Rebecca’s Cooking Journal

It says something about the week when I don’t post a single recipe. It was a good week in food, I just didn’t get a chance to write anything up. Nothing was original anyway.

I had intend to do a variety of posts in the past three weeks for Blog Post BINGO. I have not had time to do so. I didn’t realize how much my instinct to post regularly depends on comments. I have a number of general cooking discussion posts that I have considered posting, but talking to myself isn’t very fun. I may keep this blog a basic recipe and updates blog, simply because I am mainly keeping it for myself and my own cooking development. If you are reading this blog, I’d love to know what you’d like to read.

My favorite dish this week was the chicken and rice that my husband made. Oh, yum. It was tasty. He created it without a recipe, so I unfortunately can’t recreate it. Someday I may be able to create meals like that. That’s a goal.

Sunday

[leftovers]

Monday

Dilled chicken piccata; mashed potatoes; broccoli

Tuesday

Pork chops with mustard cream sauce; herbed potatoes; broccoli

Wednesday

Parmesan Risotto with peas

Thursday

Cream of Cucumber Soup; cheese sandwiches

Friday

Waffles

Saturday

Chicken and rice; mixed green salad with vinaigrette

I forgot to post my weekly report on Sunday, so here it is. Another good week. I loved the cucumber soup the best, and I’m going to make it again this week. I’m starting to not feel very creative in trying new menus; I feel I just keep repeating the old favorites. So be it. At least I’m cooking!

Sunday

white pizza; cream of cucumber soup

Monday

Cheese sandwiches [with leftovers]

Tuesday

Fettuccine Alfredo with peas

Wednesday

grilled chicken salad sandwiches

Thursday

French toast

Friday

steak with parsley butter; pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes and thyme

Saturday

BBQ with friends: rack of ribs; grilled chicken; mustard potatoes; peach and arugula salad; grilled corn

Molly Wizenberg mentioned in her memoir, A Homemade Life, that she likes to make a pot of soup every week so she has something light for lunch. I decided I’m going to try some new soup every week or two as well. I love a light meal, and soups are just the thing.

So then I had to determine  what kind of soup is appropriate for summer. A friend mentioned that Cucumber soup is what she thinks of. I’d never had it, so I thought I’d have to give it a try.

Oh my. This soup was so good. I don’t normally like uncooked cucumbers, but this was so delicious, especially the second day when it was chilled. It didn’t make very much — or maybe we just ate it too fast! — so I’ll double it next time. Also, I only sliced one-half of a cucumber for garnish and it was sufficient. (The recipe suggests an entire cucumber.)

It is a very thin soup, but I liked that. It was just right for a hot summer evening. We also ate a white pizza and together the meal hit the spot!

I adapted a recipe that I found online. That site claimed it was Julia Child’s but I can’t vouch for that. I simplified it a bit for my own sake.  (more…)

In some respects, I miss the point of Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food.

Alice Waters is the original proponent of seasonal, local, and organic foods. But because I grocery shop for a family on a budget, I can never justify going “organic.” I also live in Chicago suburbia, which means that there are about two feet of snow on the ground for four months of the year, so I can’t ever imagine relying wholly on seasonal and local foods either. I’m sure organic and local foods taste better; I just can’t justify the cost difference.

All that said, though, I love The Art of Simple Food. I find myself referring to her pointers and recipes often. The aspect I love is this: Food should taste like itself. Don’t complicate things!

I’m a person that thinks a few fresh strawberries make a perfect dessert, so I really like her emphasis on simplicity. Her recipes are very basic essentials, so experienced cooks may find them dull or “too simple.” But as a beginning cook who loves simple dishes (both for cooking and for eating), I find her recipes refreshing.

For example, in the section “Out of the Frying Pan,” she provides a recipe for Pan-Fried Pork Chops. The ingredients? Pork chops, butter, salt and pepper. Her instructions show us how to recreate it, including what it should look like and why you should let the chops rest for four minutes before serving (it tenderizes them). She also provides four “variations” for added flavor. These are likewise very simple, things like “parsley butter” or “garnish with chopped parsley, garlic, and/or lemon zest” (a gremolata) (page 122).

The Art of Simple Food is subtitled “Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution,” and Waters does a wonderful job of introducing “simple food” to the home cook. She begins with some essential thoughts about the kitchen and pantry. These ideas are pretty basic (such as basic foods with which to stock a pantry) and simple menus, both for a small family and for entertaining. I liked her thoughts on picnics, and how a picnic should still emphasis good food. Every time I read it, I want to go on a picnic!

In this first part of the book, Waters discusses the basic techniques for various types of food and food preparation. For each type, she also provides three recipes. The categories are these: sauces, salads, bread, broth and soup, beans, pasta and polenta, rice, roasting, sautéing, slow cooking, simmering, grilling, omelets and soufflés, tarts, fruit desserts, custard and ice cream, cookies and cakes.

The second part of the book has additional recipes in each category. The recipes aren’t as detailed, but the basics have already been outlined, so it is sufficient for our needs.

I have only read the first part in full, but I’ve also browsed through the recipes on the second half. I’m not sure I’ll go through and completely cook my way through the book (as I’d intend) but I certainly love the “variations” and technique overview that I find in this book. I’m all for simple food.

Do you eat organic or local food? What do you like best about it?

What simple foods do like best?

This review is for The Spice of Life Challenge. It’s cross-posted on Rebecca Reads.

Blog Post BINGO “review” post. Details here.

This week wasn’t creative at all. I just cooked familiar foods. But that was okay, because we had lots of food, we ate as a family every evening, I prepared dinner in less than an hour every night, and my son ate the same dinner as the rest of us every single night. That was really nice! We’ve already eaten all the leftovers.

My favorite was, of course, the dessert-like Sunday dinner. Monday’s chicken pot pie stew was okay, but the pastry shells were not nearly as good as the buttermilk biscuits are (I didn’t have any buttermilk this week). The sausage balls were not very good because I bought an inexpensive sausage. I learned my lesson: buy good sausage! The cheaper option was very gross. Also, I’ve decided that I really don’t like spaghetti. Maybe I just need to find a better recipe for tasty spaghetti.

Sunday

Waffles (with caramelized bananas and chocolate sauce)

Monday

Chicken pot pie stew with pastry shells

Tuesday

Mozzarella-stuffed sausage balls with tomato pesto sauce; baked vegetables; mashed potatoes

Wednesday

pork chops with parsley butter, herb potatoes, broccoli (from the freezer)

Thursday

Pasta and meat sauce (aka spaghetti)

Friday

[leftovers] (and chocolate chip cookies)

Saturday

macaroni and cheddar

Just a quick note to say that yes, Western Family’s recipe (circa 1999) still bakes the absolute best chocolate chip cookies in the world.

The dough is so tasty, they’re even good without many chocolate chips. But I’ve decided I like them best with a full bag of chocolate chips.

Blog Post BINGO “short” post. Details here.

I’ve been reading A Homemade Life, a memoir/cookbook by Molly of Orangette. It’s quite delightful reading, simply because it shows how good food has always has been an integral part of her life. Her life is and always has been one of food, cooking, and eating.

I feel jealous.

My life hasn’t revolved around food memories. In fact, I didn’t know until I was 25, for example, that cooked pork chops are not supposed to light gray and tough (apparently, pork chop are not usually steamed). My favorite childhood foods were cinnamon toast and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and I got through four years of college by eating sugar cookies and cold cereal. Dinner had always just been a necessary thing every night (that is, a way to fill my belly), but food itself had never been a central part of my life and memories.

For many years, rather than begin a fruitless search for something appetizing, I decided I’d rather not eat. Eating was a bother. I skipped dinner most of the time when I was in college.

Reading Molly’s memoir helps me to realize that I want my son’s life to be different than mine. I want him to experience food as a pleasure, not just a necessity. I want him to recall seasons of his life through the foods we eat. I want him to recall dinner with fondness, and not just dessert.

Food, especially dinner, is communal. I want the dinners we enjoy together as a family to be a means to forming life memories and lasting relationships.  Food really can tell the stories of our lives, as Molly’s memoir attests.

And that is why I strive to learn to cook better.

Why do you learn to cook?

Blog Post BINGO “personal” post. Details here.

Since I’ve taken up cooking, I’ve been told (or asked) occasionally that I like “gourmet food” and that I cook “gourmet food.” I’ve been stumped by this. I love to eat food that tastes good, but I didn’t think that that preference made me into a French food person. What is a gourmet? What is gourmet food?

Merriam-Webster defines gourmet as “a connoisseur of food and drink” and it defines connoisseur as

1: expert ; especially : one who understands the details, technique, or principles of an art and is competent to act as a critical judge

2: one who enjoys with discrimination and appreciation of subtleties

So I suppose by those definitions, I do meet the connoisseur definition on one hand: While I’m certainly not an expert in any way, I do like the subtleties of food, and I’m learning to discriminate among good, better, and best dishes.

I’ve been thinking over the past year about various levels of cooking, and what it means to be a “good” cook. A few questions I’ve pondered:

• Is one who cooks Rice-a-Roni and Chicken Tonight (or similar prepared and canned dishes) every evening a “good cook”? What if he or she really likes doing so, and finds the end result delicious?
• Is one who follows a recipe to the letter a “good cook”? What if they hate doing so, and dread their time in the kitchen?
• Is one who tries challenging recipes that never turn out a “good cook”? Is one a “good cook” only if their meals are always delicious?
• Is someone only a “good cook” if they create new meals, basing their creations on past experiences?

I certainly don’t know the answer as to what is a “good cook.” What strikes me, though, about cooking is attitude. I personally think being a good, better, and best cook is all about willingness to try, about learning how to think outside of a box (and I don’t just mean Rice-a-Roni).

That attitude goes back to the definition of “gourmet” and “connoisseur” as one who “enjoys discrimination.”

As I make a soup and add a little more salt, I get excited when I taste the flavor “pop out.” I’m not an expert. I’m not even a good cook in my own mind. But I do get excited about it. Cooking becomes a mystery waiting to be solved, and sometimes I’m lucky enough to figure it out. If not, at least my belly is full until tomorrow.

I wasn’t sure that Merriam-Webster’s was exactly what these people meant when they said “gourmet”, so I turned to Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a more detailed cultural definition of gourmet, and this worries me a little bit.

Gourmet is a cultural ideal associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by elaborate preparations and presentations of large meals of small, often quite rich courses.

The term and its associated practices are usually used positively to describe people of refined taste and passion. For some, it holds a negative connotation of elitism or snobbery.

So my next question is this: When someone tells me I am “gourmet,” should I consider that they think I’m a snob?

I don’t like elaborate cooking; anyone looking at my lists of past menus would have to agree I’m not very original or “rich” or “refined” in my cooking. I’m just a stay-at-home mom who wants to create healthful, inexpensive, and tasty meals for my family. What about that makes me “gourmet”? I’m stumped.

So the bottom line is that I don’t consider myself “gourmet” (especially considering the cultural definition from Wikipedia). As for whether or not I’m a good cook, I like to think that’s a dream I’m on my way to fulfilling. Give me a few more years.

What do you think makes one a “good cook”? What would you consider “gourmet”?

Blog Post BINGO “definition” post. Details here.

Since I’m hosting this challenge (posting through my reading blog), I thought I should also mention it on this site.

The Spice of Life Challenge is my attempt to bring my hobby of reading into line with this newer hobby (and necesssary way of life), that of cooking. It runs from July 1 until December 31, 2009.

I’ve joined the Challenge for a feast, meaning that I’m going to read 8 cookbooks, nonfiction books, memoirs, and fiction books relating to food. I’ll write my reviews on my reading blog, but I hope to write some posts here as well. I’ll also post my final list of links at the end of the challenge.

If you are intrigued, go check out the information page. You don’t need a reading blog or even a cooking blog to participate.

In other news, in the next three weeks, I’m going to play Blog Improvement Project BINGO on this site. This just means I’ll have a variety of posts instead of the normal fare. Since this blog is new, I’m still trying to find my feet and determine what direction I’d like to go. If you’re reading, let me know what you like to see here.

I’ve mentioned that we like to have casual meals on Sunday evenings. Well, this holiday weekend, we took that to the extreme.

We’d had ice cream sundaes the night before, after our holiday barbecue, so we took the ice cream and the toppings and put them on our pipping hot waffles: caramelized bananas and chocolate sauce.

It was seriously delicious.

One of the kids, a ten-year-old, said to her mother Friday evening, “This is so good! You should ge the recipe.”

So here it is. Easier than you can believe. I suppose you may not count these are recipes, since I don’t really include “how much.” The point is, it doesn’t matter.

Waffles with ice cream, caramelized bananas, and chocolate sauce: does that count as dinner? Hmm. Let me think about that with this next bite…

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