My two main obstacles to cooking have always been living alone, and a short attention span. Coming home from work or the gun store late at night, with only me to feed, it's too easy to just toss something in the microwave or oven or a piece of meat in a frying pan. I also had a paranoid fear of doing anything complicated that would allow me to get distracted and walk away from the process after a few baking disasters in my much younger days. You know, you get all caught up in the good part of The Two Towers and the time just gets away from you and... what's that smell?
As he's threatened to do for years, Gunsmith Bob got me to commit some cookery in the kitchen yesterday. He's been swearing it wouldn't be hard, and indeed it wasn't. It was an easy thing to turn out a nice meal of parsleyed potatoes, baked salmon, and asparagus sauteed in butter & garlic. I did not cut myself, set anything on fire, or get distracted and wander off, allowing everything to cook to charcoal briquettes.
Seeing as how the only two kitchen items of which I usually ever make much use are the microwave and the frying pan, I'm immensely proud of myself. Plus, anything that involved massive amounts of butter, pepper, and garlic was bound to taste swell. I can hardly wait to get home and show off for my roommate! "Look! I can has asparagus! We can eat it every night now! Isn't this awesome?"
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Same thing every night? Well, I start by eating the same thing every morning - I could get real boring. I am with you on the distracted by other things - started a kitchen fire that way.
and with asparagus comes...asparagus pee.
Yes, ditto to what Breda says- make sure you install an exhaust fan first.
Actually, it's pretty easy to make quick stuff for one (I'm teaching #1 son, as he's turning 16; 'nuff said).
For example:
On 12" square of parchment paper, put pile of veg (e.g. frozen green beans, zapped for 1 minute to defrost). Lay fish filet on top. Salt, pepper, couple dabs of butter. Squeeze lime.
Fold parchment paper into triangle, and roll over edges to crimp: roll over about 1", then extend to roll over the next inch, etc, until you've kind of walked all the way along the edges. You want to seal the fish into what's essentially a bag for steaming the fish, without stapling.
Microwave for 5 minutes. Or bake for 10-12.
If you want to get jiggy, you can toss some curry powder on before you bake, or a few red pepper flakes.
Eat with baguette you picked up on way home.
Works with chicken, too. Pork's OK. Not so much beef.
Oh, and asparagus would be good, too. Not sure with the curry, tho. You might need a more powerful exhaust fan ...
Stolen from "Good Eats" on TV, which #1 son and I like to watch together.
Indeed, if you want to learn how to make fast, fun meals watch 'Good Eats'.
Gmac
Evocation of old useless memories.
Early 1960s Tee-Wee commercial:
"Doncha know, I quit fryin'?! Now I use Shake 'n' Bake!"
"...and I helped!"
I can't believe you're that old.
And for those who may be interested but don't know, the asparagus pee odor is from the amino acid asparagine, of course.
Used to live on chicken or pork chops cooked with Batter 'n' Bake...haven't seen it for many years now...
Food Network has a nicely balanced array of cooking programs. Some people get off on the down-homey "bit o' this, bit o' that" soul-food approach. Paula Deen is good for that. Some are a little more artsy. The Barefoot Contessa or Nigella Lawson are great for that- their recipes are dynamite, too.
For the engineering/scientific mindset... Alton Brown, all the way. It doesn't hurt one little bit that the man knows how to make entertaining TV no matter what his subject. The potato episode with the Misery parody springs to mind.
For that mindset, Shirley Corriher's Cookwise can be a great investment- she's got the kitchen science covered without being nearly as dense as Harold McGee. Kickass recipes, too.
PS: try sauteing the stuff in sesame oil, with plenty of sesame seeds toasted in the oil first. Boy, howdy!
BTW, not everyone gets asparagus-pee. I don't.
Labrat, I love all those shows, however, you left one out. For great cleavage you should watch Everyday Italian with Giada DeLuarentis.
Brass
Store the asparagus pointing up, in the fridge, in water.
Fire and forget cooking.
You will need a crock pot or other slow cooker
A Large lump of beef roast, pork roast, or whole chicken,
a large onion diced.
a potato or two, quartered.
Maybe mushrooms if you like
A Couple cloves of garlic
2 cans of Rotel tomatoes and green chilies.
1-2 cups or so of bullion or broth to match the meat and enough to cover the meat.
In a fry pan before work sear the meat to brown it on a couple of sides. Put into crock pot with all other ingredients making sure there's plenty of liquid to cover it.
Here's the complicated part, ready?
Set the crock pot to "medium" and go away for at least 6-8 hours. Meats and veg should be fork tender by the time you get home from work. The odor greeting you at the front door will be heavenly.
you can also do an entire chicken in a crockpot. Clean out a bird, rub it with lots of your favorite spices and salt and pepper, fill it with apples, lemons, onion, whatever, add a 1/3 of a cup of liquid to the crockpot (I like orange juice because it's handy), plop in chicken. Cover, turn on low, leave it alone for at least 6 hours. The meat should fall off the bones. Good for dinner and sammiches the next day.
+1 on butter, pepper, and garlic.
We pretty much depend on slow cookery here, due to the fact that the GF is a self-employed graphic artist, who can get wound up in a gig for hours or days.
Me, cook? Well, there was that Saturday she was away, teaching the mysteries of Quark to someone who paid immediately(free-lancers will understand this) and I was going to make tea, but got involved with reading these new weblog things.
What's that? Smell of burning metal. ?
OHMYGODTHETEAKETTLESHESGONNAKILLME.
A quick trip to a good store and we had a nice Revereware kettle which she didn't like. Back we went and got one she did like, and my niece got the revereware kettle.
Brass: I don't watch Giada de Laurentis. Anybody with seventy-eight teeth scares me.
"You know, you get all caught up in the good part of The Two Towers and the time just gets away from you and... what's that smell?"
Heh, my wife's a good cook and that still happens to her...
Welcome to grown-up world, Tam! Better late than never. Now get a copy of EWYW&DLAM & start cloggin' them arteries!
I was going to just suggest getting a copy of Joy of Cooking 75th anniversary edition. If it's not in there it doesn't exist in North America.
also I should have said any of the meats cooked using the method I outlined should come apart with a fork, and therefore would make excellent shredded meat enchiladas, burritos or tacos. Just don't forget to drain off the liquid.
Oh, and when cooking the chicken, search the neck area and body cavity for the paper bag of giblets, you might not want them cooked in the bird, but they make a good addition to stuffing or dirty rice.
Hell, steak and steamed veggies only take about 5 minutes (10 if you're a weirdo - read on). First you fill a saucepan with 1 cup water, put in the steamer rack, toss on the veggies of your choice, cover and turn on the burner. Then take a nice juicy steak, put in on the toaster-oven rack with toaster-oven tray underneath to catch the drippings, season the steak on both sides to your liking and broil it in the toaster oven. Depending on the level of doneness you prefer (based on a 12 oz. 3/4" thick steak) broil for 2 minutes on each side for rare, 3-1/2 minutes each side for medium rare and 5 minutes each side for well-done (bleh). The steamed veggies should be done ~3 minutes after steam has been coming out from under the lid. When the steak is done, let it sit for another minute before feasting on a meal fit for a lone queen, served on a plate, of course.
Whole chicken (or small turkey) with an entire bag of green chile dumped in the cavity, in the crock pot on low for 12 hours. I like to put everything in a cheesecloth bag so I can get it all out of the pot, and have non-bony tailings to make gravy from.
Ugh.
I just realized I'm a food nerd when I not recognized Labrat's mention of the name "Harold Mcgee", but that I know it from an article on his first book when I was barely out of Highschool almost 20 years ago..
Dammit!
There's a good part of the Two Towers? Who knew.
In my mis-spent youth I encountered a butcher that would HAPPILY package his products in single serving freezer wrapped packages. Maybe because I would buy all the pinwheel steaks he cared to make up, about 3 to 4 per side of beef he cut up, and paid cash no receipt needed.
I'd put the bounty into the freezer and only toss what I figured I'd eat sometime soon into the 'fridge to thaw every so often.
You don't even need to wash the pan too often if you leave room in the 'fridge to store it in between cooking sessions.
Hey! we need to do an extra segment on toaster oven cooking.
For other single serving goodness you can get biscuits in the frozen section and bake only one or two at a time with honey on top. Yummie!
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