Thirty five cooking tips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbiXc5cUVus

Some of these are well worth noting!

Explosion at the Bruce cottage

I decided to fix the last two eggs for breakfast this morning.  So I took out a heavy, deep, ceramic cereal bowl, sprayed it with non-stick spray, and cracked and dropped in the two eggs.  I covered it with a damp paper towel so I wouldn't have egg to clean up inside the microwave.  Zap for 1 minute.  Took a peek, then zapped for another minute.  I carefully removed the bowl (very hot).  Hmm. A slice of cheese would taste good on that, so I took the package out of the frig and removed a slice and placed it on the eggs, hoping it would melt.  It just sat there.  So I walked to the opposite side and took out a fork and knife. When I poked my wonderful egg/cheese meal with the fork it exploded.  And I mean, everywhere, including my nice light teal shirt that matches my teal and yellow summer slacks and all around the coffee pot and microwave.  Plus the steam scalded my right forearm. So, it wasn't cooling while I did those other tasks, it was building up steam.  There's a message here, and I'll figure it out.

Lard is good for us--again

When I was growing up, there were always several pounds of lard in the house. Mom cooked everything in it. Plus she was the most fabulous pie baker in the world with the flakiest crusts--all made from lard. But she always read the health articles in the ladies' magazines, and sometime in the 1950s, lard disappeared from our home, and even the grocery stores. I've never purchased it, but it's been coming back in style the last 10 years and is much healthier than the oils that replaced it.

 http://empoweredsustenance.com/lard-is-healthy/

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3176558/It-s-healthier-cook-LARD-sunflower-oil-Extraordinary-experiment-shows-ve-told-cooking-oils-wrong.html

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/28/cooking-with-lard-baking_n_5212804.html

That’s the way the feta crumbles

They can't fool me. If feta cheese crumbled is $1 more for 2 ounces less than block feta, I buy the block and crumble it myself. If "lite" salad dressing's first ingredient is water and is $1 higher than regular, I buy the regular and add water.

How to crumble feta cheese   I was surprised there were actually “how to” sites for this.  I just sliced the block and cut it up.  It sort of fell apart.

Unintended consequences of planning ahead

I've always been an early riser, and I go out and meet the folks about 6 a.m. at the coffee shop (different ones depending on the day). I even blog about it. Coffee Spills. But I also bring home the refill. For a long time, I just warmed it up to drink later; then I started saving some for the next morning. Then I started saving the whole thing for the next morning. Along came the "fall back" time change. Early risers hate this time of year (we love the "spring forward". Now we're waking up at 3:30 instead of 4:30. Lately, it's been 3 a.m. because I know that coffee is downstairs waiting for me. Even if I dawdle in the shower, take special care with my make-up and hair, and don't warm it up until 4:30, my mind at 3 a.m. knows it is calling, calling. Even the cat who likes to start smacking the window blinds around 4 a.m. thinks this is way to early for breakfast.

This morning I killed a little time trying to encourage sleepiness by shifting to the couch. I didn't want to watch Birdman of Alcatraz (when I was a veterinary librarian, I had his books in the collection), so I watched a cooking show on Food Network about another bird, the turkey, thinking it would put me to sleep. But I got caught up in the techniques. Aren't these TV chefs amazing? The eye and ear are not clever enough to determine how the chatter evolves seamlessly with the green bean casserole. I know it's the miracle of writing (are their writers on strike, too?) and editing, but it's the smoothness that amazes me. The tricky biscuit dough wreath rolled in cinnamon just appears on the sheet from rolling to cutting to placing in seconds, but her cheery, instructional voice doesn't change, her jeweled sweater doesn't have egg wash splashes, nothing sticks to the rolling pin, there's nothing under her fingernails, and strands of her long, blonde hair don/t appear in the gravy. The woman is amazing.

Cooking for one or two

Last week at the library book sale I picked up a few Taste of Home magazines, one being Cooking for One or Two, Vol. 3, 2001. I can't find on the Reiman website that this title still exists, although it does show a Cooking for Two title. It's fun to look through, just to get some new ideas for menus, although I do wonder a bit. If I'd been cooking for 6 and had become an empty nester, I think I'd figure out I should buy 2 pork chops instead of 6 or 8. And I know enough to cook a roast and put half in the freezer. I've been cooking for two for almost 20 years now and I have learned a few things I wish I'd done earlier:

Spray skillets and pans with a cooking spray (I use Meijer's soy bean oil) even for stove top cooking, and never have a problem with clean up.

Pour a can of undiluted cream of mushroom soup over the beef roast and you'll never mess with gravy again.

Buy a small roasting pan with lid.

Don't bother to thaw your meat; makes no difference, not even hamburgers, and may take only a few minutes longer to cook if you keep turning and don't let it burn.

I haven't used a broiler in years (doesn't work). For steak I semi-thaw a boneless or semi-boneless ribeye and then while still firm, slice diagonally in strips and cook on the stove top in my trusty black iron skillet, still marvelous after 46 years of use. It's really easy to remove the large chunks of fat before frying when cut cold, and the kitchen doesn't get hot or smokey.

Repackage into smaller, airtight, ziplock bags if you do buy in quantity. (Even my quantity purchases are small compared to most.) I make up my hamburger patties ahead, divide up the chicken, and sometimes cut up the roast before freezing. However, Mom used to say beef roasts smaller than 3 lbs didn't quite taste right, but she was known for killing the cow the second time by over cooking the meat into charcoal.

I use Splenda often, and have found just a touch of vanilla adds a bit of sparkle. My daughter, who is pre-diabetic, says you need a bit more Splenda than sugar to make a dessert taste right, such as a pumpkin pie.

More and more I am grilling chopped up fresh or frozen vegetables in a little olive oil. If the pieces are small, it only takes a few minutes.

If we didn't have guests occasionally, my oven wouldn't get much use. Baking for two, if one is disciplined and the other isn't, is just folly. Go to a nice quality bakery and buy 4 cookies.

Some things, however, stay the same, whether or not you're cooking for 2 or 12. Yesterday I forgot to prick a hole in the potato, and it exploded in the oven. Today is clean the oven day.