10:50 – Barbara mentioned yesterday that we need to make up another batch of no-knead bread dough. We’ll do that this afternoon and bake the loaves tomorrow morning.
Which got me to thinking about creating a 3-ring binder of printed recipes. Until now, we’ve used either recipe books or Internet sources, but I want to have all of the recipes we use regularly in printed form. The day may come when we can’t get to the recipes on the Internet. And Barbara just mentioned the other day that she’d found a ream of three-hole punched printer paper, so I had no excuse not to start printing out recipes.
While we were still living in Winston, we almost never cooked or baked from scratch. Since we moved to Sparta, we’ve been doing a lot more of that, since Barbara is now retired and no longer has most of her day eaten by working at the law firm.
“The day may come when we can’t get to the recipes on the Internet.”
Crikey, lad, get yourselves a dahn cookbook! My own standby for decades has been “American Cookery” by the late James Beard, but we also have several books and DVDs from the late Julia Child and also Jacques Pepin. And a small library from the Cooks Illustrated Empire. But one general-purpose cookbook should do ya.
Keep an eye out for cast-iron pots and pans, too; those can be used almost anywhere (not in a microwave, haha).
And get a couple of good knives (not expensive; see the Cooks Illustrated top choice for years, which costs about $25.) And other nifty things to have around the kitchen are plastic spritzer or spray bottles, which can be used for seasonings, vinaigrettes, plain wotta and cleaning stuff. Pots and pans should be heavy enough and strong enough to be used as weapons. Look for Le Creuset on sale or at yard and estate sales, it’s enameled iron in all different colors. Couple of those with an iron skillet and the knives and you’ll be in business. You can eat fah cheapuh and it’s much healthier.
Sunny w/blue skies for Easter Sunday in northern Vermont. Breezy. Off to MIL’s later for din-din. And back to the household and yard stuff this week, which will be broken up by a two-hours-down-and-back trip to the VA med complex in White River Junction on Wednesday for my TBI screening and pulmonary functions test. Also gotta schedule a couple of other appointments for stuff and double-check on where my new hearing aids are, supposedly ordered months ago.
Zero complaints about my treatment at the VA so fah.
Oh, we have cookbooks, including stuff from the 50’s and 60’s, which focus much more on using raw ingredients rather than processed ingredients. That was back in the days when stay-at-home moms were much more common, and they spent a lot of time cooking from raw ingredients, mostly sourced locally.
Printing the most-used recipes on pre-punched paper isn’t that good an idea. You’ll want to cover them, either by slipping the pages into clear sleeves or by laminating them. If you just put plain pages into a binder, they’ll be splattered and ripped very quickly.
I picked up a box of 200 plastic sleeves for this sort of thing – computer references back when I went to client sites, car parts and torque specs, recipes. Works just as desired.
Nothing beats the smell of fresh bread baking.
I use a Zojirushi Bread Machine (like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-BB-CEC20-Supreme-2-Pound-Loaf-Breadmaker/dp/B002XVUAOU/ref=sr_1_2), mine is 15+ years old and used every couple of days. It makes a conventionally shaped loaf. Most of the time though I just use it to mix, knead, and rise the dough then bake in the oven. When I do that I make a capacity size batch that fills 3 bread pans.
I recommend the Joy of Cooking, in a 60’s printing. It’s full of humor and has lots of instruction and information, which is missing in ‘recipe books.’ It’s straight forward with great tasting recipes that don’t usually require exotic ingredients or hardware or techniques. No dietary nonsense either, full fat, full salt, whole foods– no fad-o-the-week. It’s my go to reference for ordinary daily cooking. And it has a section on wild game, including the smaller stuff from your backyard.
For longer term, and for those with no experience, A Man A Can and A Plan has recipes involving lots of packaged food, A Simple Fools Handbook to Cooking got me thru college, and Two Burners and an Ice Chest has upscale on a camp stove (or boat galley.) Between those 4, you should be completely covered, no matter what your circumstances.
The older Boy Scout manuals have whole sections on cooking under camp conditions. I haven’t tested them, but I have the references.
Pots and pans are tools, and their shapes, sizes, and configurations have evolved to meet specific needs. It is very helpful to have, and understand the use of, different pots and pans, just as you would use different screwdrivers or hammers or saws for different tasks. That said, you can get by just fine with the technically wrong pans. For non-stick, the costco 2 pack of frying pans (8 and 10″ chefs pan) is very good for the money. They are NSF marked, so approved for commercial use. For outdoor use, over flames or coals, you must have cast iron. Regular kitchenware will soon fail. (not talking about a colman stove, or propane, or even a rocket stove, talking about open fires) Cast iron, and enameled cast iron is very nice for some things indoors too, but not for everything.
For a great set on a budget, estate sale sourced (or ebay) vintage stainless steel and copper RevereWare (or some FaberWare), especially their higher end line with thicker bottoms. I see this at almost every estate sale and it is usually still in great condition 40 years or more after sale. I use mine daily. The cr@p you get at Walmart WILL NOT be usable in 40 years.
Don’t waste money on anything with thin bottoms unless all it’s used for is boiling water.
A lot of people have not learned to cook from ingredients. NOW is the time to learn, not when you have no resources. It’s not hard, but it does take some knowledge and practice. My advice is follow the recipe and instructions closely. Leave the improvising and second guessing for after you’ve mastered the basics.
nick
Oh, I print out internet recipes and if it passes muster, put it in my binder. I’ve had trouble finding online recipes a second time, and I lost a great recipe for carrots and leeks that way. The internet is great for finding recipes that use what ingredients you have on hand. Family recipes go in the same binder. (I use a cardboard report cover style binder with fold over metal tabs to hold the 3 hole punched paper. It’s much thinner than a binder, and easily holds the few dozen pages we have in it.) NOTHING goes in that binder that we don’t love. Speculative recipes stay loose until proven good 🙂 I also copy and put basic recipes from packaging (tollhouse cookies, or seasoned beans from the bean can) in the binder. The package is a good place to get recipes that use that item, as it’s in the company’s interest to provide tasty usage examples. Companies change the recipes on their boxes and cans tho, and you can lose a family favorite…so copy and store the ones you like.
nick
Glad @SteveF brought up putting your recipes in sleeves. IIRC the price at Costco, for the sleeves, is pretty good.
Yes, and from the master, @nick, hit those yard and estate sales for stainless steel pots and pans. The gauge of SS today is half or less than 10 years ago.
Oh, we have cookbooks, including stuff from the 50’s and 60’s, which focus much more on using raw ingredients rather than processed ingredients. That was back in the days when stay-at-home moms were much more common, and they spent a lot of time cooking from raw ingredients, mostly sourced locally.
50s and especially 60s cookbooks are full of processed ingredients. Modern cookbooks are much more likely to feature fresh ingredients.
I concur that older versions of Joy of Cooking is a good selection. I’d consider a few of the Cook’s Illustrated cookbooks as add-ons. There will be recipes that would be impossible to make depending on where in the US you are, since some fruits and veggies won’t grow in different areas.
” and they spent a lot of time cooking from raw ingredients, mostly sourced locally.”
not sure if you meant “did it most of the time” or “took a lot of time doing it”, but it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. From looking at the cookbooks and ephemera from the time (see also Likeks, Gallery of Regrettable Food) a lot of the recipes were DESIGNED to take up a lot of time, and fill some of the excess time those suburban housewives had in their day. There was a lot of emphasis on the appearance of dishes, and the extravagant appearance at that. Lots of ‘hostess’ foods to impress your guests. Cooking a casserole or roast really doesn’t take any longer now than then, and not particularly long at that.
The modern equivalent is the trend among “mommy bloggers” to feature food with extraordinary detailing, or extreme appearance. Type A personality, lack of social access to peers, time at home, and you get extravagant food preparation.
nick
I second the nomination for Revere Copper and Brass pots and pans, assuming they’re older stuff and of sufficient heft and weight. My late aunt worked for them down in New Beffa for years but the plant finally closed there in 2008. Looks like the company still exists, founded by Paul Revere himself in 1801, and the HQ is in Rome, NY. They don’t appear to be making cookware anymore.
Mr. ech makes a good point about the Sixties-era cookbooks; they suck. Either go with contemporary books which pay attention to important issues and emphasize FRESH, or colonial-era cookbooks, ditto, ’cause…no choice. We’ve got some recipes from both colonial MA and VA here and they’re fun to whip up.
I have an older copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook that is highly recommended on a lot of sites.
I have type 2 diabetes so I modify most of my recipes to make them low-carb and or low glycemic index. I record what I do on 3×5 note cards which are stored in a file folder. I take photos of the index cards with my phone also. My wife stored her recipes on 3×5 cards as well, but kept them in a box. She passed away about 10 years ago, but looking at those recipes tells me why I have diabetes. As well as those already mentioned, I also use cookbooks by Paul Prudhome, Justin Wilson, and old copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook from the 50s in which there is a lot of how to prepare food from scratch. For diabetes friendly stuff, the Low-Carb Slow Cooker Cookbook by Broiher and Mayone is the best I’ve found.
As far as using the Boy Scout manuals, all I can say is don’t. Just don’t. The worst food I’ve ever encountered was with the Scouts. Imagine half cooked ground beef with raw potatoes. Or a pot of freeze dried entree cooked by a fourteen year old that looks like someone threw up into the pot.
[snip] especially their higher end line with thicker bottoms. I see this at almost every estate sale and it is usually still in great condition 40 years or more after sale. I use mine daily. [snip]
My younger sister is still using a set of stainless steel mixing bowls that our mother got as a wedding present in the early 1960’s, and she has designs on passing them down to one of her daughters. Some of my favorite cookbooks (yes, I’m a single man, but I do cook) are linked below.
http://www.amazon.com/White-Trash-Cooking-Anniversary-Jargon/dp/1607741873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459108804&sr=8-1&keywords=white+trash+cooking
http://www.amazon.com/White-Trash-Cooking-II-Gatherins/dp/0898158923/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1459108804&sr=8-3&keywords=white+trash+cooking
http://www.amazon.com/Leaves-Florida-Junior-League-Service/dp/B000Z9QHXU/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459108876&sr=1-2&keywords=bay+leaves
Just referred to my Joy of Cooking today. Making a pork roast, standing rib, but done as a roast. Saute’d brussel sprouts with bacon and truffle oil. Some kind of potato…
Needed to double check the heat and timing.
Smells good, should be ready in 15-20 more minutes.
Made a chocolate fudge pie for desert. Pre-made graham crust from fridge, fudge pie filling from stores, fresh whipped cream topping.
Total of <1/2 hour prep, couple hours in the oven. Couldn't be simpler. (OK the brusselsprouts are a bit more involved, but only because they need tossing, and watching.
Nick
Today Dad is being lazy, bone-in (prime) rib roast (3-bone, 4.5#) in the crock pot (rubbed with Dad’s secret beef rub). Low and slow, extra tender, and done medium without drying out (if a person wants a crust, put in the oven for 20 minutes at 500°F). Fred Meyer (Kroger to many of you folks) had the bone-in (prime) rib roast for $5.98/lb. as an Easter Special. Ranch roasted red potatoes and frozen peas and carrots round out the main course. And more cinnamon rolls, this time a-la-mode, for dessert. A fine Merlot to go with it all.
Hillary for Prison 2016!
“I also use cookbooks by Paul Prudhome, Justin Wilson…”
I used to watch Justin Wilson’s tee-vee show regularly, he was a riot, with his fireman suspenders and Cajun recipes. Also Pierre Franey.
“…Low and slow, extra tender, and done medium without drying out…”
That’s how I did the top round roast today, with a herbed crust, sliced thin, with zip sauce. Cheesy mashed spuds on the side, and wife did a carrot thing and some asparagus and strawberry cheesecake. My beef recipe was from the current issue of “Cooks Country” magazine.
“Hillary for Prison 2016!”
Good one, Mr. Lynn!
You and I have a fah betta chance of going to prison than she does; she is among the Annointed Ones, the Entitled Elites, and prison is only for the peasant scum out here.
Back to working on revenue-producing courses tomorrow in between the various tasks in the To-Do List.
About the only beef roast I’ll do anymore is the ribeye. I buy it and cut about half into steaks, vac pac and freeze, the other 2-3 pound roast gets cooked in the oven. Fat side up, maybe some bacon strips on top. Tender juicy roast, instead of dried shoe leather. the 2-3 pounds is perfect for wife, me, and kids.
I buy it at a local store at about $3.89 when it’s on sale. (Frozen and vac packed.)
Good stuff that.
nick
“Hillary for Prison 2016!”
Good one, Mr. Lynn!
You and I have a fah betta chance of going to prison than she does; she is among the Annointed Ones, the Entitled Elites, and prison is only for the peasant scum out here.
Got that from #1 son. He says that Mr. Trump has told Hillary that Chelsea is going to jail too for money laundering in the Clinton Foundation (she is head of it).
Hmmm…I saw some ribeye cuts at two markets and was contemplating trying them as you describe; next trip out I will.
We don’t eat a whole lotta meat here, anyway. Maybe a couple of times a week, tops. Wife is big on pasta; I like beans and rice. So I guess we’ll make out like big dawgs after SHTF, amirite?
With all this warmer weather and sunshine popping out now, OFD is looking at “summer shack” recipes from a cookbook of the same name and will be doing some recon of two fish market/restaurants in the general 25-mile AO up here.
Western Rifle Shooters site coming out with lotsa good informative pieces lately, ditto Brushbeater, and Sparks31 is back on line.
After studying up on some long-range bolt possibilities, I’ve decided to give the Ruger Precision a pass (’cause it LOOKS too tacticool) and ditto the CZ I was checking out a while back. Ima gon go with a Remington 700 Long Range and Leupold for my birthday this year. (assuming I have my own revenue to do it, of course). Also decided on a Century Arms C39 folding-stock Zhukov AK for another use. Or I could just be blowing smoke here and trolling for gun nuts while being paid by Soros operatives, yeah, that’s it…
“A good portion of the American electorate wants to administer electroshock to a bloated, sclerotic government. A smaller percentage recognize that the patient’s symptoms will be terminal absent drastic and immediate changes. A relative handful are interested in diagnosing the philosophical and intellectual root causes responsible for the morbid deterioration.”
http://straightlinelogic.com/2016/03/27/profiles-in-irrelevance-by-robert-gore/
I find myself in the latter group; I wanna know how we got here. I’ve been flogging this reading list here because I think more peeps active on this board and others lurking share my interest:
How We Got Here Reading List
Contemporary:
Buchanan, Patrick. “Suicide of A Superpower: Will America Survive To 2025?”
West, Diana. “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character”
“The Death of the Grown Up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization”
Historical:
Wilson, Clyde N. “From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition.”
Rothbard, Murray. “Conceived in Liberty,” (four volumes)
I’m reading my way, slowly, through all the historical material now. Both texts listed here repay SLOW and CAREFUL reading. And note-taking. A good look at the Anti-Federalist Papers is also in order. Way smarter guys than most of us here figured out a lot of this stuff a couple of centuries ago and some of them knew we’d crap on it eventually, too.
“And Frau Merkel, to you I say this: one who allows government operations to be dictated by a financial mogul like Soros commits high treason against our country!”
“Volksverräter! Volksverräter! Volksverräter!
Traitor to the nation!”
Yeah, baby, sing it!
http://gatesofvienna.net/2016/03/tatjana-festerling-on-the-soros-brokered-migration-deal-between-europe-and-turkey/
More hate to start off your week’s morning reading:
http://takimag.com/article/the_week_that_perished_takimag_march_27_2016/print#axzz44AFhhkzp
One of the things I have done since retiring is creating and maintaining several free cookbooks. They are all oriented towards outdoor ‘primitive’ cooking and they may be suitable for your use. http://blogicalthoughts.com/cookbooks.html
I do these using LibreOffice on my Linux workstation, then export them to PDF. I use Sigil to do the EPUB versions. 😎
Mike
From the National Enquirer—a tabloid that ran stories which successfully destroyed the presidential aspirations of John Edwards and Gary Hart—comes shocking allegations that four women other than Ted Cruz’s wife were willing to have sex with the oily Grandpa Munster lookalike.
lol! Grandpa Munster! lol!
Mr. Burton,
Thanks for the cookbooks! A nice addition to the kit bag.
A picture worth a thousand words. Our companions deserve better.
A heartbreaking photograph of a lonely dog hugging a teddy at the side of the road has sparked controversy in Houston surrounding stray animals in the city.
The pup was spotted by Yvette Holzbach, who helps run the Forgotten Dogs of the 5th Ward Project in the Texan city.