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redroanchroniclesFriends, I come to you today as a neophyte, a humble student, a seeker of knowledge, a person who only recently learned to distinguish between a parsnip and a rutabaga.
There is much work to be done, as you can see.
Part of my Epic Quest for Awesomely Healthy Living (patent pending) is a re-tooling of my diet. To this end, I have tried repeatedly to whittle away at my definitions of "allowed" and "not allowed" sweets, and have finally been forced to conclude that, in order to control my sweet tooth -- which left to its own devices, would eventually destroy Tokyo -- I really need to have a hard and fast rule: no processed sugars. At all. Not even in my tea.
Since my tea was my less-delicious substitute for the delicious sugar-filled soy chai beverages that I decided weren't worth their price (my waistline and $5 a pop), it pains me to limit myself to no sugar in my tea. I am of the opinion that without sugar, tea tastes like warm water. But I am steadfast in my resolve! I am going to kick this thing! I am not going to eat those freaking sugars!
Anyway, I have only come here seeking knowledge (because they would not teach me aaaaall in colllllege). I hoped that you, the people of the Internet, might have recommendations for me of tea flavors or specific brands that, when brewed and consumed with no additional sugar-y deliciousness, actually taste like something. (Teas that taste good sweetened with honey are also allowable. Honey is good, I've just found that it tastes kind of awful in most of the teas I like.) I prefer the spicier teas like chai, ginger, cinnamon, peppermint and whatnot, over the fruity ones, but I'm willing to experiment. (malnpudl, you need not apply. Your favored tea could strip paint, and/or my esophagus. You are clearly made of sterner stuff than I.)
Also, I've been cooking. It would be fair to say that I have been cooking up a storm, in fact. Over the weekend I made chicken curry, parsnip soup and pannekaken with tasty improvised fillings. I felt like a for-real chef. Occasionally. (Except when I was sort of scorching the ginger honey carrots.) They were all delicious and pretty easy, but I have to say that the parsnip soup was my favorite; I think the chicken curry would've been more interesting if I'd been braver with the spices (and not afraid of killing Mal with the spiciness of said spices), but the parsnip soup was just really simple and wholesome and filling. It tasted like autumn.
I'm just curious, for those of you who do cook and who may find my attempts to do so perhaps simultaneously charming and horrifying, what advice would you give to someone who is just beginning to cook and is struggling with all the technique, planning, budgeting and organization that apparently goes into cooking one's own meals? What trick do you wish you'd known when you started? (For me, it is the peel-garlic-by-crushing-it-with-a-knife thing. Time-saver!) What gadget can you not live without? What ingredients do you consider both versatile and indispensable?
There is much work to be done, as you can see.
Part of my Epic Quest for Awesomely Healthy Living (patent pending) is a re-tooling of my diet. To this end, I have tried repeatedly to whittle away at my definitions of "allowed" and "not allowed" sweets, and have finally been forced to conclude that, in order to control my sweet tooth -- which left to its own devices, would eventually destroy Tokyo -- I really need to have a hard and fast rule: no processed sugars. At all. Not even in my tea.
Since my tea was my less-delicious substitute for the delicious sugar-filled soy chai beverages that I decided weren't worth their price (my waistline and $5 a pop), it pains me to limit myself to no sugar in my tea. I am of the opinion that without sugar, tea tastes like warm water. But I am steadfast in my resolve! I am going to kick this thing! I am not going to eat those freaking sugars!
Anyway, I have only come here seeking knowledge (because they would not teach me aaaaall in colllllege). I hoped that you, the people of the Internet, might have recommendations for me of tea flavors or specific brands that, when brewed and consumed with no additional sugar-y deliciousness, actually taste like something. (Teas that taste good sweetened with honey are also allowable. Honey is good, I've just found that it tastes kind of awful in most of the teas I like.) I prefer the spicier teas like chai, ginger, cinnamon, peppermint and whatnot, over the fruity ones, but I'm willing to experiment. (
malnpudl, you need not apply. Your favored tea could strip paint, and/or my esophagus. You are clearly made of sterner stuff than I.)Also, I've been cooking. It would be fair to say that I have been cooking up a storm, in fact. Over the weekend I made chicken curry, parsnip soup and pannekaken with tasty improvised fillings. I felt like a for-real chef. Occasionally. (Except when I was sort of scorching the ginger honey carrots.) They were all delicious and pretty easy, but I have to say that the parsnip soup was my favorite; I think the chicken curry would've been more interesting if I'd been braver with the spices (and not afraid of killing Mal with the spiciness of said spices), but the parsnip soup was just really simple and wholesome and filling. It tasted like autumn.
I'm just curious, for those of you who do cook and who may find my attempts to do so perhaps simultaneously charming and horrifying, what advice would you give to someone who is just beginning to cook and is struggling with all the technique, planning, budgeting and organization that apparently goes into cooking one's own meals? What trick do you wish you'd known when you started? (For me, it is the peel-garlic-by-crushing-it-with-a-knife thing. Time-saver!) What gadget can you not live without? What ingredients do you consider both versatile and indispensable?
no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 04:13 pm (UTC)Sweet-tooth. All sugar is addictive according to researchers who have been doing experiments that involve brain scans and brain chemistry. Sugar + fat is just as addictive to humans as substances like cocaine. So replacing white sugar with honey doesn't work - the same addiction is there, releasing endorphins into our brains.
The good news? Things that taste like cardboard at first will reveal themselves as being lovely and flavorful as your brain adjusts. I remember when I quit eating butter on my baked potato. I -could not- taste anything. A few months later I could taste all kinds of things in potatoes, in fact they were really -good- without butter. So be patient with yourself as you detox your taste buds.
I'm going to second the "you don't need gadgets" theme. A good chefs knife, I got a nice stainless one that I've used now for at least 20 years, a paring knife (I love the extra cheap one I got for $3 at the local hardware store) AND a sharpener. If you don't want to learn to sharpen on a knife "steel" then get something like the AccuSharp sharpener (+-$8). Dull knifes are both annoying and dangerous.
I keep a cabinet full of spices, perhaps 25 different bottles (bottles keep bugs out of things) of which I regularly use about 15. If you can, buy spices in bulk from a good health food store. Bottles of stuff on grocery store shelves are often quite old, and they usually cost 3 to 10 times as much as bulk. Throw out unused spices once a year and start over, spices loose flavor as they age. In dishes that use basil, oregano and the like, I also like to use dried nettle, which imparts a lovely subtle flavor and adds great vitamins and calcium.
I roast a couple of chickens at a time, have roast chicken, bone the rest of the chicken and freeze in approximately one or two cup servings, which is perfect for the quick meal ingredient. Bones get made into chicken soup which I also freeze for later use. Having soup frozen in 1/2 cup to quart sizes allows you to use whatever amount you need for a recipe. I like to cook rice, barley, lentils and or beans separately to throw into the soup stock along with handy vegetables (not broccoli). Cooked grains freeze well too. By the way, go look at canned chicken soup labels (or for that matter the cubes) and note the amounts of salt and monosodium glutamate in them. Euuuwww.
Basic vinagrette: vinegar (red wine, white wine, apple cider) or lemon (use fresh lemons, the bottled stuff is too bitter for this) ~ 1/3 cup, big pinch of dill, dash of water if you like (cuts acid a little), pinch of brown sugar (unless some other ingredient contains sugar), salt to taste, pepper if you want. Olive oil, not too much, should be less than 1/4 of dressing unless you need the fat. To this basic recipe I like to add plain yellow mustard, 1+ tablespoons full, depending on how you like mustard. Balsamic vinegar can be added for variety, but I wouldn't make it the primary vinegar.
Salad + protein (tuna, shrimp, chicken) + vinagrette = good quick meal.
Someplace I have a good recipe for curry. Yep, curry is just a bunch of spices cooked together, and if you have a good basic recipe you can then adjust to your taste. It is really easy.
Link to post where I recommend a cookbook:
http://ranunculus.dreamwidth.org/295566.html