Cooking your own food: when was your "ah-ha" moment?

Sadly, I spent the first 25 years of my life having never cooked anything from scratch. Sure, I’ve grilled and baked my fair share of vegetables and meats over the past year, but until yesterday I’d never actually mixed raw ingredients to create anything from scratch. Growing up, I’d always enjoyed eating the occasional plate of Fettuccine Alfredo, but it was always of the “pre-made/heat and serve” variety. Knowing that Alfredo was a cream-based sauce, I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to source my ingredients at my local Trader Joe’s. After a quick Google search, I was delighted to learn that I could muster a simple Alfredo with just five simple ingredients (organic half and half, flour, garlic powder, parmesan, and black pepper). Not only were these ingredients incredibly easy to source, they were also shockingly affordable. I also diced up a few mushrooms and threw them into the mix for good measure.

Without even using measuring cups, I was able to start adding the ingredients together in a stove-top pot while carefully watching and tasting as I went. As I started cooking, I began to love the feeling of being in complete control. Sauce is too thick? Add more cream. Tastes too bland? Add more grated Parmesan and garlic powder. Stir vigorously and taste often. After cooking for what couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes, I had managed to create a sauce that easily matched the deliciousness of anything I’ve ever gotten out of a can. Not only was it more economical, I also knew exactly what was going into my food. The $1 fettuccine boiled up in about 8 minutes and the whole meal (well enough for two hungry people) not only tasted great, but was mentally stimulating as well.

Going forward, I feel like a whole new world has opened up to me as I’ve become fascinated by the chemistry behind cooking. I can’t help but feel my next place is going to require a substantially more equipped kitchen.

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First complicated meal I made many years ago was Julia Childs’ Boeuf Bourguignon. Now, that was a process.

You will never like eating processed foods again.

I taught myself to cook during law school. I was bored and read the New York Times every day. The Craig Claiborne recipes tempted me and I learned to cook so I could eat them. My first dishes included paella and a great hazelnut cheesecake. It’s been 45 years of fun since then.

+1,000,000

When I first had to cook for myself, my wise mother gave me a paperback copy of Craig Claiborne’s Kitchen Primer. That was 41 years ago. Wow, we are getting old.

Lots of Ah-ha moments:

Food TV – I remember devouring Molto Mario and Good Eats. I still owe a lot of my cooking to the things those guys preached/taught.
The book “365 Ways to Cook Pasta” – This little paperback gave me confidence by showing me just how simple it was make great sauces.
Braising – everything from Ragu to Coq au Vin relies on learning how to braise properly
Homemade Pasta – so much better and so simple.
Patience when searing and grilling – when I learned not to futz with the meat. Let the Maillard reaction do its magic.
Learning that citrus can counterbalance overly salted foods.
Discovering simple pan sauces – I used to throw out all of that goodness.
When I finally broke down and bought an instant-read thermometer – Should have done this years ago.

Congratulations and welcome to the next level.

I have been cooking since I was very young, so can’t recall an ah-ha moment, but I do know that being able to create dishes and meals from scratch, whether the simple joy of perfect eggs or a roast chicken or the exhausting satisfaction of the marathon of cooking that is required for a high level multi-course dinner party, is one of my favorite things in life. And the more you know and the greater your skill becomes, even more options open up for you. Along the way you can’t help but develop an appreciation for and understanding of the ingredients that go into what you make, and that in-and-of-itself can be wondrous. Wandering through a great farmers’ market and being able to appreciate the produce not just for how pretty it looks, but for what you know it can do and how it’s put together, raises something merely enjoyable to something that can border on rapture.

The downside is the slippery slope of constantly adding to your equipment and cookbook inventory, not to mention the superior ingredients that your growing understanding and appreciation will push you to choose. Fortunately, some of the most important pieces of advanced kitchen equipment are cheap: a silcone spatula and a microplaner are a good place to start.

easy-peasy and oh so good. 20 min up, 20 down, 20 up.

the perfect accompaniment to a nice burg (or just about any wine).

you’re welcome.




alice waters roast chicken


Ingredients
1 chicken 3 1/2 -4 lbs
salt
pepper
OPTIONAL
-a few sprigs thyme, savory or rosemary under the skin of breasts and thighs before roasting
-a few thick slices of garlic clove under the skin
-stuff the cavity with herbs
Preparation
-Tuck wing tips up and under to avoid burning
-Season 1-2 days prior if possible
-Season inside and out with salt and pepper (1 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper)
-Cover loosely and refrigerate
-At least 1 hr before cooking, remove and place in a lightly oiled pan, breast side up
-preheat oven to 400 F
-Roast for 20 min, turn breast side down
-Roast another 20 minutes
-Turn breast side up and roast till done, another 10-20 minutes

Let rest 10-15 min before carving

Thanks for all the wonderful insights. We’ve been frequenting our local farmer’s market and are more excited now about our food options than we’ve ever been. I’ve developed quite the liking for collards (a vegetable I’d never even had before). Personally, I don’t care much for kale or Swiss chard, but I’m finding lightly cooked collards in a sauce pan with coconut oil taste great and only take 5 minutes to cook. Also, it’s disturbing that I’ve never known what an actual carrot tastes like. They were always so bland and depressing until we bought some from the farmer’s market and baked them with some leaves from a rosemary plant we’ve been growing in our apartment. Those carrots blew my mind as I’d never tasting anything like them before.
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Cooking through Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen. I learned so much technique and base knowledge from that world class book. For the grill, Steven Raichlen books are loaded with great scratch recipes and ideas.

I had roommates that laughed over how well I ate when I went out through the wine biz vs. how poorly I ate at home. My Mom was a good home cook, and I decided to begin trying a little harder.

First moment - Letting meat rest. I tried meticulously following a rack of lamb recipe that didn’t mention resting time afterwards, and I couldn’t understand why my meat was stone raw. I still feel kind of bad about this.

Second moment - the first time I pulled off brandy-cream sauce for a peppered steak.

Third - Nailing bearnaise.

Fourth - Realizing that I was cooking from recipes less and less and trusting my experience more and more.

Fifth - When a Beard-award winning explained why his vegetables were so much better than mine (a splash of some sort of acidity).

Not long after I moved out of the dorm as an undergrad, I saw a copy of this in a bookstore and figured it would be a good thing to get and work through.

It was.

Just nailed a cream of mushroom soup. Ground up some baby bella mushrooms with chicken broth in my blender. Added that to a pot with half and half and flour. In a separate sauce pan, I cooked some more chicken broth in minced garlic and onions. Once the sauce pan was simmering, I strained the infused chicken broth into the pot with a colander. Then, I threw in a generous amount of ground peppercorn and black pepper. Stirred until it simmered, then served. WAY better than anything that comes from a can.

For years, I heard the best way to cook a quality steak is in a hot frying pan, but it sounds absurd so I resisted. Then, I tired it. Aha!

Lots of ah-ha’s here … beginning with making swedish meatballs from the Betty Crocker cookbook for Boys and Girls for the extended family and discovering how wonderful it is to feed people … then the glorious Julia Child days of discovering new ways of food and learning new tastes to the first time I made my own bread … oh my oh my.

And tonight just back from dinner with my chef daughter and her chef fiance, listening to them and realizing that for them cooking is a continuous series of ah-ha moments … not a bad way to live.

Hooray. Minced garlic in lieu of garlic powder is a step up. I always use fresh unless making a dry rub.

Basically you are making a Bechemal sauce and adding broth and other ingredients to make a soup.

What’s next on the menu?

Ha good question! Perhaps a trip to the library? :slight_smile:

Epicurious.com and NYT cooking online can be your searchable friends.

For me it has been a series and continues to be series of ah-ha’s.
It’s a nice long journey.

PS accept the fact that sometimes ah-ha’s turn into uh-oh’s…

If you are not already doing so, I’d say your next step should be making your own chicken stock (or beef, pork, fish whatever). In my opinion, it is the highest reward for the least effort of anything in the cooking world. You think your mushroom soup was good already? It will rise to another level. Nothing that comes from a can or box can come even close; and the real stuff you can buy from your butcher, while likely very good, is extremely expensive.

Take a weekend and make stock. You’ll never go back.