cooking @ home

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©2008 Harry Kenney

In the more than seven months since I put up my cooking blog, I’ve had a lot of time to think about exactly what are my personal “cooking philosophies”, my way of cooking, and more than that, my way of thinking in terms of all things food in general: buying food, cookware purchases, coming up with recipes and of course the actual techniques of cooking.

So in that time I’ve come up with my list, my do’s and don’ts for the home cook. I think all of the advice is practical. Having said that though, it doesn’t mean these are things that are necessarily obvious. That is, I think you’ll get some good tips here, maybe some helpful advice and even some brand new concepts that hadn’t occurred to you before; that’s definitely it’s intention.

And with that out of the way, my top ten list, starting with …

#10. If you won’t eat it or drink it, do not ever cook with it

Another close corollary to this is “Never use ingredients containing salt that should never have salt in them.”

Spices: use garlic powder and onion powder; never ever garlic salt or onion salt. Similarly never use cooking wine which not only contains salt but is also made from the dregs of wine and is totally undrinkable. If you can’t drink it, never cook with it. That means never ever use so-called “cooking wine”. In fact, if you have cooking wine and/or onion salt or garlic salt in your cubbard, put them in the trash right now. Your body will thank you, your taste buds will thank you. Try to avoid using “the spice packet that came with my tacos” kind of thing. Learn to make your own using your own spices so you know what you are using. Never use bullion cubes — unless you either want to kill people or are into drinking sea water; those horrid things should be outlawed as they’re nothing but massive doses of sodium. Use broth also known as stock. They now come in great plastic containers now, not just in cans. Or make your own.

#9. Use your head when purchasing cooking equipment

This is a giant pet peeve of mine: Never ever buy or cook in an electric wok. If I have to explain this one, you’re hopeless. Just go to your local diner from now on and turn your kitchen into a game room or something.

Another one, unless you are actually making melon balls or chocolate truffles or something that requires different sizes of “roundness”, then you don’t need a melon baller. The best way I’ve found to get seeds out of a cucumber is with a tablespoon. (You don’t need a melon baller for that!) My point is where you can save money, do it. Don’t buy every single utility or gadget that comes down the pike.

If you use it, or are definitely going to, very often, buy it then. Are you a health freak who every day with make a protein drink? Then buy a juicer, you will get the use out of it If you’re not, you will use it twice and in a couple years it will be in your yard sale. If you plan on making ravioli once or twice a month fresh you need a ravioli cutter. If you’re going to do it once a year, you can probably find a substitute. If you’re going to deep fry french fries or chicken or something once in a blue moon, use a stock pot and a candy/deep-fry thermometer. If you’re going to do it twice a month, invest in that small electric fryer and avoid the hassle. You get the idea.

#8. Avoid buying and using “imitation” anything

Especially never bacon bits. No one knows what’s inside them. If you’re that lazy, you don’t deserve bacon. Besides as with item ten, this probably has salt in it. That’s about the only thing you can guarantee is an recognizable ingredient inside this otherwise mysterious chemical product. Only possible — and I said possible — except to this rule might be flavoring extracts. Even then, taste both, the real and the imitation (no not at the store, buy one, next time buy the other) and see if you can live with the difference or not.

#7. Never pay more than $40 for a frying pan or a knife

… unless you’re a caterer or a professional chef, or you actually want to spend all your money on cooking and treat it as your luxury thing. For everyday cooks, you shouldn’t have to and better not pretend you’re a restaurant clearing several grand a week. You’re not (unless of course you are, but then why would you be here reading this?)

I saw on America’s Test Kitchen the other day when they were comparing saute pans. Last year’s winner cost $190. This year they found one for $70-something and they were happy to be recommending one that costs $110 less. Well I wasn’t. It’s a pan. Hello?! Let me talk with little words: Home cooks. Not master chefs. A pan. Get it? I can conceive of one possible exception, if they ever come out with a pan that cooks the meal, plates it, serves it, then washes itself, it might be worth going up to $60.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying use cheap, crappy things to cook in. But on the other hand don’t “buy into” the marketing that you need super expensive equipment either. Also, major tip: be a very patient shopper. I’ve waited and waited for those closeout specials and about a decade ago I ended up with a 10-piece brand-name anodized aluminum set of cookware that sold for years at $400 for just $99. Forgetting the four lids, and just including the pots and pans, that came to under $17 per item for professional-grade cookware.

#6. Just because the television cook did it or said it, doesn’t make it true

I actually wrote an article on this many months ago about this. It pointed out two big things. One, TV cooks will use metal on non-stick pans. Why? They have 200 more sitting on shelves behind the scenes the channel or network has purchased in bulk (or gotten for free for showing the name in the credits!). They are a television show with a big budget. If you do what they do, you too will be tossing out frying pans left and right. Problem is you don’t have their budget. Another biggie was when they put hot products, sometimes even hard things like nuts into a blender. They are not using the 10 or 20 year bar blender you have with the easily breakable plastic container and the low-power blades, they are using the new blenders that are practically food processors with new technology glass and plastic containers that don’t shatter. Listening to or watching them you could end up with serious injury.

More so, the other day I’m watching a very famous chef who forgot his feeder tube was in the food processor and poured six eggs into it. You could tell if you paid attention because it filled up and didn’t go in to the container. A microsecond later, he said the dough was now ready. In short, it’s television. They edited it out. It was embarrassing and if you didn’t have eagle eyes you missed it. If you end up following exactly what he did you’d end up with the same problem. TV mistakes are edited out constantly; alas that doesn’t happen in real life. So be careful. Very careful.

#5. Only do it if it’s worth the effort

If it’s worth the time to make something normal into something extraordinary, do it. If it takes a lot of time, and the level of taste remains the same or doesn’t go up that significantly, do the quick way. If you feel the several minutes you get using Bisquick over making it from scratch is worth the taste difference (that is if they seem essentially the same to you) take the quick way. I know a microwave baked potato taking 8-10 minutes is better than 40-55 minutes in the oven (though I sometimes miss the crunchy skin). If you’re not eating the skin, why take 8-12 times longer using the oven? And the reverse is true too. To me, you have to make waffles by scratch because of the folding in the egg whites to get that “heavenly cloud” texture, so it’s worth it to me. The time is longer but the difference in taste is great.

Only exception to this is the number-three rule of experimentation. There’s a lot of things you should do at least once in order to expand your cooking techniques and skill. For instance, personally I found all the effort to deep fry french fries (using the traditional method not with an electric fryer) was not worth the effort. The set up, cook time and clean up was insane when an oven roast would have made almost as good french fries with a lot less effort and time. I did gain experience from it though, so while I wouldn’t do it again I’m glad I did it once.

#4. When buying food, do the math first

You think you do this already, don’t you? Well you probably do not take it far enough as you should. Pay attention. We’re all subject to initial “sticker shock” at the supermarket. Wow that’s too much money. That’s out of my budget, I’m never buying that, you’re thinking to yourself. Whoa! Next time that comes to mind, stop, think hard, and do the math first. You’ll find a brand new world opening to you.

Ok, 31-40 fresh shrimp is $7 bucks a pound (in this instance). Too much. Extravagant. Pass it by … No! What are you going to do with it? Cook it and serve it fresh like a cocktail? You could. For a party it might be worth it. Chances are you are going to mix it with rice and other vegetables or you are going to put it in a pasta with other vegetables. In short, you’re going to do something we all are familiar with, you’re going to “stretch it”. When you’re done you will then end up getting between six to eight servings out of it all. Spaghetti’s a buck. Sauce is maybe $3 and you’re only using half a jar, so a buck fifty. You already bought the produce. Ok, so in the end, at (let’s go with the lower six servings), you’re going to make a meal to feed six at under two bucks a head. Expensive? Hell no! In other words, buy the shrimp. It’s not as expensive you first thought it would be.

Here’s one that happened to me recently when I was buying mushrooms for my mushroom soup recipe. I wanted shitake. Holy moly it was $10 a pound. Yowsah. But then I stopped. I walk closer to the bin where they are all loose, unwrapped, unpackaged. I pick a handful up. Wow these were very very light compared to the button mushroom cousins. So I grabbed a plastic bag and started tossing in big handfuls. I filled up the bag, put it on the scale. 4 ounces. LOL. All of that and it was $2.50. See what I mean? One more quick example. Veal. Super lean cut. Very little or no fat. You’ll often get away with serving 3 or 4 ounces of veal as a serving when compared to 8 oz of steak or fat. That is, the waste factor is a lot less, you get more out of a similar weight. Suddenly more expensive veal is seen as being easily on par with beef or pork.

So the lesson is you just can’t go by the price alone, you have to think about it, and almost always you will find that yes, you can buy that. And still remain within or very close to your budget. All with expanding the quality and variety of food you eat.

#3. Experiment! Experiment! Experiment!

Try new vegetables, new proteins like various fish. Get a new hunk of cheese every time you go to market and see if you like it. Try new techniques, maybe deep-frying or slow cooking tougher but cheaper cuts of meat. Always eat meat, try a fresh not frozen fish. That’s right you, the one who’s intimidated by standing the fresh seafood area in the market. Next time, buy a different fish and try it Does the fish intimidate you? Don’t know how to cook it? You’re on the web. If you don’t find the answer here (and hey, I haven’t cooked every fish possible, yet) you’ll find many places that will tell you what to do with it. You can even do your homework prior to going to the store and look up the information ahead of time.

Keep passing by that odd shaped melon? Take it home, look up a recipe. Ditto with that strange green bunch of stuff next to the lettuce. Buy a different kind of rice besides “white” when you’re in the rice aisle. Try a Classico or other spaghetti sauce that is not Ragu (yuck) or Prego. Maybe a vodka sauce for your pasta next time, or a four-cheese red sauce blend. Just get out of your rut!

#2 Remember, recipes are merely guidelines

Yes, exactly like the Pirates of the Caribbean and the pirate’s code. Recipes are not written in stone. (Ok, baking recipes are much more written in stone because baking is more science than art. Other cooking is comparatively pure art.)

In fact you’ll often see with my recipes that I list spices and herbs and say “to taste”. Why? Because everyone’s taste buds are a at least a tad different. More so, there are many variables in cooking, because we’re dealing with nature, that can’t be standardized. Your frying pan my be made out of a different alloy, your stove burners might go higher, your conception of “medium heat” might be someone else’s “low heat”. Your oven works differently. Your chicken breasts from your market might be 20% more or less than the one the recipe’s cook used. And there are literally thousands of other variables.

And the number one rule …

#1. If you like it, do it!

In the end, does it work for you? (And those you’re cooking for?) If you like your red wine chilled, do it. On the contrary if you like it at 80 degrees, well, whatever floats your boat. Do you think despite what the recipe said that it needs to be sweeter? Do it. Think the recipe is too hot? Use less or maybe none. (Yes this also goes back to the item about “guidelines”.) Point it, it’s not necessarily wrong just because someone says it is. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard cooks bark on that a tomato should never be served cold. So one day, I tried a tomato cold from the fridge and a room temperature one. I didn’t like the room temperature one. Now, maybe it’s my taste buds. Maybe it’s solely because I have gotten used to having it cold. Bottom line though is the same I like them cold.

Now, there is a slight “back track” here. And that refers to the item about experimenting. Try it. Like I did with the tomato test. Why? They might be right. You might like your tomato at room temperature. It’s like the Dr. Seuss story of “Green Eggs and Ham”. If you’ve never tried green eggs don’t say you hate the taste. Try it. Then make your mind up. Now once your mind is made up, once you’ve tried that odd looking squash, that fruit at room temperature, etc … then tell “them” to stick it with their annoying advice. Go into that restaurant, order the red wine and tell them to put it in an ice bucket for 15 minutes prior to serving it. And don’t relent; the customer is always right. But … at least give things a try first. At least once. Then you’ll know.

©2008 Harry Kenney

You should know how this goes by now if you’re a long-time reader. If you’ve just stumbled upon this site then welcome! And here’s the dirty low-down: This is where you the surfer asked questions without actually asking me. You — or, I should say, “they” — placed search terms in the various engines and found themselves at my site. And through my server logs I found what they were searching for.

While most found the answers they were looking for, some did not, and it is to those I do my best to answer their “spoken yet unspoken” question. Besides being, I hope, somewhat helpful, there’s also a bit of “comedy”, namely in the weird searches people will do as well. So first the helpful hints stuff and then — for dessert, so to speak — at bottom are the weird and funny searches (and a snappy rejoinder or two). Enjoy.

“can I do a twice baked potato the night before the party?” – Good question and the answer is a good party planner tip. Be sure and check out my recipe on Ultimate Twice Baked Potatoes, btw. I would bake the potatoes the day before. Do the scooping out and mixing of ingredients and then put them in the refrigerator covered in plastic or gently piled into a large container. Then the day of the party, they’re ready and all you all have to do is the second bake. And they’ll taste very fresh. In short, yes, with twice baked potatoes you can do the initial bake the night before and the second bake the day of. I would not bake them three times, that is I would not do both bakes the night before and then a heat up the day of the party, it will not taste as fresh and would probably taste a tad soggy.

“true Italian hoagie ingredients” – Quick tangant first. Wikipedia seems to be going down the drain more and more. Just for fun (though lately disgust) I check them out when doing research. Now, I’m from Philly. I know what’s in a real Italian hoagie. I have no reason to “research” it. But, as with the Philadelphia Cheesesteak, I sometimes get curious as to what “crapola” people come up with. Anyway the ingredients list at Wikipedia includes proscuitto. Are you kidding me? At $5 per 4 ounces, hoagies would run for 12 bucks instead of $5 or 6 with that ingredient added alone. Never seen an Italian hoagie with that on, and in Philly, unless it’s some kind of upscale-gourmet version I never will.

Ok, enough of the “bologna” — pun intended. You came to the right place, here, for your answer. A true Philadelphia Italian hoagie (and there is no other authentic kind that a Philadelphia kind) is made with cooked capicola, genoa salami, cooked salami, ham and provolone. Some folks omit the ham, most have it on it. The good ones also include mortadella. Hoagies in general either come with mayonnaise or oil (with a touch of vinegar) and sometimes both, but with an Italian hoagie you get it with the oil, never with mayo. Sweet and hot peppers are optional, but most folks will pick one or the other or both. Natch the other ingredients of a hoagie are assumed: a fresh, firm Italian roll, little shreded lettuce, little raw onion and slices of tomato, maybe pickles, all seasoned with salt, pepper and dried oregano.

“can you use wine that has been chilled room temperature and back to being chilled again?” – I’m always getting questions about red wine every since my article on Chilled Red Wine? The Proof Is in the Lager. Ok, ever hear of “musky beer”? My nephew Billy knows this one. When you get a case of beer that’s unrefrigerated, but it in the icebox, take it out (for whatever reason), let it get warm, put it back in and later open it, you get musky beer. The cold, warm, cold has changed it’s composition enough that it gives it a funny taste. Now, if that’s beer, imagine what it will do to something as comparatively complex tasting as wine.

In short, try it. This goes back to my axiom of do what works for you, but generally my advice is, if it’s gotten to room temperature, drink it. If you have to put it back, again try it. Maybe it will not taste good, maybe you won’t taste the difference. Maybe if you put it in something else as an ingredient … in terms of drinks, maybe add it to a sangria, or maybe put it in your beef stew. I would not automatically throw it out, no, never. So try it, and it might be fine, second, if it seems a tad off, try mixing it with something else, using it as an ingredient, and if all else fails and it really tastes off to you, toss it.

Obviously the best thing to do in the future is to place it back in the refrigerator before it gets to room temperature or to add more ice to your ice bucket. I know, doesn’t help for now, but keep it mind for the next time.

“what makes a great cooking show?” – If I knew that, I’d either be the Next Food Network Star or better yet running the joint. Seriously, since you asked, a cook or chef that can connect with the audience, who has an interesting take on making things their own, who has a variety of experience, who has enough knowledge to give tips and talk about the food.

I do have one thing to say about food travel combo shows — most of which I can’t stand, and a few with I love. You had better do a minimum of five recipes per half hour, or you are not a food show travelling, you’re on a vacation and having a tax write-off and you’re annoying me. I don’t need to know everything about a culture or see the waves for ten minutes on a food travel show; you see, that’s what a pure travel show will give me. If you’re doing food, I want to see food and lots of it, not yacking, being introduced to your “new cultural friend Juan” to give you a tour of the mountains or the museums. I want to see and get the recipes for the food already! If you can’t do that, go on your trip or your vacation and leave the production crew at home.

“ground beef stew too dry” – That’s a pretty easy one actually. First, go with the fatty mixture. Whether it’s stew or hamburgers, I always go with the 80% ground beef to 20% fat. I know, the leaner you go the more expensive it is, so consumers think that’s better. What it is is leaner. Better depends upon what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re trying to get more fat out of your diet, I say forget ground beef altogether, going for a 90-10 mix is only depriving yourself of flavor and making your eating more bland. And it’s not cutting out much fat in your diet at the same time.

I recall the episode of Chef’s Story where they were featuring Cat Cora when she talks about one of her culinary school instructors who used to say the following to his class all the time, almost as a mantra: “Fat is taste. Fat is taste. Fat is taste” In the case of the ground beef stew it’s also the moisture. So first is the blend. Second, don’t over do it in the frying pan. Some folks totally skip a frying pan for ground beef stew and purely stew the beef. That would definitely give you moistness and tenderness. But in my opinion you’re loosing some flavor. Brown your meat in the frying pan with garlic and sauteed onions but brown it lightly. Remember this is not a slab of steak, this is not cubed beef. The surface area on each “crumble” of individual meat is the size of a pea or smaller. If you brown that hard and long and dark, of course there’s not going to be much moisture left inside of each clump of meat. So, right mixture, plenty of fat, a light browning not heavy, and you’re hamburger stew will be moist every time.

“adjusting cooking time stuffed chicken breasts” – gotten this a few times. I hate going by time. How do I know how big the breasts are? If you are really referring to half-breasts? Are the boneless? Are they boned? How thick the bones if they are? How deep and long did you cut the pocket? Is the stuffing actually denser or lighter than the chicken meat? etc etc … This is why time is not the answer and nothing I can answer. So go with the universal constant. Internal temperature. And how do we get that? With an internal probe or thermometer. In which case what you have to be careful with is you are not going to put the rod into the center the way you normally do. If you do this you will be taking the temp of the stuffing, but the chicken around it could still be too raw. Simply don’t insert the probe or rod too deeply, and instead check just outside of the stuffing area. Another way is to do what I just said plus two other places: check also in the stuffing, and at an end point away from the stuffing. By getting these range of temperatures you should be able to figure out if the area of chicken that has the greatest thickness without stuffing is done and if the area around the stuffing is done.

If you need a temperature reminder, we’re talking 165°F as the minimum level to eat chicken safely. Try not to exceed 175°F. At 180°F and over you have a very dried bird.

Strange But True Searches

“open face stomboli recipes” – An open-faced stromboli? Um, we have a special name for that. You may never have heard of it before. Write this down. It’s called a “pizza”.

“how to make beef brisket burnt ends?” – Burn them.

“microwave, turnip, aluminum foil” – Sheesh! I really do hope that search doesn’t mean what I think it does, otherwise the answer is “aluminum foil, microwave, big boom”.

“candy oven parts” – I’ll let you make up your own response to this. Really. Feel free to put them in the comments below.

“man vs wild recipe” – The only “recipe” I know Bear Grylls has is: Catch it while it’s moving. Rip it’s head off. Chow down. … Yuck!

“drunk on orange extract” – Seriously, whoever you are, your frat party privileges are now permanently revoked!

©2008 Harry Kenney

I first did an article like this back in September. This is about certain foods or items or techniques that keep cropping up — on menus, food challenge shows, recipes shows and cook books — that despite hearing of them over and over you really might not know a whole lot about.

Again, your knowledge and experience may vary and you may know quite a few of these. Seriously, bravo! For the rest of us curious about just what these are, here’s ten of those often-heard, not fully understood foods and food items.

ceviche – is a South American appetizer, often considered to have first originated in Peru, whereby fresh raw fish (or other seafood) is marinated in citrus juice (usually lime juice, sometimes lemon and lime juice) which chemically cooks it to a certain degree, and the dish also contains tomatoes, chill peppers and onions. There are variations of this in nearly each South American country, as well as a starting point for chefs to make their own combinations. Because of the non-heat, chemical reaction one gets a meal that is less than conventionally cooked yet with a taste that is “more cooked’ than say a sashimi or tartar.

compote – a fruit mixture (can be fresh, dried, frozen, a combination) that has been slowly cooked (the “slow” is important to retain the fruit’s shape) in a sugar syrup, usually containing spices and/or liquor or liqueurs, served either as desert or along side meat or poultry.

confit – It seems this is one of those terms you hear ten times a season (guaranteed) on Top Chef and once in a while on Iron Chef America. I most often hear this as being a “duck confit”. It also seems to be one of those many cooking terms whose definition is changing. Historically it’s a method from Gascony, France whereby meat, most notably poultry, is salted and cooked in it’s own fat as a method of “ancient” preserving. Now you see it as the served dish. More so, one of the more modern definitions is it can also mean fruit or vegetables cooked and preserved in brandy or other liquor. Still very new, chefs are using this word instead of another word, “confiture” which means a jam or preserve that is often savory or “savory-sweet”.

tiramisu – While it is often called the Italian trifle, the texture is much ligther. Translated the word means “carry me up”, with the unspoken ending of the sentence supposedly “to heaven” as in this is a heavenly dessert. It is composed of sponge cake or ladyfingers dipped into a coffee-and-marsala mixture. Then it’s layered up with mascarpone and grated chocolate and refrigerated for several hours before serving.

Now here are three foods that sound so much alike they can sometimes be confused with each other:

cannellini – white beans or white Italian kidney beans, often called a Tuscan bean, prevelant in soups and salads

cannelloni – Literally tranlated as “big tubes” it is the large pasta cylinders that are that are stuffed with a meat or savory cheese filling and then baked with a sauce.

cannoli – Meaing “little tube”, these desserts where in sweet pasty shells are formed into tubes and deep-fried, then filled with a sweet filling, using consisting wholely or partially of whipped ricotta, plus other flavors such as nuts or chocolate.

And since it seems we’ve already touched upon a few sweet desserts, let’s end with that theme, talking about three “genteel” custard desserts that a lot of us keep hearing about and some of us can’t get enough of and which seem in many ways to be similiar

crème caramel – Some places call a flan a crème caramel and see no difference in the two; Wikipedia is among those. NewItalianRecipes.com however makes a distinction saying “a flan is a liquid or semi liquid mixture, held together with whole eggs, egg whites, or egg yolks, that is gently baked in a mold or pastry shell. Quiches, crème caramel, and crème brulee are examples of sweet flans.” Another definition of crème caramel is a rich custard dessert with a layer of soft caramel on top. Which then brings up the difference between this and ….

crème brûlée – defined as custard with a hard caramel top. And as a “rich custard base topped with a layer of hard caramel, created by burning sugar under a grill, or other intense heat source”. In short, yes, this is the dessert you see on television when the chef brings out the blowtorch! And neither of these should be confused with ….

panna cotta – Italian for “cooked cream” panna cotta is a light, silky egg custard, which is often flavored with caramel. It’s served cold, accompanied typically with fruit or chocolate sauce.

©2008 Harry Kenney

It’s definitely not my intent to in any way hide things. Very much the opposite. It’s that sometimes something comes to me and I say, I will make an article out of this. (For my articles just click the category link or the one I just provided for a list of those.) At other times, most times in fact, the topic comes out of doing the specific recipe.

Let me give you a for instance, talking about cooking oils is a big topic in and of itself, so I wrote an article on that. How to get the crispiest skin on poultry while using an oven, that topic however becomes a part of my writing the a recipe on BBQing Chicken Legs in the Oven. It’s not that I am trying to purposely “hide” how to make crispy skin in that recipe, it just went together naturally. And so that’s where the information came out, there where it was the most pertinent.

This does however mean they can be a smidge hidden, a bit “below the obvious surface” even if unintential. Despite the fact that this website has a great search feature on it in and of itself that can find things. Or that Google and the other “true” monster engines do a good job of indexing items on this site. But it dawned on me, maybe it would be helpful to put together a post like this every so often and list some of the “hiddren treasures”, histories or tutorials that lay somewhat obscured in the back story or forewads to my recipes. And as I just hit 51 recipes the other day, now seems as good a time to do this.

Oven BBQing & Crsipy Skin

Besides scoring skin, when trying to emulate a BBQ style in the oven, avoid a deep casserole dish, instead you want it completlly “out there” getting heat hitting all around it. Do this by putting it on a baking sheet with a grill on it. See the photo of this (and of scoring skin) at my recipe for Roasted Orange-BBQ Chicken Leg Quarters

Fruit Sauces

Working with fruit sauces especially those with made from or with jelly or preserves. If you wait too long it will thicken back to a gelatin state. What to use with jelly and what to do when it thickens back up can be found at Ricotta Pancakes with Raspberry Sauce

Giving Tortillas More Authentic Flavor

Ever scorch a totilla on the burner? On purpsose? Give it a try while making my Steak Quesadilla.

Making a Stuffing Pocket

Making a pocket in a piece of meat or poultry is pretty simple. Unless you haven’t done it before. When making Harry’s Stuffed Chicken Florentine I touched upon this complete with a photograph. I also demonstrate how to take a stuffing and turn it into a creamy light sauce as well.

Health Benefits of Fish

Not only do I list a lot of them, I also supply a link to more good info at my recipe for Grilled Rainbow Trout with Dill and Lemon.

Tips on Using Pizza Dough at Home

You can find those tips when I made Pepperoni Pizza & Ham and Pineapple Pizza.

Dry Rubs and BBQ Sauces

One thing that goes with talking about grilling and barbecuing, and that’s dry rubs and BBQ sauces. I don’t use bottled any more. In fact I never did like them. The problem is you never know what you’re going to get. I have same problem when I’m ordering out at a restaurant or a food stand … Is it going to be a BBQ sauce I like or something that’s too sweet or so tomatoey it burns my throat or so vinergary I have to pucker. At home I gave up on that junk long ago and make my own. And of course I’m usually mixing it up so it’s never exactly the same every time. Fortunately this website’s blog system uses a tag system which is another way to make additional categories and makes it a lot easier to group and to find things, so click on these if you want to get a list of my recipes of different dry rubs and different barbecue sauces I’ve done so far.

Kids Food

There’s a lot of good food on here children will enjoy. But I defnitely let my inner child run loose when I made both a Cheeseburger Pizza and a Peach Ricotta Dessert Pizza. Others that stand out in my mind are Pizza Burger Mac and Steak Quesadilla. And naturarlly, kids love deserts. Apple Turnovers with Royal Icing using puff pastry is a nice healhy homemade desert, and if you really want to light up their eyes, make yourself a trifle like Lemon Berry one my where you get to slip in fresh healthy fruit amid pudding and cake and the layers and colors will just knock them out!

Drumsticks on the Grill

With little meat on them, most of it on the outside where the fire is, and filled with bone, drumsticks aren’t the eaisest things to cook on a charcoal grill. See how to do it at Apricot-Glazed Grilled Chicken Drumsticks.

London Broil into Flank Steak

Gotta recipe for flank steak? But you can’t find it at the market or you don’t have any at home? Slice down your London broil (which is actually a type of cooking, not a peice of meat, but your supermarket doesn’t know that) and there you go. Now you can make my recipe for Braciole.

What is Gourmet?

It was when I made my Butternut Squash Soup with Chorizo and Rice that I ended up waxing on about what it gourmet and what isn’t, and how the American taste bud has evolved tremendously in the last couple of decades with people’s willingness to try new flavors and pairings

Best Meatloaf Crust Ever

Seriously, I found a major winner with my Tomato-Balsamic Glaze atop my homemade meatloaf. It’s got the tomato, it’s got just enough and not-too-much sweetness and it has a crunch. I don’t care if it’s a sweet concotion or a savory dish, from lava cake to fried chicken, one thing many dishes have in common is there’s nothing better then when you combine an inner softness with just a bit of outer crunch to it. And this has it

Squashes

Butternut Squash is a tough one to cut open as you know with my first-ever photo tutorial Peeling and Cutting a Butternut Squash I also go in there the difference between winter and summer squashes by the way. But if you have an acorn squash, it’s such a very different thing. Especially with my microwave and broiler technique. We’re talking fast and delicious so give my Broiled Ginger-Apricot Acorn Squash a try.

Turnip, Rutabaga, Swede …

What are those things? Sometimes they’re the same thing. Sometimes they’re not. It’s another fun trip through the English language shared by the US, Canada, Australia and the UK where one language doesn’t mean you know what you’re saying. There’s even a chart here at my White Turnip Mash recipe to help cut through the translations.

Dressing or Stuffing?

What’s the difference? I talk about it in my Cranberry-Chorizo Dressing post.

Brining

What is this whole brining thing about? I finally got a chance and tried it out for myself when I made my Barbecued Turkey Breast with Orange-Herb-Wine Sauce for Thanksgiving last year. In short, the brining technique turned out fantastic, especially for this! Would I use it again elsewhere? Not sure, but doubtful. Yes I became a somewhat of a convert that brining is a wonderful and effective technique for sure. But I think it’s something limited to few times. Grilling a turkey being one of them.

Marinades

I am all for the quick marinade. I really like these two guys, but … every time I watch License to Grill or Emeril Live and they talk about “or you could marinade it for 24 hours” makes me laugh my head off. This and my other thoughts on marinades can be found in my recipe for Pancetta-Wrapped Margarita Shrimp.

Alcohol Burnoff When Cooking?

You would be surprised. Very very surprised. It was when I was making another one of my essentially children’s desserts but with a deciedely adult dessert flair that I looked up and shared with you the full details on when and how much does cooking burn off liquor in a dish. The results were extremely surprising. Take a look at my Hot Apple Topping over Ice Cream recipe for all the info.

Deep-Frying

Although I still am planning to do an article specifically on the subject, meanwhile I do get into some details about the technique of deep frying with cooking oil when I made my Homemade French Fries as well as talking about different kinds of fries, fry toppings, what’s a frite, what’s a British chip and all that other trivia associated with the cooked potato.

Prime or Choice or Select

There was no way possible I could talk about cooking Prime Rib with getting into the whole process of meat grading and selection here in the States. So for a quick lesson on cuts of meat and USDA standards, check out that recipe for some good info that will definitely help you the next time you’re shopping at the butcher or your supermarket’s meat section.

Well, that’s pretty much it. For now. I’m sure in another fifty recipes I’ll be hitting some more cooking points as they come to me. Hope this list helps you find some helpful info you might otherwise have glossed over. Thanks for reading my yakking points. Maybe I yack too much I sometimes think, but just giving a recipe and nothing else to go with it seems so lazy and average, and just not me. I think that’s the same reason we enjoy the cooking shows, we’re not just entertained, we’re educated along with it. Having a sense of history I think rounds out a meal. And learning various techniques along the way only makes us better cooks. See you next time.

©2007 Harry Kenney

Welcome to the second installment of a continuing series. If you missed the first one, you can find it here: Answers to Your Questions Not Asked. This is where you the surfer asked questions without actually asking me. You — or, I should say, “they” — placed search terms in the various engines and found themselves at my site. And through my server logs I found what they were searching for.

Most found the answers here they were looking for. That’s what search engines supposedly do well. However some of these searches, these questions, were not found on my site, but Google and the others sent them here anyways. It’s to those searches that as a community service, knowing there are folks looking for these answers, that I now direct myself to. And, as before, some searches are truely bizarre, and out there, and for fun, I will at the end of this article have some wise (or is it wise-guy?) answers for those sincerely confused folks.

Food, Wine, Recipes, Chefs

“how to get crispy skin on barbeque oven chicken” – I refer you to my very first recipe on this site: Roasted Orange-BBQ Chicken Leg Quarters where I deal with this, including a photograph on scoring chicken. To answer it simply though. Crispy skin comes from scoring the fat, salting it within a rub, making certain you don’t accidentally (or purposely) baste it in any way while it’s cooking, and high heat, either at the end or at the start.

“iron chef ramsey” – Gordon Ramsey is one of the primo chefs in the world, but he is not an Iron Chef. There is Iron Chef America and a decade ago there was the original Iron Chef in Japan. As there is no Iron Chef UK or Iron Chef Britain television show, Gordon Ramsey is not an iron chef.

“eggplant lasagna without noodles” – I’ve seen this search phrase as least twice. If it has no noodles in it then it can no longer be called a lasagna, it is then called Eggplant Parmagen.

“how to reheat meat and cheese stromboli?” – In an oven or in a microwave. Ovens are always the best to reheat something breaded, pizza included. Use 300 degrees Farenheit and place on a cooking sheet or baking sheet on the top shelf. Usually taks about 10 minutes for a few slices of pizza. Closer to 14-16 for stromboli, but every oven is different so check before these times given to be certain.

If using a microwave, see my article on Keeping Food Fresh – Wrapping with Common Sense espcially the section called “What Microwaving Taught Me”. In short, wrap in a paper towel for microwaving anything breaded. For stromboli, anywhere from 50 t0 90 seconds, depending on size of slice, how packed it is and if it’s a low- or high-powered (wattage) microwave.

“godiva chocolate liquor shelf life?” – This question keeps coming up over and over, oddly. I’ve seen it asked at least once a week! Are there folks are there who have or who plan to just never open this bottle for decades? Don’t get it.

Anyways, I stumbled across something talking about Bailey’s Irish Cream which was mentioning how it should be used up within 24 months as it had no preservatives “unlike Godiva”. So, if something without preservatives can last two years. And Godiva has preservatives, then I’m guessing yes you can bury it along with the Pharoah for his drinking in the after life.

A better answer would be, just drink the stuff already! Or find some good recipes to use it in. Or both. As I’ve said prevously, I like Godiva chocloate licquor in my chocolate chip pancakes. Seriously.

“do you drink red wine with lasagna?” – You can drink red wine with anything you want. Same with white wine. Same with a blush. In all seriousness red wine does go well with lasagna, even vegetable lasagna. You see, besides my mantra of do whatever you want, wine drinkers are starting to realize that besides red with meat, white with fish, that there are other ingredients that are, like meat and fish, heavy and light.

Lasagna with it’s rich zesty tomato sauce and heavy layers (even without meat) seems to ask for a heavier wine to go with it, in this case the general classification of red. So yes, go with it. I’d pick a merlot myself. And yes I think a nice dry, medium white like pino grigio would go well with it too.

And if you want to contrast instead of complliment (you can you know) go with a white zinfandel which despite the name is actually a blush and very sweet; you might find the sweet crispness counterbalances against the tomato acidity well.

This next one should almost go to the strange section. Why? It seems like a normal question. Well, it is for someone who watches too many television commercials or eats at malls primarily. I save it here at the end of the serious questions so I can rant a bit though.

“stuffed chicken florentine recipe with tomatoes” – You are obviously watching waaay too many Olive Garden commericals. Florentine does not have tomatoes in it. And don’t get me or any other cook and most certainly not any chef on the topic of “Olive Garden”, aka the degarlicizing and homogenizing of any robust or true ingredients to fit into some body’s idea of a warped 21st century version of Ozzie and Harriet’s limited and bland pallete for the American masses. The same kind of pallete that eats a nacho and the person thinks they have truely experienced real Mexican food.

I recall watching one of Ming Tsai’s programs, probably it was “Simply Ming”. And he had another chef on and they got discussing their early days and how both of them when they were younger chefs heard about this new chain of restaurants called Olive Garden and how they were both impressed … until they heard about how one of the rules was to use very little or no garlic in any of the Italian dishes. I recall Ming saying to his friend, who agreed, “Whew, we dodged that bullet, didn’t we.” Think that sums it up nicely.

Oh and if you want a real recipe on the subject, sans tomato bits, go here: Chicken Florentine

Strange But True Searches

“do buttermilk and milk have the same volume?” – No, buttermilk tends to like the dulcet sounds of Yanni and John Tesh, where as whole milk is a lot rowdier and listens to Finger Eleven and so it’s much louder.

Why this one came here, no idea … unless it got confused with my series on Cooking Math, still …

“is 2 equal to 1?” – Only on Tuesdays in which case you now have a Royal Fizbin … Or at least that what Kirk tells me. Spock however says this is a non sequitur.

“where do apple turn overs come from?” – Ok, if a Mommy Apple Turnover and a Daddy Apple Turnover really love each other, they put on some Barry White music, and ….

I swear these two below came two months apart. Same person? I hope not.

“london broil deep fried cook time?” – If you’re actually capable of deep-frying London broil could you teach me how to saute some boiled water?

“london broil comes from what part of the turkey?” – The British side of the turkey; usually on it’s mother’s side.

If you’re relatively new to cooking — or not so good at it — you definitely must read this. And even if you’re an experienced pro, you too will no doubt find a few bits of information here that will surprise you. One thing for sure, when it comes to talking about cooking oils there is a surprising amount to say.

Don’t think so? At first glance it seems pretty short and cut and dry. There’s margarine and butter. And then there’s the oil you put in your frying pan, usually called vegetable oil. The end. Right?

Were that only the case. Ok, think about just this one element: What about olive oils? Oh, right, butter, margarine, vegetable oil and for some “Italian” flavoring olive oil. The end. …. No?

What about the oil dressing on your salad? What about flavored oils for, say, Asian food? What kind of oil burns at low temperatures? What oil is good for deep frying, say, french fries? And what about the dozen or so different cooking oils? How do they differ? What do they taste like? Why are there something like four kinds of olive oil and which is best for what? What’s the difference between refined and unrefined oils? Why does the saying “hot pan, cold oil, food won’t stick” work? When doesn’t it seem work? What about the health issues regarding saturated fats? Unsaturated fats? What is trans fat? Which oils have which? Is margarine or spreads actually worse than oils? Can some oils or fat lower your chance for heart disease? What do I need to know about oils and “smoke point”? What about flash and fire points? …

Have you said “uncle” yet? Ok, so we agree then; there is a lot to know about oil after all. Think about this too. Without cooking oil, there’s no oil, no butter, nothing but animal fat and raw meat. Everything would stick to everything and we would eating foods, meat, veggies, anything either raw, on a stick over a fire or boiled. There would be no cakes, no pies and only flat bread. After all, what would them together? Ok, you get the idea. Oil is a not an enemy, it’s a necessary thing we use each day and is found in most if not all of our foods each day. That said, let’s jump right in and learn more about cooking oils.

Health, Oils and Cooking Fats

It’s impossible to talk about cooking oils without talking first about fats. That said, the entire “fat thing” is very important to health, and therefore, it could be it’s own article or series of articles right there. Because it’s important, we’ll touch on it. But for in-depth reading on this subject there are other places that have gone into great detail and research. For now, the highlights or the “Cliff Notes” you need to know start with: There are four kinds of fats, saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and trans fat.

In short, what we know today is all the stuff they used to tell us about fats … toss that out the window. Most of it was not true or not fully understood. Proof of that an eight-year study where eating a low-fat diet did not prevent heart disease, breast cancer nor colon cancer. It didn’t even do much for weight loss. It turns out some fats increase chance of diseases and some fats actually lower the risk of disease and the key is to substitute good fats for bad fats.

Remember these basics: LDL is often referred to as the “bad” cholesterol. HDL is often called the “good” cholesterol. Saturated fats and trans fats are bad. Trans fat raises LDL. Saturated fats are worse, raising both the LDL and the HDL. Unsaturated fats, both polyunsatureated and monounsaturated are good fats. These lower LDL and raise HDL. The direction(s) you want to go.

Under “good” then comes the following oils: olive, canola, peanut, corn, soybean, and safflower among others. Under bad comes most margarines, vegetable shortening, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and even butter. Also, with one odd exception, cooking oils do not contain trans fat, where as shortening and stick margarine made of 70% soybean oil have the highest trans fat. (For some of you, this probably turns your world upside).

More info you may not have been aware of: butter has the highest saturated fats of anything out there with the exception of coconut oil; and palm oil comes in a close third. Meanwhile cooking oils and various other combination margarine-type spreads all come as having the lowest amounts of saturated fats. (Remember though some of these spreads still do contain trans-fat where as the oils do not.)

Certainly shows cooking oils are overall the best way to go. For this article, we’ve explored fats enough now and will go on to other areas. But if you’re interested in more details and charts they can be found at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Note, obviously, all oil is 100% fat. Despite the various differences in oils, one thing is a constant. All cooking oils contain 120 calories per tablespoon. Also, fatty acids are required for good health in some measure. If we had zero fat in our diet, we would not be able to metabolize fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K in our bodies. In cold climates, greater amounts of dietary fat is required for greater survival.

Refined and Unrefined Oils

In researching parts of this topic I found some places will go into long explanations of the differences between refined and unrefined oils, detailing what types of heat or cold-presses or whatever went into these. Does the average cook need to know three pages on this? No. So, simply, this is all that matters:

Unrefined oils have a low smoke point, below 320°F. Anything that low you can’t use for deep-frying and you also have to be careful you don’t make your frying pan too hot. These are used for light sautes, low-heat baking, salad dressings and sauces primarily. They tend to be made to impart flavor, such as dark sesame oil which is used heavily in Chinese, Indian and other Asian cooking.

The refined cooking oils are the all-around ones we think about most when it comes to cooking: olive oil, canola oil (rapeseed oil), peanut oil, vegetable oil and the rest. Good for low to (depending) deep-frying and which usually impart no, little or slight added tastes to a dish.

Oil Flavors, Cooking Uses, Smoke Points

One thing we’ll leave out of this article — or rather, just touch upon — is the technique of deep-frying for two reasons: It really is a “specialty” in many ways and there are so many things you need to know specifically for that process, that all of that will be dealt with in a separate future article just on deep-frying. So other than “smoke point”, we’ll pretty much stick with basic cooking, pan frying and oven baking when we talk about oils.

I can’t totally avoid talking about deep-frying though or some things wouldn’t make sense. One often deep-frys around 375°F. So a cooking oil at 400°F is not desired for deep-frying because the oil can easily rise that 25° quickly, even with a careful eye on things, and that’s it, burnt oil. So even though a smoke point of 400-410°F might sound good in theory as they are over the level for cooking — they are actually for me and most cooks too close for comfort and should not be used for deep-frying nor for high oven baking.

Unless otherwise mentioned, oils listed below tend to have a smoke point of 450°F.

Olive Oil. Starting out with this one since it’s the one that has all those different sub-types. Extra virgin olive oil has the lightest taste and the lowest smoke point at around 406°F. Virgin is slightly more robust. Extra light has a high smoke point. The lightest work best in salad dressings and good for cooking with a slight taste. The “heavier” ones are often too strong for simply putting on foods that are not cooked or even those that have been cooked; they are best used in the cooking and only if you want a robust carry-over flavor. Myself I use only a single type of olive oil for everything, extra virgin, and that keeps it simple.

Safflower Oil. Clear and nearly flavorless. Often used in salads as it doesn’t solidify when chilled. Good for all cooking. All purpose.

Sunflower Oil. Light flavor. High in polyunsaturated fat. All purpose.

Canola Oil. Similar to safflower. Mild flavor. 400°F smoke point. Often the least expensive and also the lowest saturated fat at 6%.

Peanut Oil. Very subtle flavor and scent, can impart a nutty, roasted flavor. Doesn’t absorb nor transfer flavors. Excellent all around oil. Contains 18% saturated fat, the highest among oils (though low compared to margarines, butter, lard and vegetable shortening.) A cook might need to consider if anyone eating the food has a peanut allergy is a singular drawback to an other-wise excellent oil.

Corn Oil. Nearly tasteless. All purpose. High in polysaturated fat it’s often used for salad oils, mayonnaise and put in margarines.

Soybean Oil. Very mild. All purpose. Almost 80% of anything labeled vegetable oil as an ingredient in a commercially manufactured product contains this oil.

Vegetable Oil. A blend of different refined oils that is designed to have a mild flavor and a high-smoke point. That said, it’s no higher than any of the other oils.

Food Sticking in the Pan — Part One

I’m taking this right off, as I couldn’t explain it better. This comes from the Office of DOE Science Education and Division of Educational Programs (DEP) of Argonne National Laboratory.

“Question – There is an old saying in cooking, “hot pan, cold oil, food won’t stick.” It is a true statement, but I can’t come up with a plausible explanation as to why. Why does food tend to stick to a pan if the pan and the oil are brought to the proper temperature together?

“[Answer:] A small amount of oil added to a very hot pan almost instantly becomes very hot oil. The oil quickly sears the outside of the food and causes water to be released from the food. This layer of water vapor (”steam”) lifts the food atop the oil film and keeps it from touching the hot pan surface. If the oil is not hot enough, the steam effect will not occur and the food will fuse to the (too) cool pan surface.”

Food Sticking in the Pan — Part Two

What happens when, for whatever reason, you seem to have done things correctly and the meat is sticking to the pan?

I’ve read this in one place and I’ve since heard this on television a few more times. To quote chef Tom Colicchio from his book “Think Like a Chef” on the section where he explains the proper way to pan roast: “Brown the food on top of the stove, in a pan with a small amount of oil, at about medium heat. [...] Don’t worry about the food sticking to the pan during this step. If you pat it completely dry first, use only medium or medium-high heat, and be patient, the food will release itself from the pan when it’s browned.”

Try it. The chefs are right. I put this to the test a month or so ago when I was making my braciole recipe and since it was going into the oven after a nice sear in the pan I was not using my non-stick pan but one of my anodized aluminum ones that would be able to withstand the oven heat. In other words, a plain old pan. I put it on medium-high, poured in olive oil, took my braciole rolls and put them in. When I thought it was time to lift and turn them, they all stuck. So I remembered this and “left them alone”, meaning I would come back every minute or so and lightly see if I could move them with my tongs. When I got resistance I stopped trying. Finally, they would let go on their own accord. I’d give the steak logs a quarter turn and repeated the process until they were done and ready for the oven. In short, it worked, to my amazement, it actually worked.

So there you go. Except for deep-frying, there you have nearly everything you need to know about cooking oils. Hopefully you’ll find this of value next time you’re in the market and trying to decide what oil to purchase for what purpose, and hopefully that parts about “sticking” will help you become a better cook too — especially those of you new to cooking — and not leave scads of seared meat clinging to the frying pan or wondering why the oven is smoking because you used the wrong oil for your high-degree baking!

I wrote before about where cooks get their inspiration, and it comes from a variety of different sources. Sometimes you just look at one simple item and think of it as an ingredient and say what can I do with this that’s different than I’ve done before. I recently did that with London broil. (Yes, I know London broil is actually a method of cooking and not a meat, but the super markets do not know that.) I thought, I can do the broil thing, I can do the mini roast thing … Hmm, it’s a slab of top round, I know, I’ll make braciole.

Often it’s two ingredients: If I were to put this and that together, what other things would highlight those, or in what varying ways can I make things with those. I have mushrooms and I have wild rice. I could make a pilaf, I could stuff the mushrooms, I could add veal or chicken and it becomes something else yet again; and this way of thinking continues until you have more ideas and then finally settle on which one to do that day. (And remember the others for the future.)

On another note there a couple of pairings that I’ve found out are fantastic. And they are not two normal ones. For instance pork and apple is a familiar duo, but I found something else that goes as well or better with pork. Another example might be chocolate and orange or chocolate and raspberry. That’s actually two duos, well known. But I came across something long ago that goes as well with chocolate and yet one rarely sees the two ingredients together. No, I won’t say what at the moment. (I know, I’m a spoils sport.) Only because I want to “play” with these in different combinations. When I come up with dishes that really rock, trust me, I’ll let you know via my recipes.

But, there you go, that’s another kind of inspiration. These two go well, but there are few or no recipes (instead of hundreds), and so I need to figure out myself what’s the best way or ways to bring the flavors of these out with my own recipe ideas.

Sometimes it’s someone else’s recipe and what you have on hand. “Hmm, I just saw Emeril make this Hawaiian dish using seaweed, well you know, I don’t like that part of it, but hmm, fish and maybe spinach instead. Yeah, that sounds good. Now how would I proceed would be like this…” That is how the process works.

Lately, I’ve been staring at five pounds of red bliss potatoes and five pounds of russets and going. There’s a million things I can do with these I’ve never done before … and yet I keep doing the same 12 or 14 things. I run over to the Food Network website and it tells me there are 3,346 recipes involving potato in one form or another. Funny, sometimes it’s when you have too many options you end up drawing a blank. In this case, I’m either going to just go through a few hundred til something hits me or I’ll think of a style (deep frying?) or another item (carrots? garlic?) to go with it to help me narrow down my options a tad.

Sometimes you want to really taste something, especially something new to you, in a basic form. Few ingredients, no “lost in the sauce” or have it fighting with or masked by other ingredients either in number or in their strength of taste.

Recently I finally after a long search got my hands on some mascarpone, that creamy Italian cheese, and then, with thousands of ways to use it, from sweet to savory, I “stood still” not knowing what to do with it. Yet again, too many choices. I boiled them down to wanting something simple enough that I could actually taste it. In other words, after such a long time finding it, I didn’t want it smothered or lost. I wanted something “basic”. Few ingredients. I picked puff pastry with a mascarpone-apricot filling. Three ingredients. Delicious! (And I could see why cooks like mascarpone so much, finally. It’s as versatile as ricotta in that it could be used for sweet and for savory, but less grainy, almost a butter. Whereas with American cream cheese, one tends to only think of sweet connotations.)

I did the same recently when I finally got a hold of pancetta. I could use it in tons of dishes, but now that I had it, I really wanted something basic so I could get a good taste of it. Wrapping it around shrimp was my answer there. Mmmm.

Other times cooking inspiration works when you take something you have, and something you know, but you do it differently. Hmm. For instance, Thanksgiving and a ton of leftover turkey. What to do with this? My thinking went this way. What, other than turkey dinner, does one usually see turkey as a part of? And from there, what ingredients therefore go well with turkey? My first thought was turkey soup. It’s noodles and it’s mushrooms. Ok, but I don’t want to do turkey soup, what else — now that I’ve pegged two ingredient combinations that go with it — can I come up with instead? And this eventually led me to my Turkey Mushroom Pasta thingy.

I’m explaining this thinking process because maybe this will help you get inspiration on your next dish.

What else do you often find turkey in or with, I asked myself. The only other item that came to mind was the turkey club sandwich (sometimes known as a triple decker). Ok what are it’s ingredients? Turkey, bacon, tomato, lettuce, cheese, toast, and mayo. Now, as I did with the pasta dish, what knowing those various elements of a turkey club might inspire you to make? In a moment I’ll tell you one of my thoughts, but before then, stop and think what you might do.

I can think of a few interesting and somewhat unique variations knowing those flavors go well together. To me, a pizza with turkey and bacon might be a winner. It’s got the toast (the pizza dough), the tomato (in the form of the sauce), it has the cheese. Hold the mayo. Now it can stop right there, or, if I want to keep the original lettuce in mind, I might say fresh basil or even wilted spinach. (We also already know from Florentine cooking that spinach works with cheese.) Now, I haven’t made this — yet. So I cannot say from experience that this tastes good. But, in theory, breaking down the component flavorings and whipping them into something totally new, I’d bet a “turkey club pizza” should taste marvelous!

Remember when I said come with your ideas, pick the one you’ll do today but don’t forget about your other ideas for the future. Well turkey club pizza is on my list for the future. Now how about you? What is going to inspire you today? A single ingredient, a combination, someone else’s recipe, trying to take several normal ingredients but putting them together in a way you never have before, or getting something from the market you’ve never eaten or cooked and looking up recipes on what other folks did with it? Doesn’t matter what inspires you as long as you’re inspired, and the only way to be inspired is to allow yourself to be, to be open to it and say I’m going to try cooking something new today I never did before.

Although this is allegedly the time of “Web 2.0″ when people are supposedly all into being interactive, communicating and socializing, I notice at least with my little site here, that people rarely communicate or participate. Why? I have no idea. Despite the ease of leaving a comment, seems that other than spammers, you the regular surfer has little or nothing to say or even ask.

… Or do you?

Every server has stats and almost every server has a little program called Analog that helps sort and make sense of all those pieces of data. And in one section of that program is the “search query” section which relates what search terms were placed at the search engines that brought those folks to your site. It is through that that I can see what people were looking for, and which give me a glimpse of what’s on reader’s minds.

Among those you typed in and I had the recipes or answers for included: cooking brisket in oven, stuffed chicken Florentine, easy steak quesadillas, microwaves and food freshness. homemade pizza recipes, making simple syrup, buttermilk substitution, the difference between calzones and strombolis, difference between parfait trifles There were tons more, but you get the idea.

The rest of the search terms fell into two additional categories: normal and interesting things people wanted that were not answered on the site (even though the search engines for whatever reason led them here), and somewhat odd things that people were looking for (which not only I wonder why they were brought here, but I have to wonder what was going through these folks minds.)

Ok, so the bulk of this article, starting right here is my trying to answer those questions you never asked me, but obviously you were looking for. And then we’ll end this some raised eyebrows and maybe a laugh or two with the stranger items searched for.

Questions You Asked (Without Actually Asking)

“difference between frozen and canned pea” – I know why this was asked, it was because of my article on “Frozen and Canned Foods: A Cook’s Dream Come True” this very subject … In part I answered this question already, in part, didn’t. To repeat the answer on frozen peas: sugar in peas quickly converts into starch, these peas are picked and preserved at the height of their quality and so the canned variety does not do that, the canned peas the chemical process continues and therefore they are not as fresh and do not taste as good. One exception to this rule would be the young baby peas such as those in Le Sueur, which being not as mature as the regular pea, the chemical process is not as robust, and so they taste great even though they are in a can

Philadelphia Foods

“the frugal gourmet scrapple recipe” – Being from Philly, the land of scrapple and having been big into the Frugal Gourmet, I recall this recipe and seeing him doing it on his old television show. Basically there is no recipe for scrapple. That is, Jeff Smith, The Frug, was talking about regional foods in America. Scrapple was an ingredient, not a recipe. He pretty much cooked eggs and scrapple (the same one would eggs and bacon, eggs and ham). He didn’t actually make scrapple. I have no idea how one would. It’s a bit of a mystery meat. I assume as with sausage, if you saw what went in it, you would not eat it. That said, scrapple is delicious. At least I think so.

“make a real Philly pretzel” – I have no idea. I will say this. Whether it is a Philadelphia roll, a Philly pretzel or a Brooklyn bagel … it’s the water. These and other foods simply cannot be made anywhere else except their place of origin. Why? The water. No one can accurately duplicate a bagel made in Brooklyn or a pretzel made in Philly because of these. The water is so integral to the dough. Sure, folks can kinda make something like these items, but they can’t ever exactly duplicate them unless they are made there.

“cooking Philly cheesesteaks at home” – Like the pretzel, the key to a good and real Philly cheesesteaks is to get a Philly roll. Not easy to find outside the city. That said, here is the about the closest you can come to making one at home.

The roll. If you’re in Philly, you know where to pick the rolls up at, almost any deli and many convenience stores. If not, try to get a hold of an Amoroso Italian roll available in 39 states. If you can’t find that, then try to get a roll that is soft yet very firm on the inside and slightly crusty on the outside. The meat: Next, find a package of Steak ‘ems frozen meats, they’re thin sliced slabs of steak divided by wax paper, found in the frozen foods aisle of your super market. Some say you can use rib eye or brisket sliced thinly. I say it needs to be top of the round, and sliced thinly does not mean something you can do with a knife. We’re talking a commercial deli slicer set to a thick setting. The cheese: Can be American or provolone or scooped from a jar of Cheese Whiz. Fried onions are often put on it. And then ketchup. Tada.

The following are not not not authentic toppers nor ingredients. No hot sauce, no peppers of any kind, no chilies. Pizza sauce can be put on, but now it’s called a pizza steak sandwich.

Wine and Liquor

“red wine proof” – This is probably the most asked (but not asked) “question” I find over and over again in my logs, so I’ll spend a bit more time on answering this than the others.

Many red wines today contain between 12.5% to 14% alcohol. Note, that is exactly what it says, percentage of total alcohol. There are some red wines coming on the market now, a few from Australia which stand out in my mind, as being 16% alcohol. This was not always the case. The wine-making industry has for the past twenty-or-so years has worked hard to create better wine. More consistent quality between two harvest, looking for more vibrant fruits, finding and perfecting the art of picking the riper grapes. In doing so, the alcohol level has increased. You could easily find reds in the early ’80s that were between 10 and 12 percent. As you see the “standard” level has now risen.

Back to wines and alcohol levels. This question made me go look over my own wine collection and this is what I found. All of my “normal reds” fall exactly into the area mentioned above. There were two exceptions. I found my bottle of Dry Marsala (Which I use primarily for cooking) to be 17% and my Porto Special Reserve from Portugal to be 20%. While these two wines are definitely included in the category of “red wines”, they are indeed a bit more special and few folks would ever include them in the “normal” category of reds.

Lastly, a quick addressing of what the levels are for whites and what a proof is. If my own stable of wine is any indication, whites are, as you would expect, lower. My blushes and white wines fall between the 9.5% to 12% alcohol levels. Now, as to proof. Proof it used in alcohols that are not wine. A proof is twice the level of alcohol, so something that is 34 proof means it contains 17% alcohol.

“what can you put in your recipes if you don’t drink liquor? can you taste the liqueurs if you do use it?” – This is another question I’ve seen asked several times, though this is the version asked in the longest number of words used in a search engine question I’ve yet seen. So let me try to answer these.

If you don’t want to use liquor in your recipes but they ask for liquor … first, you can sometimes use an extract, for instance if a recipe calls for Amaretto, you could use almond extract (Amaretto being an almond liquor). Continuing this theme if a recipe calls for Grand Marnier, you could use orange extract. But but but … read this before doing that … There are problems. One, extract is a highly concentrated form. If someone says use 4 tablespoons of an orange liqueur, that might mean only a few drops of orange extract. Further, extract is used almost exclusively in baked goods. It might or might not work in a different recipe. For instance, substituting a fruit liqueur in whipped cream for the same in the extract will work. In a trifle or a sauce it won’t. Further, guess what? Extracts are almost always made with liquor. So, depending on your tolerance of or aversion to liquor, we’re back where we started.

Yes, this is a tough question to answer. So let’s go to juices and zests. You may be able to substitute an almond alcohol with almonds (depends if the recipe needs a liquid or a solid). You might be able to substitute orange juice or orange zest for Grand Marnier. But again, what kind of recipe is it? For a sauce, a stew, a dessert? There is no one all-encompassing answer as it very much depends on the recipe.

To the second part of the question can you taste it? Almost always, the answer is yes. Over 99% of the time, that is supposedly the general idea here. It wouldn’t be in the recipe in the first place if the idea was not to taste it. It’s an ingredient, a taste. No one is tossing alcohol in the recipe merely for the sake of alcohol. If so, they may as well use vodka or wood grain if the idea was to merely drunk up the food. It’s there to be tasted. So yes, you can taste the flavor. That’s the entire idea.

Rare exceptions? Sure. There are those times, for instance, when I use liquor to turn raspberry preserves into a raspberry sauce, when I’ll use a tablespoon or two of a liquor or a liqueur. Often this is added to give a texture or character to the sauce and I’m purposely not putting it in for the sake of flavor. Or to put it another way because that’s not totally correct, I am putting it in for flavor — but not for the flavor of the liqueur but to bring out and enhance the flavor of the raspberries. So, yes, sometimes, but rarely, you might not be able to taste it.

“fresh berries what type of liquor to put on them” – Good question. And a variety of answers. Grand Marnier often works well with fresh berries. But if you’ve read my article on substitutions “Ain’t Got It? Fake It – Cooking Substitutions” you’ll find I highly recommend Triple Sec instead. It doesn’t have the fancy marketing name but it has the same taste at 10 times less the price. If you want a different flavor, I’ve found a sweet liquor like Southern Comfort works nicely as well. If you want a more potent kick, regular brandy is excellent. For a kick where you can really taste the liquor, go with vodka or rum. Again, depends on what level you wish, from subtle to resonant to “wow”.

Strange But True Searches

“del gornio self rising pizza cooking instructions” – I have no idea why this brought you here or why you ask. The instructions are on the side of the box. This question has actually been asked several times, which scares me. And it seems few can actually spell the name “DiGiorno”, which actually neither scares me nor surprises me but does make me groan. Now I have a question for you: Are there a ton of DiGiorno pizzas floating around somewhere out there without a box or something???

“can’t tell red wine from white wine at same temperature” – That means you have no palette. Please purchase one as soon as possible that actually works.

“three cooking guys on TV” – Um, um …. I’m inclined to say Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short. Or could it be Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras? Maybe Sakai, Nakamura, and Morimoto? … Ok I admit it, I have no idea who you’re talking about.

“what are the ingredients in canned string beans” – Hold on to your hat now. This is going to shock you. …. String beans. (sigh)

“top 5 culinary robots” – I only know of one, Bender, the Iron Cook, who defeated Elzar for the title.

Without a doubt this will become a series of articles and I’ll have more for you in the future!

Winter (and Summer) Squashes

Before getting into the following illustrated preparation of the butternut squash, let’s take a quick look at exactly what is a winter squash. So which vegetables are winter squashes? And why are they called that in the first place?

Normally we (mistakenly) think this seasonal termiology must refer to when they are harvested. As in, a winter squash might be something harvested in the winter, and therefore we wouldn’t see these in the market until maybe February — that, however, would be a very common and incorrect assumption. Actually it refers to the days before refrigeration and motorized transportation when everything was “local” and capable of quick spoilage and of short storage times.

Keeping the “olden times” in mind therefore, the term winter squash refers to those squashes that can be stored and used during the winter time. Winter squashes are usually harvested in September or October and show up in the markets at about that same time. They are almost always too hard to eat raw and are therefore almost always cooked, often for a long time.

Acorn and butternut squashes (image 1) are two winter squashes. Others include the hubbard squash and spaghetti squash. Pumpkins are squashes though are given a category unto themselves.

Summer squashes on the other hand are harvested while the rind is thin, tender and edible. And so they cannot (in the olden days) last until winter ergo they are squashes eaten in the summer. Zucchini and yellow squash are the two most popular summer squashes. While many folks, myself included, think of eggplant as being associated with summer squashes it isn’t biologically so. To be scientific, it’s actually classified as being most closely related to both the tomato and the potato.

Butternut Squash Cooking Preparation

Alright, let’s get down to the core of this article (no pun intended), the preparation of or cutting and peeling of the butternut squash.

First off, get a good sharp knife, and a long one at least seven inches long. A chef’s knife or santoku knife is ideal. Cut off the top quarter inch, and the same on the bottom (image 2). The bottom cut also adds to stability of standing the squash up solidly.

  

Personally, I’ve found when it comes to peeling to treat the butternut as two regions, the comparatively straighter top and more bulbous bottom section. For peeling the top, (image 3) I’ve found it works best to turn the squash on it’s side and peeling from the middle outward to the top. For peeling the bottom section, (image 4) I found placing it vertical and peeling, once again, peeling from the middle downward to the bottom works best.

  

Now that it’s peeled, time to cut it in half. Again, keeping it vertical and slicing right down the middle works well. This is where a long knife comes in handy. (image 5) Very carefully, you can put your second hand on the top (non-sharp) portion of the knife on the other side of the squash and press downward as you also slice with the knife hand. (image 6)

  

Although you could use a melon baller, I find a plain tablespoon is best for scooping out the seeds and pulp. (images 7 and 8). There, you’ve done it.

  

Now proceed with whatever your specific recipe calls for, which is usually either placing the two halves in the oven and scooping it out after, or often directions will be to cut the squash into 1 inch or so chunks, placing them either in a frying pan, a dutch oven or (image 9) a baking sheet for oven roasting.

What is sometimes almost indistinguishable to fresh? Canned. What’s better than fresh? Sometimes the answer is frozen. Sometimes the answer is canned. Notice I said “sometimes”. The fact that the answer is even that, as opposed to “never”, is in many ways, a modern wonder.

And I’ll bet for many of you reading this, this is news to you. I’m also guessing that many of you reading this are thinking I’ve really lost it this time. Nope. Actually I’ve found it — and I’m sharing it with you, and if you take it to heart, your cooking will never be quite the same again — in a good way.

Chefs and the Frozen Pea

Did you know chefs (yes, the five star restaurant kind, not just Moe’s Hamburger Joint) prefer frozen peas to fresh? It wasn’t until I saw Iron Chef America (ICA) “Battle Frozen Peas” that I found this out. And many moons later I saw Gordon Ramsey make something (was it his now famous Pea Risotto, not sure) with frozen peas. So what is the deal with these then? According to ICA host Alton Brown: “Well, because the sugar in peas quickly converts into starch, these peas are picked and preserved at the height of their quality. In fact, peas were one of the first successes that Clarence Birdseye had in his experiments involving flash-freezing vegetables.”

On another note, several generations in my family has been purchasing and enjoying cans of Le Sueur Very Young Small Sweet Peas — at least since the Thirties. Even though this has been a staple at every super market I know of since I was a kid, a look around the web for these showed that not only are they available in many a large chain store, but in some places they are actually sold as “gourmet”. (And trust me, when it comes to most vegetables, it’s either fresh first and frozen a close second, not canned. For instance why would I buy corn or string beans from a can? Meanwhile it’s the only way to get baked beans, peaches and pears in syrup and other sundries.)

The Canned Tomato

Chefs have long loved using canned tomatoes for sauces and cooking, though even more so today as the quality over the years has continued to increase. Across the board, when given a choice between a fresh, local, in-season tomato or canned, they will go with the fresh. But for the rest of the year, canned is what they work with because there is a consistently higher quality. We know ourselves going to the store at various times of the year that tomato can be on the sour side one week, mushy the next, hot house lacking in flavor the following week. Restaurants can’t run that way, top quality ones at least. They need to have two things a high quality and a high level of even consistency. Canned tomatoes give that to them.

The Tasteless Way It Was

You have to admit food-wise this really is a time of wonders. As a child in the Sixties, I ate TV dinners which were rubbery Swiss steak, dried cardboard potatoes, burnt peas and a apple cobbler that was like a rock and burnt your tongue on plates made from aluminium foil. I ate either watery or acid throat-burning spaghetti from cans. Chinese food was chop suey from Chun King.

This gave way in the early 80s to industrial grade convenience store boxes called microwaves in which you would put inside a sandwich sealed in plastic for several minutes and out would come a soggy yet hard roll that had no grain in it, between which was a blue-purple rubber thing labeled ham and a yellow-orange glue called cheese. How’s that for twenty years of “progress”, huh? Not!

The Food Revolution of Today

Two more decades and looked what’s happened. An entire cable network devoted to cooking and food. Several of the top reality shows on the tube are competitions by chefs and aspiring chefs. Food shows are major parts of TLC, Bravo and BBC America as well as still as staple of Public Broadcasting. Two hit movies this summer were about food, No Reservations and Pixar’s animated Ratatouille. It’s become not just what we eat, but what we watch; it’s becoming a part of the American culture, with catch phrases from “Yes, Chef!” to “You donkey!” to “You really need to get smell-o-vision” to “Yum-o!”

Back to the packaged food though. From those horrid sandwich things mentioned at the 80s convenience stores, it went to such frozen food in the 90s as Healthy Choice meals, the first “tv dinners” in my opinion to actually taste good, I mean really pleasant. To today’s frozen dinners like those from Bertolli which, like the commercials say, make it seem like you have a chef in your kitchen. And with the somewhat recent San Marzano tomato crops and the organic and artisanal movements in the food industry, these items are at an all time high of quality and production. Looking back, I swear I grew up in the culinary dark ages of processed foods. That’s right, I did.

So there’s so much now at our fingertips, that saves us time and gives us better quality, we would be foolish not to use these. What else besides canned tomatoes and frozen peas you ask?

Dried versus Canned Beans

You know this past year I’ve gotten into (finally) canned beans. Check out my own Mediterranean Four Bean Salad. Trust me that I mean it when I say it is delicious, and that it contains three kinds of canned beans and one frozen bean — and yes it’s delicious! This made me wonder though — as many things food do — is it worth getting the dried beans and rehydrating them overnight as our grandparents did? Or are canned beans nearly as good?

Thankfully, to a guy named George Duran and his short-lived quirky show called Ham on the Street, I have the answer. He let folks taste blindly from both a recipe made from canned beans and from dried. The consensus was either that no one could tell the difference or that the canned was better. Either way, I’ll happy take that result.

The Pumpkin and the Strawberry

Then the other day, I’m watching an episode of the Barefoot Contessa when Ina Gartan answered something else I was wondering about. To make a pumpkin pie, was it worth the trouble of getting the fresh pumpkin? And she said to use the canned, that she had done it both ways, that the fresh one was labor intensive, and that both tasted the same so use the can.

I’ve long known — and no doubt so have you — that canned frozen strawberries in syrup are reliably delicious and sweet, while getting fresh strawberries to be consistently sweet is both impossible and like rolling dice. You can never never tell looking from the outside of the fruit. (Besides, let’s face it, fresh strawberries just don’t come with that delicious syrup that can turn a bowl of breakfast cereal, an ice cream sundae or a homemade daqueri into something heaven sent.)

Alright, that’s all I got. I’m sure there’s other wonderful things out there. For now these are the ones that come to mind. (If you know of some, come to my blog, leave a comment and share your finds!)

There You Have It

Now, just to make sure my espousing the glories of some processed foods as cooking ingredients (and sometimes straight out foods ready to eat) isn’t mistaken. I’m in no way saying ditch the fresh. And I’m certainly not saying every canned or frozen veggie or fruit is going to be great either. There’s way too many sources, companies, methods of operation, varieties of produce, and a hundred other variables to ever say something so all-encompassing. In short, this is not a panacea. There’s plenty of yucky and mushy canned and frozen veggies out there for everyone, alas.

What I am saying is these things definitely do fit into my personal cooking philosophy, that if it’s just as good and easier, go with it. And if it’s better, well, I recall the last time I spent ten minutes shucking fresh peas from their pods and the end result (compared to frozen) just didn’t seem to justify the labor to me. And it turned out I was right.

Oh, and while I hadn’t mentioned this before because it’s fairly obvious, I find I still can’t end this article without mentioning it: The true wonder of frozen and canned is the shelf life compared to fresh. They are literally there whenever you need them. Frozen for months, and canned you could (if you had to) go years. Compare that with iffy tasting fresh that’s going to start turning fuzzy in your crisper drawer next week if you don’t get to them! When that’s tossed into the equation, it’s difficult not to say that sometimes, canned and frozen foods really are better than fresh.

Do you ever find watching the cooking shows frustrating? And I mean for the single reason that you can’t find the ingredients? Do you start wondering is it where you live is unusual? I mean when chef after chef after cook after cook keep using an ingredient, and you’ve been to one, three, seven different super markets and can’t find it, do you start to wonder is it a television conspiracy or do I live in some backwater?

This happens to me all the time. Now, just so you you know, I live in the fourth largest city in the US, Philadelphia. In an a section of the city known as Northeast Philadelphia that is “regular” average, middle and upper income area. I know therefore I am not supposedly living in the sticks, and yet, I am apparently living in the “culinary boonies”, a “food ghetto”. Either that, or I’m not alone, meaning these cooks keep using things we may never find.

Anyhow where was I? Oh yes, living in an average neighborhood in the fourth largest American city, yet not a single supermarket near me carries mascapone cheese. They even give me odd looks every time I ask an employee where it is or do they carry it. They’ve never heard of it before. Yet name me a single TV show cook who hasn’t used it once. I think between Rachel and Giada alone it’s in 200 recipes. But you’ll not find a single one of those recipes (apparently) made anywhere in NE Philly.

It took me my third market to find pizza dough, I mean the real thing. (that wasn’t that Pil;sbury crapola substitute). Four stores to finally find puff pastry (that’s 1 out of 4 or 75% of the ones I went to that didn’t carry it). I still can not find ravioli sheets nor wonton wrappers anywhere in my area. Those I’ll end up making myself at this rate. At least with those I knpw I can. When it comes to phyllo dough however is another one I can’t find, and I know I won’t be making that, so I guess I need to wait until I take a trip into Center City and hit a specialty store or buy it off the Net and get some shipped. The things you do all in the pursuit of wanting to make some homemade baklava!

Question is. It can’t just be me can it? I mean, where do you live? Big city, burbs, rural, boondocks? Can you find these items? What other items can’t you seem to get where you live? I’d honestly love to hear from you and find out. Seriously, hit up my blog and let me know. We can commiserate.

Right now, as I write this article and therefore obviously haven’t heard from anyone yet, I have to theorize that I can’t possibly be alone. And if that’s true, this begs another question. Why are those television cooks torturing us so? Is it because they work at networks that can get anything that the cooks are clueless that normal folks just can’t find this stuff? What is it?

The other day I passed up looking at a Rick Bayless episode because he was going to cook goat. No, it didn’t turn my stomach. But if I can’t even find anadlous sausage (there goes 50 Emeril recipes that will never happen) nor chorizo (so much for authentic Spanish dishes) where the heck am I ever going to find goat here in Philadelphia? Ain’t going to happen. (I’m not saying there isn’t some unusual little butcher somewhere in this city that might have it. But if it’s not at my local markets unless I’m dying to make it a mission in life to track it down, it ain’t happening. I’m too admittedly lazy and disinterested in seeing if it’s possible to find goat in this city and then, not at a restaurant, but where I can pick it up and cook it myself.)

Let’s see …. mascapone cheese, anadalousa sausage, chorizo, goat … ah, quinoa. This is the latest “super star mystery food” … a South American food that goes back to the Incas. Seems every other week one of the TV cooks come up with something to use this for. Why? Apparently it has appeared in the American food import list in the past six months. Apparently only TV cooks can get quinoa, that’s not an exaggeration either. Ok, ok, very possibly in a Latin neighborhood, but ethnicity aside in a “regular” multi-ethnic neighborhood national supermarket chain store, forgitaboudit. Try asking at your market. Become that crazy person who is always asking for stuff the workers there never heard of and which you hear on TV several times a week.

Ok, is there an answer? Probably not. Am I mad at the cooking folks? Nope. Do I think they should stop doing recipes of items that are difficult, or impossible to get? No. They are right to explore new things. And it’s — albeit frustrating it is also — only exceedingly natural they would get to the newest items are hard to find items first. Afterall, eventually, they help set the course of things. If they keep talking about them, then eventually those items will find their way through the distribution channels into the local supermarket.

Meanwhile two things, first to the TV cooking hosts themselves: could you maybe stop saying “you can find this in your local market” until your know it’s true? Did they get theirs from their local market or did the cooking network or production team hand it over to them? Can they actually get those ingredients in their own supermarkets or butchers or produce store?

And for the rest of us, there are five choices. First, live with out it. Naw. Second, substitute ingredients where possible. This helps in some ways, but it still doesn’t give you the taste of the real thing you want. That leaves waiting until it gets to our area, or travel a bit for it: try and find a gourmet shop or farmers market or specialty store in the midtown of the big city near you, or, as I’ve found recently, if you really want to try something, Or the last and final choice is right under our noses: there are places on the web you can order from and have it shipped to you. (Probably even goat meat, though I have no impetus to go type and get some.)

Now, mind you this isn’t going to work for a spur of the moment thing. But if you, like I, have been dying to try out some recipes with heretofore unfindable ingredients, or may be you just want to know what these things on their own taste like, I found a place online that has, to my surprise, every food item and cooking ingredient I’ve mentioned so far.

Now there are some places cheaper, for instance a saw a few different places that specialized in Spanish meats where I could get chorizo. I found some cheese places on line that had the mascapone, but the place mentioned was the only one that had every single thing I typed in there. Some were the same price, some a little bit higher, but for the convenience sake I know I’ll be soon trying out all those delicacies in the near future. Fill my cart up and when they come to the door, have a week where I “go to town” on it and finally see and taste what everyone’s been talking about for so long.

Tired of going for that second half of a sandwich the next day in the fridge and finding it soggy and unappealing? How about opening up that bacon and wondering is that just moisture and condensation or has it turned bad? With one easy tip, you’ll find all of that a thing of the past. You’ll be able to keep bread and pasty items, sloppy sandwiches and breakfast meats fresher and longer in ice box. And all with everyday items in your kitchen, just put together in a slightly different way.

People food shop differently. That said, they can be placed in groups. Some folks shop daily and what they pick up from the market on the way home from work is what they’ll be eating in a couple of hours. No need to worry about freezing fish or putting it in the refrigerator with special care for them. Others buy in weekly jaunts. Some, like me, make the “big food run” every six to eight weeks, and supplement the smaller items — milk, eggs, fresh veggies — with a trip to the convenience store or local produce place. For the latter two groups (probably the majority) keeping things as fresh as possible is required.

Now, if you’re reading thinking either, hey, is he going to sell me something, the answer is no. And if you are instead reading this and saying, you gotta be kidding me, an article on how to wrap things up? What’s he think, we’re morons or something? The answer to that is no as well.

No product, and no one is stupid (and I’m no genius) but … I think, no, make that I know for certain I have by trial and error found a way of keeping things fresher and longer than before that is not so commonly known.

What Microwaving Taught Me

Alton Brown is famous for looking at food and at cooking with scientific eye. (There’s even a T-shirt available on his site that says “Science … It’s what’s for dinner.”) And while I’m in no way as geeky as him (that’s a positive compliment in case you weren’t sure). There is some science that comes involved here. Especially with something as “space aged” as the mysterious microwave.

What’s this have to do with keeping foods? Be patient, grasshopper. Put a bowl of something in the microwave, let’s say, a bowl of string beans from the night before. (Forget lids, they melt). So you’re going to put it in without a lid or with a covering of plastic wrap. Without, and too long, they dry up. With the plastic wrap, they keep their moisture, in fact they steam.

Next, a big bowl of stew to defrost. It won’t get dry either way, but you find after two minutes of nuking (microwaving, that is) it’s still relatively cold throughout. Yet two minutes with plastic wrap and it’s done it’s job. Are you noting these things? You should be. Let’s continue.

If you put a roll in the machine for 20 seconds, it’s hot, but it’s also soggy, on the point of going wet. If I had put the roll in wrapped in plastic it would have been a soaked wet thing you throw out in the trash. If you put the same roll in while wrapped loosely with a paper towel, nuke one side 10 seconds, flip and then another 8-10 seconds on that side, you have a perfectly delightful warmed up roll. In fact it almost feels as fresh as though it were taken out of the oven.

Noticing a pattern yet? Eventually, I did. And applied these to wrapping up food that would go in the refrigerator, and found some wonderful results.

Perfect Marriage of Paper and Aluminum

Let’s go to basics. A sandwich. Not even tomato on it. Ham on cheese with mustard on rye. You eat half of it and decide that’s enough, you’ll wrap it up and eat the other half later. Very common household thing. You take out the plastic wrap, put it away, take it out a day or two later and it’s all mushy. For some reason though you keep doing this, cause hey, that’s what plastic wrap is for, right?

Maybe one day you decide ok, aluminum foil, maybe that will give you a better result. Two days later, you open it up. It’s better in some ways. Maybe. It’s a little mushy, but not as mushy. But the bread is now somehow mushy and hard/stale at the same time.

So we take a lesson from microwaving. Breads and pasty have water in them. Paper towels absorb. Plastic wrap holds in and even brings out moisture. Add one more thing in (since you can’t use this in a microwave), aluminum foil will hold comparatively less moisture than plactic wrap does.

So, breads, sandwiches, even “runny” sandwiches (with lots of oil or mayo and tomatoes, onions, etc) wrap first in a paper towel and then in aluminum foil. And you know what you get? Two even three days later a sandwich that tastes like it was JUST made. I kid you not! The roll is not stale, nor is it soggy. The contents of the sandwich hasn’t bothered it either.

Bacon and also ham breakfast slices. You see them in the plastic they came in, or you put them in new plastic wrap, and you look at them and they often look at first slimy, because moisture has mixed with oil in the case of the bacon, or the ham which already has a great deal of oil exudes more. These are usually fine, but they don’t look good. Be sure. Again, the paper towel and aluminium foil method of wrapping these and storing these in the fridge is just amazing. Good bacon and ham, you open it up and it appears totally fresh as it should. And if either of these are going, there’s no more guessing is it the water from plastic or not.

Simple, right? Totally. And yet, this combination took me a while to figure out, and there’s good chance you’ve never tried it before. Please, do yourself a favor, try this. It sounds like a silly tip probably, but when you see the results — which cost you nothing — you will be so flipped by it, you’ll think — like I did — that you just discovered something seemingly momentous.