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The way that it went down is that the fellas had a Boy Scout event tonight that included dinner, so I was home alone. I was going to just grab a burrito out of the freezer and be done with it, but as I was wrapping up work and heading to the kitchen, it dawned on me that I had no time constraints and could do something nicer. I'd been wanting to make Damn Delicious One Pot Garlic Parmesan Pasta and ooh I had some shrimp in the freezer...let's add a veg...broccoli??? Nah, wasn't feeling it. Peas? Yep, that sounded good.
Half an hour later I sat down at the table with a nice elegant pasta dish that was begging to be accompanied by a glass of wine. Afterwards it was simple to wash up, portion away the leftovers, walk the dog, and then come back home to nurse said glass of wine. Life is good!
In San's post today she linked to The Beginner's Guide to Cooking at Home. At the time I glanced at it...did it suggest starting with foods that you like? Check. From there the TL&DR version is: come up with some ideas of what you want to cook, pick out some recipes, invest in basic kitchen equipment, study up on basic cooking techniques (specifically pick out x skill and head over to Youtube), lean into leftovers, advance to the skill of passive cooking, and finally the mega hack: clean as you go.
I kept thinking about the article and just for fun I thought I would share my cooking backstory to illustrate why I agree with all of the above.
My mom is an excellent cook and growing up she cooked practically every night. That was both a blessing and curse. A blessing because I got to see what was possible, and a curse because she did it all. My dad and I got to clean up the kitchen afterwards.
I was a Nutrition major in college and got to take a few food science and cooking classes along the way, so again I knew what was possible without having to actually come up with a plan and execute it.
And then I got myself a diploma, no career plan whatsoever (more about that here), and moved into my first apartment on my own. My mom used the occasion to upgrade a lot of her kitchen stuff and sent me away with the hand-me-downs plus the basics. I made my first grocery list and spent ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS on all manner of stuff (context: this was 1997 so yes it was a good bit of food) and I was up and running.
Ha, not at all. I had a brand spanking new Nutrition degree and had just lost 50 pounds, and I had a lot of lofty ideas about what I *should* eat. Yes you can make a pot of whole grains seasoned with lemon juice for pennies but do you want to eat that pot of whole grains for days on end until it's gone?
Punchline: I made a lot of very labor intensive, very uninteresting food and came to hate cooking in very short order. Within months single serve convenience foods began to move into my freezer.
Then I started traveling for work which meant (1) I was never home and (2) we got a $30 per day meal stipend, so my life's mission became to spend as little of that as possible. As best I remember I lived off free hotel continental breakfasts supplemented by random cheapo shelf stable things for as long as I was on the road. I'll have you know that a girl can go a long way on breakfast cereal and cheese danishes.
And then I stopped traveling, turned 30, and bought a house. It's almost like I was becoming an adult or something.
The standout of the house is that the kitchen was lovely, and something about that motivated me to find a reason to be in the kitchen for longer than it took to nuke up a Lean Cuisine. There's no reason why it took me this long, since my apartment kitchens were perfectly adequate. It was just that there was something special about the room.
One of my dinner go-to's in the frozen meal department was a pasta with cream sauce, peas, and teeny tiny shrimp. One day I wondered if I could make something like that from scratch. I don't remember now where I got the recipe or anything else about how I went about it, but the answer was yes I could. Very slowly I phased the convenience version out of my grocery list.
Project #2: Lean Cuisine made a pasta with sesame chicken that I was fond of. I knew enough about myself to know that I didn't like cooking chicken and even if I did, it would be a stretch make crispy chicken nuggets from scratch. After mulling this over, I didn't have a solution but by coincidence I'd gotten my hands on Pam Anderson's How to Cook Without a Book and used her guide to make pad thai (nowhere close to Lean Cuisine sesame chicken but hey they're both Asian dishes with pasta so close enough). I liked it.
Next thing to solve: was there a way to freeze individual portions of food? Why yes, Target had some containers that looked about the right size and yes this stuff seemed to accept being frozen and reheated as long as I got to it within a few months.
So without having a plan, I was now regularly cooking two things that I
liked and things snowballed from there. I kept picking up new things
to try. One day I happened across American's Test Kitchen
on TV which helped me up my cooking skills (blessing: the show was
very detailed/curse: sometimes they just got too dang detailed and too
fussy for their own good).
The next breakthrough happened when the owner of the company that I worked for invited a few of us over to his house and cooked dinner for us. I saw something revolutionary that Changed Everything. Whoa I hope you're sitting down when I tell you this...remember how when I was a kid the rule was that my dad and I cleaned up the kitchen after dinner? Well...at this guy's house there was nothing to clean up!!! Every time he had a spare moment he cleaned up the counters and washed up any dishes that were lying around. And it didn't take away from his cooking or socializing with his guests!!! The cleanup just magically happened.
I tried out this radical idea at home and found that cooking was even more enjoyable when there wasn't a huge mess to clean up afterwards!!!!
And then I learned about cooking blogs....
Fast forward to tonight and I go from not having any idea what I want for dinner to having a spontaneous idea to make a creamy pasta with peas and shrimp...which so help me it never occurred to me until I sat down to write this that I'm still making a fancy version of the frozen pasta with peas and shrimp that I ate for years in the days before I started cooking for myself.
What has your cooking journey been like?
Birchie (or do you prefer Beckett? Or something else? - I need to ask after NGS' recent post about names!).... anyway, I love this post. I was going to comment on the fact that I loved that you were making fancy dinners JUST FOR YOURSELF (because I know single people who always claim that cooking for one person is hard and so much work and not efficient, but you single-handedly, inspired by the link that I posted, debunked that myth!
ReplyDeleteI have been doing some solo-cooking lately and I can attest to the fact that it is quite possible to cook health, delicious meals for one person from scratch. And the freezer is your best friend. I also clean up while I cook.
As you said: it works!
I like Birchie! I wish I'd thought of it before I started using Beckett as my handle;-)
DeleteI think that there are some dinners that are better suited to a crowd, such as things that don't "leftover" very well or something that's so large that it takes forever for one person to eat (examples: cakes, 9 x 13" lasagnas). At the end of the day, my fancy pants dinner is "just" spaghetti with a few other things thrown in.
Love this post! My mom was also the main cook in the house, which meant that I didn't know much when I left home. I bought a couple of cookbooks, because that is what you do, and kind of winged it. In my single girl days I ate a lot of pasta, popcorn, and fruit. My husband cooked when we were first married, but when I stayed home with baby number 1, I started to do the cooking. I still do all the cooking, and since I became plant-based and the guys did not, I got creative. I wrote a cooking blog for a few years over at yummy mummy club, and that was pretty fun. I have always said that when my husband retires, I will retire from cooking meat. I don't know if this will happen, but maybe.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to remember the last time that I bought a cookbook and I just can't get there. But oh yes I remember my starter stack of cookbooks!
DeleteAs well as all of the popcorn and fruit for dinner nights!
DeleteUgh. I hope I enjoy cooking again someday. I've gone through several phases- in my 20s my two big meals were pasta, with sauce from a jar and steamed broccoli; or heating up a can of Amy's chili. I supplemented that with Chinese takeout and Subway sandwiches. Then when I got married I got very into cooking, using cookbooks and then eventually food blogs for recipes. Somewhere along the line that became less and less fun- having two kids (one very, very picky) really killed the joy in that. I've gotten to the point where I cook a nice dinner on Sundays- which I enjoy eating, but if someone else took over that job I would not be sad- and the other nights we eat leftovers, pasta, veggie burgers, or something else thrown together. Next week should be interesting- my son will be home after living in an apartment and cooking for himself for three months. I'm hoping we can do some fun meal collaborations (???) We'll see.
ReplyDeletePicky eaters are no fun! I've come to realize that the picky eaters in my house are the adults so yes I'm a huge part of the problem. I like making Sunday dinner (when I have an idea of what to make for it) because there's no time pressure.
DeleteMy Mom was the main cook, but all of us kids were involved, so I was pretty independent in a kitchen when I left home.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy cooking...when I have a lot of time? It can start to feel like a chore at this stage in life when the kids are still quasi-little (though they have broad palates, so I appreciate that).
I've started eating intuitively over the last 6 months, so as ironic as it might sound, I cook less now. I went on a lot of elimination diets over the years to help with some different health issues, so I was making EVERYTHING (including homemade mayo). So it has felt great to do more prefab things for a change. Like I've served chicken nuggets 2-3 times in the last 6 months, but would only have had them 2-3 times over several years before that. It feels great. Tonight I'm making one of our favourite meals - Chicken Mango Curry and it takes a lot of time, but earlier in the week I made boxed Mac n' Cheese. The freedom to eat/cook what I feel like, when I want to is life-changing.
I can relate to trying different diets and finding freedom. Last year I really pushed myself to figure out sports nutrition which led to me giving up my sport because it was so miserable and not healthy.
DeleteI was a nutrition major in college and on day 1 of my first nutrition class the lesson was that there are no good or bad foods. That's always stuck with me.
I have a complicated relationship with cooking. I love cooking and baking and trying new things. My husband's dietary restrictions make it challenging for me to try new things for a variety of reasons. First of all, there's a lot he just can't eat. Second of all, even if I can eat something, if it's at all possible that it will make him sick, I don't want to cook with it in our shared kitchen and risk cross-contamination. Third, it's expensive to make something and not like it and end up throwing some or all of it out. So. Basically, I like to cook, but I basically rely on the same handful of recipes over and over again.
ReplyDeleteI get it. My diet would be a lot more restricted if I had to worry about it making my family sick.
DeleteI used to like cooking but I have one very picky eater at home and there is always someone who is not pleased with the food I put on the table. It's been a little rough. Pizza is the one food everyone is happy with and pasta with tomato sauce but that gets a little old. My husband is better with taking the critiques so the last couple of weeks he is the main cook and I am the kitchen helper. It actually works out nicely so far.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that one of the reasons that turning dinner over to the hubs worked out so well is exactly what you say - he doesn't care what the peanut gallery says.
DeleteSo interesting to read this. I was single for a long time, and in my early working-night-shift-going-to-grad-school (for the first degree, ahem), I relied a lot on canned soup (Progresso lentil, which is hideous for you but so good) and salad. And frozen meals. And cereal. Travel nursing introduced me to some new things but it was mostly convenience foods - I never could live up to my mom's wonderful dinners, and I didn't try. I did move on, though, to more "real food" when I went back to grad school (the second time....). Marriage? We had a list of meals that we'd both eat, I was the primary cook, and we relied a lot on Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals. Post-divorce? I no longer eat meat, try to eat vegan as much as possible, and find myself making things like soy curls (:>) and quinoa/chickpea flour "bread" that I eat as my main course. So to say my eating has evolved is an understatement! Sounds like you've had a similar evolution, though perhaps with fewer sharp turns. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat were/are your favorite cooking blogs, other than Cheap Lazy Vegan? Do share! :)