian etc.) and then what protein and throws it all together into a skillet and voila! Dinner. The example she gave for a Mexican dinner was to throw together in a skillet a pound of the precooked ground beef, steamed chopped peppers and cabbage and while that was warming up make some "South Western Cumin Lime Dressing" and she had dinner ready in less than ten minutes. This way you get lots of variety and you aren't stuck with the Chicken curry you had planned to make when what you really crave is Mexican.

I have done this a few times and it has worked famously. I wish I was better at doing it but as with every new skill learned, it takes time to change habits and fit something new into the routine. The chopping and steaming vegetables has been genius. I wash and cut up lettuce as soon as I get it so that I can make an easy salad, grate and steam cauliflower rice, and slice a head of cabbage for "noodles." It is so easy just to steam the already wet from washing sliced vegetables until just soft and put in a container in the fridge until I need it. I also like to make up the week's salad dressing so I have no excuse not to eat my greens.

As for working on those flavor combinations to mix together those hot plates? The Flavor Bible is essential! I cannot say enough about how great this book is. The way it is organized is so perfectly aligned with how my brains works. The only thing that I didn't like about this book is its omission of Sherry for cooking.

An Everlasting Meal: Cooking With Economy and Grace had such a lovely little gem of a not-quite-cookbook title that I bought it, not even waiting for it to come to the library. I don't exactly regret my purchase but I since I am not eating grains currently, her grain heavy and Italian influenced cooking tips really did not quite hit home with me. She also has a mysterious "thing" with beets which I cannot comprehend. It wasn't that this was a useless books, on the contrary, her tips for stretching your culinary budget are sound and tasty, but Adler definitely needed to endear herself to me with her unflinching praise of fat to keep me reading until the end. The most useful tip that I found in her book was to use EVERY part of the vegetable. The core and leaves of that head of cauliflower? Edible. Yup. Not every part of plant is edible (carrot tops?) but when you are paying for those throwaway bits it is nice to be able to put them to use. I now use the extra leaves and cores of cabbage and cauliflower to make blended French-style potage soups.

Another trick that Adler taught is to use the cooking liquid from cooking vegetables as a base for soups. Yes! Duh, I don't know why it took me this long to figure that one out. For a while now I have always saved the drippings from roasts to use for soups and they really amp up the flavor; using the veggie "drippings" is much same. 

My favorite kitchen tip I have actually been doing for years: boil the bones but what I didn't know is that you can boil the snot, erm nutrients, right out of them for a week before throwing them out. Perpetual Broth has become my new best friend and the very best way to stretch that expensive pastured chicken carcass. It is so nice in the winter to be able to have broth for soup available for meals throughout the week and even with a 1/4 tsp. sea salt, a cup of broth is both nourishing, soothing and delicious after a long day. I very highly recommend doing this.

Those are my tips for now. Any that you are willing to share with me?

Thoughts on Mediocrity upon Making a Potato Salad

Dinner: Shrimp Fritters, Potato Salad, 

& Mandarin Oranges

Today I made potato salad with the last of the beautiful organic Yukon Gold potatoes that I bought in the Fall from a nice Amish farmer. Ravenna was napping, the house was clean and the dishwasher humming in the background was the perfect music for a wandering mind. I considered my accomplishments to this point and discerned, as I had many times in the past, that there was no particular thing that I was especially good at.

You would think that for a perfectionist this occasional realization would be a maddening reminder, but for me, as I peeled the skin off cold potatoes in the dim winter light of a north facing window, I felt a certain peace acceptance.

I quit playing the flute at 14 because my band instructor told me that I would never be really good at it, mediocre at best, and I did not really like it anyway. During high school I joined the Future Farmers of America with its numerous and diverse activities, certain that I would find something that I could be really good at. Yet, at the end of four years I was again reminded that I would never do very well in any of the many activities that I participated in and I abandoned the pursuit of a degree in agriculture for the pursuit of academic glory. Here is where I did the best. I had a knack for knowing my academic strengths and weaknesses and thus avoided classes that I would not do well in. This is not to say that I was not challenged, but I stuck with the things that I thought would lead me to eventual success, my niche, as it were. In the end I only graduated Magna cum Laude, not Summa, and missed being Valedictorian by miles. On my graduation day I cried at the loss because I had come so close. I did not need the honors, more the validation to continue in my studies. 

Moving onto to full time employment to support my husband while he finished his studies, I entered into a job as meaningless and unfulfilling as any job I have ever held. I was extremely grateful for the position that paid the bills but resentful at the fact that every morning I woke up dreading the day ahead of me. I quit that job after only 11 months believing that I was moving onto a bigger, better job and a crack at graduate school glory, but that was not in the cards for me. 

One month after quitting, I found myself pregnant with Ravenna, a delightful surprise, and all plans for further employment and graduate school were put off indefinitely. I jumped into becoming a full time housewife with all the zeal of June Cleaver. I wanted to be the best, most economical, crafty cute, organized and emotionally put-together housewife there ever was. 

Luckily, I did not let that zeal extend to motherhood. I realized early on in my pregnancy that motherhood is not something you can excel at because you are dealing with another person and to do justice to the calling, you must abandon your self-interest and give over to love, patience and compassion. To be a good mother is merely to do your very best and hope that to the little person whose care you were entrusted, that it will be enough. 

And so, folding cubed potatoes into the creamy dressing while chatting with my husband about his day, I resigned to my mediocrity. I wish I could say that I had some great epiphany about how my inability to do anything very well fits into the Great Plan of Happiness or spiritual reassurance that my inherent divine worth as a daughter of God would make up for my lack of excellence, that is not what happened. I felt merely acceptance of what I am: a decent person and a good wife and mother, and that is enough.

Placing the bowl of salad into the refrigerator I breathed a sigh of resignation. Then I realized that I had neglected to put the hard boiled eggs into the salad. Drat!

Potato Salad

6 hard-boiled eggs

10 Red or Yukon Gold Potatoes, boiled for 15-20 minutes and cooled, peeled and cubed

1 c. Mayo

1/2 c. ranch dressing

2 tbsp. prepared yellow mustard

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/8 tsp paprika

1/8 celery seed

4-6 green onions (depending on taste) sliced thinly

Stir together mayo, ranch dressing, mustard, and spices in a mixing bowl. Add eggs, potatoes and onion and stir gently until evenly mixed. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

Shrimp Fritters, adapted from BHG

1 lb. peeled and deveined shrimp with tails removed, chopped

1 egg, beaten

4 green onions, thinly sliced 

1/4 c. all purposed four (I used my gluten-free baking mix)

2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning

1/4 c. cooking oil (I used Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, which I always use when I fry)

In a small mixing bowl beat the egg. Add the shrimp and the rest of the ingredients and mix well. In a large skilled heat the oil (it is best when it is good and hot) and then add the shrimp mixture by 1/3 cup full's. I find that the best way to do this is to really pack the mixture into a 1/3 cup measure and drop it quickly into the oil. Cook for 3 minutes on each side and let drain on a paper towel. Serve immediately.