Saturday, December 27, 2008
New post on the new site
In which I look at Cool Whip in a can, pre-peeled and cubed potatoes for mashing, and mini Hershey's Kiss cookies. Check it out here.
Friday, December 26, 2008
New Year, New Site, New Cooking
I've bought my own domain for this effort, and am going to be updating the blog over at Recipes of the Damned. I'll do some cross-posting for a while, but do please update your bookmarks.
I'm also going to be relaunching my efforts. My work schedule, which has been the bane of my existence for an awfully long time, is changing. Instead of walking in the door at about 9:15 pm, I will be getting home some time between 6:30 and 6:45 pm. Which means I can spend an hour in the kitchen and still have dinner ready before I was usually even logging off at the office. So I plan to do so. Starting in January I will be challenging myself to cook dinner as many nights as possible, with a limit of one hour of labor in the kitchen on weeknights. And I'll write about it: The planning that helps me succeed, the inevitable mistakes, the ways that one can still avoid the trap of packaged mixes and Jell-O. (I have eaten a fair bit of take-out and Boboli pizza this year, but I have not eaten any Jell-O!)
Come join me at the new site, and please jump into the conversation. I'm looking forward to it.
Happy holidays to you and yours!
Amy
I'm also going to be relaunching my efforts. My work schedule, which has been the bane of my existence for an awfully long time, is changing. Instead of walking in the door at about 9:15 pm, I will be getting home some time between 6:30 and 6:45 pm. Which means I can spend an hour in the kitchen and still have dinner ready before I was usually even logging off at the office. So I plan to do so. Starting in January I will be challenging myself to cook dinner as many nights as possible, with a limit of one hour of labor in the kitchen on weeknights. And I'll write about it: The planning that helps me succeed, the inevitable mistakes, the ways that one can still avoid the trap of packaged mixes and Jell-O. (I have eaten a fair bit of take-out and Boboli pizza this year, but I have not eaten any Jell-O!)
Come join me at the new site, and please jump into the conversation. I'm looking forward to it.
Happy holidays to you and yours!
Amy
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Post-Thanksgiving Roundup
I'm doing a very short post now, but will post more within the coming week--taking advantage of vacation time. I promise that in the not-too-distant future my out-of-control work schedule will be somewhat tamed and I will be making more regular appearances. I'm also in the process of getting my own domain--more info on that to come.
Thanksgiving
This was our fourth year of hosting a vegetarian party, anchored not with Tofurky but with a seitan "pot roast." Much tastier, and surprisingly easy to make; most of the time involved is spent letting it cook, making it a good choice when one is laboring over the many side dishes. Photos can be found here. Despite our best efforts to get the guests to carry away as many of the leftovers as possible we still have a fridge and freezer full of food, and have no excuse for buying any more groceries for about a week.
I had to work the three days before, and spent some of the less-frenzied time surfing pre-Thanksgiving writing. This Slate piece details taste comparisons of vegetarian turkey analogs, though not really an equivalent of my homemade seitan. I'm not that crazy about Tofurky; as the reviewers do, I find it palatable but not great. With the seitan I get a lot more control over the final flavor.
Slate also amused me with this article about why food writers find this such a challenging holiday; it's hard to be truly inventive and write something new when the traditional meal structure is such a powerful force. "It's like redrawing the Kama Sutra when readers really only care about the missionary position," says the author.
Food Books
A bit ago I finally got around to reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. As I had suspected, Pollan rather beautifully lays out the ethical and historical underpinnings of the Recipes of the Damned--even to the point of advising readers to avoid purchasing food at gas stations. Which means I can spend less time elaborating that in my book proposal, and more time making fun of Jell-O.
Thanksgiving
This was our fourth year of hosting a vegetarian party, anchored not with Tofurky but with a seitan "pot roast." Much tastier, and surprisingly easy to make; most of the time involved is spent letting it cook, making it a good choice when one is laboring over the many side dishes. Photos can be found here. Despite our best efforts to get the guests to carry away as many of the leftovers as possible we still have a fridge and freezer full of food, and have no excuse for buying any more groceries for about a week.
I had to work the three days before, and spent some of the less-frenzied time surfing pre-Thanksgiving writing. This Slate piece details taste comparisons of vegetarian turkey analogs, though not really an equivalent of my homemade seitan. I'm not that crazy about Tofurky; as the reviewers do, I find it palatable but not great. With the seitan I get a lot more control over the final flavor.
Slate also amused me with this article about why food writers find this such a challenging holiday; it's hard to be truly inventive and write something new when the traditional meal structure is such a powerful force. "It's like redrawing the Kama Sutra when readers really only care about the missionary position," says the author.
Food Books
A bit ago I finally got around to reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. As I had suspected, Pollan rather beautifully lays out the ethical and historical underpinnings of the Recipes of the Damned--even to the point of advising readers to avoid purchasing food at gas stations. Which means I can spend less time elaborating that in my book proposal, and more time making fun of Jell-O.
Monday, November 10, 2008
God's Love We Deliver
It grows tedious to say my schedule has been out of control, but it is still the truth. I am not quite out of the busy period yet but things are starting to stabilize a bit. For now. So I must seize a chance to write a few posts.
Last week I went with a team of co-workers to take part in our annual volunteering day. We had chosen the New York organization God’s Love We Deliver, which despite the name is a secular nonprofit that delivers meals to people with HIV/AIDS, cancer, MS and other life-altering illnesses. Our office was divided into two teams, one of which did deliveries in the morning and worked in the kitchen in the afternoon. My team worked in the kitchen all day. We got an orientation and a food-safety session, donned our hairnets and aprons, scrubbed and gloved ourselves, and got to work.
It was a blast. Under the supervision of chefs we assembled eggplant parmigiana stacks, chopped leeks, chopped broccoli, and cleaned up our work areas and washed cutting boards and knives before breaking for lunch. We had arranged for pizza delivery, and sat in the boardroom enjoying the chance to be off our feet and talking about the morning’s work.
“This was fun,” said B, a woman maybe five years older than I am. “I’ve never chopped vegetables before.”
I laughed. “How did you manage to get out of that duty?” I asked.
“Well, we never cooked with fresh vegetables when I was growing up,” she said. “Everything was either canned or frozen.”
I thought about that off and on the rest of the day and throughout the week. Had I grown up with fresh vegetables? My mother chopped onions, I remembered, but I’m pretty sure I’d never even looked at bunch spinach until I was in college. Maybe B was not so exceptional. That, I thought, is what the packaged food industry has done to us: in a world of fresh bounty, it has fostered forty-somethings who have never chopped broccoli.
We returned to the kitchen for the afternoon shift. Chopping time again. We cut red potatoes into roastable chunks and cut cauliflower into florets. And then came the carrots, giant bag after giant bag of giant carrots. Our delivery-shift colleagues had come to the kitchen and were clustered around another worktable, and while we were still on cauliflower they had started to peel carrots. B watched them and frowned; it looked tedious, and we were all starting to get a little tired—-especially those who didn’t have much practice with a chef’s knife (only about three of us seemed to really know what we were doing in that respect). “I don’t want to peel carrots,” she said. So when the chef came over with the few peelers that were left, B made sure that she didn’t get one. This turned out to be a tactical error, because those who were not peeling went straight to dicing, which was quite a bit more work. Once those of us with peelers had peeled everything, we too began dicing. The plastic bins filled with little orange cubes. Our gloves became stained with gold. B was getting cranky enough to start to laugh at herself. Few words were ever more welcome to our team than the announcement “That’s enough, we’re done for today, let’s wash up.”
God’s Love We Deliver makes a point of delivering fresh food, cooked with care and by hand, to the whole family of someone affected by an illness. Its goals are to never charge a fee and to never turn away a client. And on clients’ birthdays, they bring a decorated birthday cake.
I plan to go back, and I encourage others to join me, or to find a similar organization in your area, or start one if there isn’t one. There is probably a need.
Last week I went with a team of co-workers to take part in our annual volunteering day. We had chosen the New York organization God’s Love We Deliver, which despite the name is a secular nonprofit that delivers meals to people with HIV/AIDS, cancer, MS and other life-altering illnesses. Our office was divided into two teams, one of which did deliveries in the morning and worked in the kitchen in the afternoon. My team worked in the kitchen all day. We got an orientation and a food-safety session, donned our hairnets and aprons, scrubbed and gloved ourselves, and got to work.
It was a blast. Under the supervision of chefs we assembled eggplant parmigiana stacks, chopped leeks, chopped broccoli, and cleaned up our work areas and washed cutting boards and knives before breaking for lunch. We had arranged for pizza delivery, and sat in the boardroom enjoying the chance to be off our feet and talking about the morning’s work.
“This was fun,” said B, a woman maybe five years older than I am. “I’ve never chopped vegetables before.”
I laughed. “How did you manage to get out of that duty?” I asked.
“Well, we never cooked with fresh vegetables when I was growing up,” she said. “Everything was either canned or frozen.”
I thought about that off and on the rest of the day and throughout the week. Had I grown up with fresh vegetables? My mother chopped onions, I remembered, but I’m pretty sure I’d never even looked at bunch spinach until I was in college. Maybe B was not so exceptional. That, I thought, is what the packaged food industry has done to us: in a world of fresh bounty, it has fostered forty-somethings who have never chopped broccoli.
We returned to the kitchen for the afternoon shift. Chopping time again. We cut red potatoes into roastable chunks and cut cauliflower into florets. And then came the carrots, giant bag after giant bag of giant carrots. Our delivery-shift colleagues had come to the kitchen and were clustered around another worktable, and while we were still on cauliflower they had started to peel carrots. B watched them and frowned; it looked tedious, and we were all starting to get a little tired—-especially those who didn’t have much practice with a chef’s knife (only about three of us seemed to really know what we were doing in that respect). “I don’t want to peel carrots,” she said. So when the chef came over with the few peelers that were left, B made sure that she didn’t get one. This turned out to be a tactical error, because those who were not peeling went straight to dicing, which was quite a bit more work. Once those of us with peelers had peeled everything, we too began dicing. The plastic bins filled with little orange cubes. Our gloves became stained with gold. B was getting cranky enough to start to laugh at herself. Few words were ever more welcome to our team than the announcement “That’s enough, we’re done for today, let’s wash up.”
God’s Love We Deliver makes a point of delivering fresh food, cooked with care and by hand, to the whole family of someone affected by an illness. Its goals are to never charge a fee and to never turn away a client. And on clients’ birthdays, they bring a decorated birthday cake.
I plan to go back, and I encourage others to join me, or to find a similar organization in your area, or start one if there isn’t one. There is probably a need.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Batter Blaster
A friend points me to Batter Blaster, or pancake batter in a can. You must watch the demo video. I have to admit that when I first heard the jingle, I wondered if this might be a parody by the Apple Sisters, but no, it's sincere. Jump to the Press page: They were on "Regis and Kelly"! (But the video is no longer available. I can't be too sorry; about all I can say in praise of "Regis and Kelly" is that it isn't "Regis and Kathie Lee.")
According to the article that accompanies the now-defunct video, the product is available in the Bay Area, at high-end stores and at Costco. Apparently it was hard to get startup funding, though; the article quotes inventor Sean O'Connor as saying "Try telling someone, 'I have this idea. We're going to put pancakes in a can,' and not have them laugh you out of the room." I would imagine.
OK, the batter is USDA Certified Organic--that's something. The can is entirely recyclable. And apparently the propellant is not suitable for huffing. But this product is clearly targeted at the incompetence market. The article acknowledges this, implying that the product might be a hard sell for people who are capable of making their own pancake batter, and noting the price as an obstacle ($4.99-$5.99 per can). O'Connor counters this by comparing the product to pre-bagged salad, which certainly supports his vision from a marketing perspective but doesn't really refute what the article dubs "its contribution to laziness in American kitchens." My initial thought was, I firmly believe that if you are an otherwise healthy and moderately intelligent adult and you find that making pancake batter is beyond your capabilities, you are just not trying. O'Connor notes that the canned batter would be more suitable for singles and empty-nesters. But for that price you could probably go to a diner.
According to the article that accompanies the now-defunct video, the product is available in the Bay Area, at high-end stores and at Costco. Apparently it was hard to get startup funding, though; the article quotes inventor Sean O'Connor as saying "Try telling someone, 'I have this idea. We're going to put pancakes in a can,' and not have them laugh you out of the room." I would imagine.
OK, the batter is USDA Certified Organic--that's something. The can is entirely recyclable. And apparently the propellant is not suitable for huffing. But this product is clearly targeted at the incompetence market. The article acknowledges this, implying that the product might be a hard sell for people who are capable of making their own pancake batter, and noting the price as an obstacle ($4.99-$5.99 per can). O'Connor counters this by comparing the product to pre-bagged salad, which certainly supports his vision from a marketing perspective but doesn't really refute what the article dubs "its contribution to laziness in American kitchens." My initial thought was, I firmly believe that if you are an otherwise healthy and moderately intelligent adult and you find that making pancake batter is beyond your capabilities, you are just not trying. O'Connor notes that the canned batter would be more suitable for singles and empty-nesters. But for that price you could probably go to a diner.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
More Fun With Velveeta
Ask and ye shall receive: I was wondering what I could quickly find to write about today, and in the mail I found a little “Simple Shortcuts” booklet from the Kraft Food & Family people. Most of the recipes were probably OK to eat and could only be faulted for their overreliance on processed foods (Kraft brands, of course), but this one seems pretty alarming. Oh, it looks harmless enough:
What could possibly go wrong?
Velveeta plus spaghetti sauce. Sure, uh, what? Inasmuch as Velveeta can be considered cheese—and I am not saying that it can, just to be perfectly clear—it does not seem like the kind of cheese that goes with spaghetti sauce. I can grudgingly see a role for it with salsa and tortilla chips, but with marinara and pasta? Uh, no.
Unless the spaghetti sauce doesn’t actually have any flavor beyond tomato, which is true of some commercial sauces. Maybe that’s what they’re going for. I was a little surprised to see no brand being touted here; surely Kraft owns a spaghetti sauce brand? There are other recipes in the booklet that call for similarly nameless sauce, which probably rules out the idea that the recipe creators just decided none of the house flavors really were suited to the recipe.
The nutrition information for all recipes is listed in the back of the booklet. This recipe has 520 calories per serving, 14 grams of fat (7 g saturated), 100 mg of cholesterol, 1,000 mg of sodium, 55 g of carbohydrate, 3 g of fiber, 11 g of sugars and 40 g of protein. Which to me looks like it has too much of everything but fiber. Not too surprising; I’m pretty sure the U.S. RDA of Velveeta is zero.
Cheesy Chicken Italiano
3 cups rotini pasta (1/2 lb.)
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb.)
1 jar (14 oz.) spaghetti sauce
6 oz. Velveeta, cubed
COOK pasta. HEAT a large skillet sprayed with cooking spray over medium-high heat. ADD chicken; cook for 2 min. on each side. ADD sauce; cover and simmer over low heat for 10 min. or until chicken is cooked [165° F]. ADD Velveeta; stir until melted. TOP pasta with chicken and sauce. SERVES 4.
Turn this dish into dinner just by adding cooked green beans.
From Kraft Food & Family Simple Shortcuts Fall 2008
What could possibly go wrong?
Velveeta plus spaghetti sauce. Sure, uh, what? Inasmuch as Velveeta can be considered cheese—and I am not saying that it can, just to be perfectly clear—it does not seem like the kind of cheese that goes with spaghetti sauce. I can grudgingly see a role for it with salsa and tortilla chips, but with marinara and pasta? Uh, no.
Unless the spaghetti sauce doesn’t actually have any flavor beyond tomato, which is true of some commercial sauces. Maybe that’s what they’re going for. I was a little surprised to see no brand being touted here; surely Kraft owns a spaghetti sauce brand? There are other recipes in the booklet that call for similarly nameless sauce, which probably rules out the idea that the recipe creators just decided none of the house flavors really were suited to the recipe.
The nutrition information for all recipes is listed in the back of the booklet. This recipe has 520 calories per serving, 14 grams of fat (7 g saturated), 100 mg of cholesterol, 1,000 mg of sodium, 55 g of carbohydrate, 3 g of fiber, 11 g of sugars and 40 g of protein. Which to me looks like it has too much of everything but fiber. Not too surprising; I’m pretty sure the U.S. RDA of Velveeta is zero.
Cheesy Chicken Italiano
3 cups rotini pasta (1/2 lb.)
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb.)
1 jar (14 oz.) spaghetti sauce
6 oz. Velveeta, cubed
COOK pasta. HEAT a large skillet sprayed with cooking spray over medium-high heat. ADD chicken; cook for 2 min. on each side. ADD sauce; cover and simmer over low heat for 10 min. or until chicken is cooked [165° F]. ADD Velveeta; stir until melted. TOP pasta with chicken and sauce. SERVES 4.
Turn this dish into dinner just by adding cooked green beans.
From Kraft Food & Family Simple Shortcuts Fall 2008
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