Let’s Make Cooking From Scratch EASIER
Cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be intimidating
Our society has gotten so far away from regular family dinners and eating seasonally and locally, cooking, especially cooking from scratch has become intimidating to a lot of folks. For those of us who like to garden (and even those of us who went grocery shopping last week and have some produce on the edge of spoiling that needs to get used up), some time spent practicing cooking from scratch (failure is OK!), learning which flavor profiles compliment each other and learning how to substitute ingredients are two extremely valuable skills that will make you a delightful dinner chef who never wastes their garden harvest in no time at all. To that end, I’m launching a little cooking show on my YouTube channel where I’ll share a series of quick, easy dinner recipes as well as less painful ways of preserving your garden harvests at peak picking times for use later on. You can find recipes to accompany those videos right here on my blog. Below, find some basic cooking advice, substitution ideas, and a wrap-up of why cooking at home is important.
What goes in the pan WHEN?
This can be a tough one for folks, but really it comes down to this: when you’re cooking, an easy rule of thumb is to put the hardest stuff in the pan first, then add things that are softer and softer incrementally. Chopping the things you put in the pan roughly the same sizes as one another will help things to cook more evenly. If you have veggies that have hard and soft parts, like green onions, which are harder at their white bottom and softer up at their green tops, you can separate the hard and soft parts while chopping and add the harder bits in first. Similarly, with things like kale, you’d cut off the harder stems near the bottom of the kale leaves and put those in the pan with other items that are of a similar hardness, then add the greens later. As with all these topics, lots more can be written here, but here are two somewhat conflicting pieces of advice:
1. Even if you have an electric stove, you’ve got a lot more versatility at your fingertips besides just HIGH and LO. Experiment with it. One huge eye opener for me was realizing crispy bacon comes from cooking it slowly on LO, rather than on HIGH. Mind blown. Since I’m on the topic, here’s another crazy bacon tip: when you first put it in the pan, put about 1/4” of water in the pan as well. It will evaporate as the bacon cooks and help the fats crystalize.
2. Don’t be afraid to let your veggies “chill” on high heat. Constantly stirring your veggies as you’re sautéing or stir frying will indeed help them cook more evenly, but a whole lot of flavor profiles come from letting them hang out in the bottom of the pan for a bit and get crispy on the bottom. There’s a delicate balance between crisp and burn though, so this one takes a little practice.
Which Flavor Profiles Compliment Each other?
I could write reams and reams on this topic, but a great basic premise for any dish is that it needs a source of salt, fat, acid, and heat. Yes, I’m looking at you Ciao Samin, the author of one of my favorite non-cookbook cookbooks, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.
Salt can come in the form of table salt, sea salt, salt flakes, soy sauce, anchovies, fish sauce, miso…
Fat can come in the form of animal protein, tallow, lard, butter, nut, fruit or vegetable oils, cocoa butter…
Acid can come in the form of vinegars, citrus, wine, tomatos, buttermilk, yogurt, sour cream, coffee, cream of tartar, molasses, cocoa…
Heat is, to quote Ciao, “the element of transformation. It triggers the changes that take our food from raw to cooked, runny to set, flabby to firm, flat to risen, and pale to golden brown.”
What Substitutions Can I make?
Allspice: 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon + 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg + 1/4 tsp cloves (makes 1 tsp)
Butter: Pureed white beans, applesauce, coconut oil (for up to half of the butter in the recipe)
Buttermilk: 3/4 C yogurt and 1/4 C milk, add 1 tblsp white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup Milk, left until milk thickens, use kefir instead of buttermilk
Cardamom: Ground ginger OR equal parts cinnamon + nutmeg
Cheese: these cheeses can be used interchangeably
Monterey jack, mozzarella and mild cheddar
Blue cheese, Gorgonzola and Stilton
Dubliner and Swiss
Havarti and Gruyere
Colby and sharp cheddar
Parmesan and Pecorino
Chervil: Tarragon OR parsley
Chili Sauce: 1 cup tomato sauce + 1/4 cup brown sugar + 2 Tbsp vinegar + 1/4 tsp cinnamon + dash ground cloves + dash allspice (makes 1 cup)
Chocolate, semisweet (chocolate chips): 1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder + 2 tsp sugar + 2 tsp butter
Corn Syrup: 1 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup water (makes 1 cup)
Creme Fraiche: 1 cup heavy cream + 1 Tbsp plain yogurt, sour cream or buttermilk & let stand for 6 hours at room temperature
Egg (egg whites): 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed + 3 Tbsp water OR 1/4 cup pumpkin puree OR 1 Tbsp vinegar + 1 tsp baking soda
Bread Flour: 1 cup all-purpose flour + 1 Tbsp vital wheat gluten (makes 1 cup)
Cake Flour: 1 cup minus 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour (makes 1 cup)
Pastry Flour: 1/2 cup all-purpose + 1/2 cup cake flour OR 2 Tbsp corn starch + all-purpose to make 1 cup
Flour, self-rising: 1 cup all-purpose flour + 1 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt + 1/4 tsp baking soda (makes 1 cup)
Half & Half: 1 Tbsp melted butter + whole milk to make 1 cup
Heavy Cream, not whipped: 1/3 cup melted butter + 3/4 cup whole milk (makes 1 cup)
Mace: Ground allspice OR round nutmeg
Pumpkin Pie Spice: 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon + 1/4 tsp ground ginger + 1/4 tsp ground allspice + 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg (makes 1 tsp)
Saffron: Dash ground turmeric
Savory: Thyme OR marjoram OR sage
Tarragon: Chervil OR fennel seed OR anise seed
Thai Seasoning: 1 tsp ground coriander + 1 tsp crushed red pepper + 1/4 tsp salt + 1/4 tsp ground ginger + 1/4 tsp garlic powder + 1/4 tsp onion powder (makes 1 Tbsp)
Vanilla Beans: 2 tsp vanilla extract per 1 bean
this list is truncated from one of my favorite money saving + cooking sites, Don’t Waste the Crumbs
Why cooking at home is important
I am often too busy, too tired, and too overwhelmed by the end of the day to even think about eating, much less cooking. Summer is the busiest time of the year for me, but it also happens to be peak garden time, and I am constantly caught between knowing how little time so many of those seasonal flavors will be around and not feeling creative enough to do something fun with them. Because I know my struggles are not just my own, knowing we all have to eat, and, having grown up without a lot of financial resources, this is a series near and dear to my own heart.
I really prefer to reserve eating out and the expense involved there for special occasions. I also tend to feel a whole lot better (read HEALTHIER, and MORE DELICIOUSLY) on the whole when I cook for myself, and feel a lot less guilty indulging in extra fats, salts, and calories in general when I’m doing the majority of my own cooking, because I have worked in enough restaurant kitchens to know why so many folks who eat out regularly struggle with weight and a myriad of other health issues related to the food they consume. The reason everything tastes so good at a restaurant? Heavy cream, butter, oil, sugar and salt, and lots of all of them. Easy ways to get healthier without cutting out the “good stuff” are to cut your soda, alcohol, fast food, and highly processed food intake. If you can eliminate or greatly reduce those things, and cook for yourself at home, you can use salts, fats and sugars as whole ingredients in your home kitchen with reckless abandon while still eating healthier on the whole while saving money at the same time!