True Confession of a Kitchen Cheater

I feel like I should be in front of a support group.

Hi - my name is Donna and I am a kitchen cheater.  I use cake mixes from a box, and frosting from a can.  I don't make my own sauces; can't figure why I would when some of the big companies make really yummy ones and they are almost as cheap as I could make them.  I have never made my own pasta and I occasionally buy gravy in a jar.  But, to my credit, I never tell people that I make things from scratch if I don't.  Not really.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty good in the kitchen.  I actually make a couple of things that turned out really good.  One that was so awful that even a teenage boy wouldn't eat it.  I just need to stay away from the meat recipes.  Not so good for me.

First item of success, ( I measure success by what someone else likes, since I tend to forget to taste some meals and don't have a clue if good or not so much ) was a simple sauteed veggies dish.  There was a bit of a lot - meaning a little bit of everything in the pan by the time I was done.  Since I was cooking for my grand daughter, I threw in her favorites.  It started out with the basics - onions, garlic, mushrooms, shredded carrots, chopped water chestnuts (her favorite), canned baby corn (rates # 2 for her ), a couple different squash, snow peas, and at the very end, topped with diced tomatoes.  Of course these were sauteed in a small amount of extra virgin olive oil, and then there were the spices.  This is the 'kitchen cheater' part.  I didn't do my own spice assortment.  I just did the simple stuff and the things that I knew she would like.

Just before the fire was ready to be turned off, I stirred in about a teaspoon of peanut butter, a few good dashes of soy sauce, and the real cheat item, a couple tablespoons of Panda Express Orange Chicken sauce.  Yep - right off the shelf type bottled sauce.  A quick stir with all these items and it was time to turn off the heat and add the tomatoes as a topper.  So, did I cheat?  Just a little.  But, she liked it.  And this is a girl who likes salads, canned green beans and corn on the cob.  Now she is wanting to know how she can make it herself.  And I will have to confess to the true good taste of this dish.

Second item of success - hummus.  A few years ago I made hummus every now and then and was not impressed with myself.  Got bored of it pretty quickly.  For the past couple of months my brother has been bringing by small containers of hummus that he gets from Trader Joe's.  Trader Joe's has some good stuff.  Pretty much everything from there is good.  My brother buys most of his groceries there so I consider him a pretty good judge of 'good', especially when it comes to the hummus.  After about a half dozen containers of the 'good stuff', I decided to make another attempt at hummus.  There just isn't anything to it.  So why is mine either boring or too extreme?

First batch, boring.  Second batch, just not a good flavor.  Third batch - really good.  At least to me.  I took some to one of my grand daughters and she said it was great.  But, she is such a good kid, she may tell me that even if it was lousy.  Then I tried it on the teenage grandson, the same one who couldn't stand one of my meaty dishes - he didn't like it at all.  He's a good kid too but is painfully honest.  Now for the real test - my brother.  He's dropping by on his way out of town.  I made him a small amount and had him taste it before he left.  No reason to take something that you won't eat, right?  He said it was good.  Had one minor criticism, which happened to be the same thing that I didn't like, and it took it with him.  WOW !  Not too bad.  Kinda helped that I got these unbelievablely good mesquite corn chips to go with them from the farmer's market.  Anyway, I got a text from him a few hours later, asking to share what I put in my hummus so he could start making his own.

Damn - gotta give up the 'cheater in the kitchen' again.  I wasn't a total cheat.  I just didn't use all my own spices.  I used a very basic recipe, very very basic, and added a bit of extra sea salt, and the one cheat.

May I take this time to say that I really like Panda Express.  I must, since my refrigerator is full of left over little packets of sauces.  And thank goodness for that.  When the hummus was tasting a bit bland, I added just a tiny bit of Chinese chili sauce, from the little packets.  That made all the difference in the world.  And that is my big 'cheat' this time.  Again, not too bad, but I will have to confess when I give over the recipe, if I can remember exactly what I put in it.

That's my confession.  I feel a little better.  But may not when I actually get done sharing with those who believe I did an amazing job at creating a new dish for them.

By the way - you can now buy the Chinese Chili Sauce, from Panda Express, in some of the grocery stores.  This is a fairly new item.  Beware of it's strength, if it is anything like that of the little packets.  Recently I made plum sauce.  Didn't have enough body so I added a little chili sauce.  The sauce went from boring, directly to FIRE, with just a small amount.  I couldn't even think of using it but, as always, I handed it off to my brother's girlfriend, who loved it as a marinade.  And they shared with the singer in his band and she loved it.  These women must have mouths and digestive systems made of steel. 

Old Dog and New Kitchen Tricks

I saw just a few minute of a show on television this morning and could not believe the couple of simple kitchen tricks I learned.  A couple that everyone could use occasionally if not weekly.  Check these out -

How to boil an egg, the right way -  I thought I knew but I have never done it this way -

Add your eggs to a pan, pour water to just a little above the top of the eggs and turn on the heat.

Bring the water to a nice rolling boil.  Then this next part is a surprise to me. 

Add the lid and take off the heat.  Really?  You don't continue to boil on the fire? You let it stand with the lid on it for 15 to 20 minutes.  Then -  

add the eggs to ice water.  Allow to cool.  The peeling should be pretty easy at that point. 

Who hasn't bought avocados, when they are still not ripe, and need them to be ripe, SOON!  It is sort of watching the boiling pot.  You know, the watched pot is slow to boil.  And the unripe avocado will not ripen if you need it soon.  Well - here is a way to get them to ripen in two days or less.  It is sort of like the paper bag that we have all known about for ever, but with a twist.

Take your avocado and place it in a paper bag, but this time, add a banana. 

 

In just a day or two, you have a ripe avocado, but the banana isn't always so great.

By the way - do you know how to check for how ripe the avocado is?  Press gently on the belly button end of the fruit.  That would be the end where the stem was attached.  If it is firm but not hard, it is a ready to use avocado.  You can also remove the little hard piece that is there and check for the color.  If that part is really dark, the fruit may be bad inside.  If it is too pale, it may not be ripe.  Better to buy too soon then the rotten stuff. 

Best for last again.  This is important because every person who spends time in the kitchen encounters this issue.  The dreaded onion eyes.

There's a few rules that I always follow and pass along to anyone who will listen, when it comes to cutting onions.  First, get someone else to do it if you can.  Second, you can buy frozen onions that are already chopped.  Third, don't listen to the first two.  Suck it up and find a way that works for you.  I think that NOT cutting in the area of the root, until the very end, helps.  Seems to for me.  I also have heard that chewing gum while cutting can help but I have never tried that one, because I just don't have a huge problem with the onion eye.  Here's a few things that I saw on the kitchen show this morning.

Before you begin to cut your onion, put it in the freezer for about 10 to 15 minutes.  Not longer because you don't want the frozen onion. I keep my onions in my refrigerator all the time and I think that helps too.







Make sure you use a super sharp knife.  If the blade is dull it will tear the edges and even a little bit of a rough edge will produce more onion fumes. 

Now this is the one that I have never heard.  Light a simple candle near your cutting area.  The flame of the candle will draw the scent of the onion away from you.  I may try that next time just to see if it works.  For sure a couple of the grand kids will try this.  They will try anything.

There you have it - the perfect chopped onions and the end of the kitchen hints, for now.  

Make Life Simpler

Here we go again with the ideas that some person came up with that has me thinking - why didn't I think of that.  At least I can share with you, some of these ideas that came from a person much more creative than I.

Are you a back yard chef?  A BBQ master?  Here's a little something that will help eliminate some of the mess.  Also - you will be able to put out an amount of condiments you need, replenish when needed, and keep those large containers in the fridge where they belong. Want to make clean up even easier?  Use a disposable muffin pan and just toss it when you are done.  

 

I am not crazy about this one.  I believe that half the enjoyment of the Oreo cookie is getting some on the fingers.  But for those of you that find it a bit messy, here you go.

 

This photo shows using a ketchup bottle, but you could use any bottle with similar tops.  Do you enjoy being creative with your breakfast?  Making fun designs for the kids.  This idea will help make those designs much easier.  Think about using this for waffle mix also, to disperse evenly on the griddle. 

And lastly for today - any of you who are sandwich eaters, and enjoy the good ole' luncheon meat, this will hit home.  And you too will be saying, why didn't I think of that?!

 

That's it for now.  I will continue to search for these fun and entertaining ways of making our life a bit easier, and having us saying "Why didn't I think of that?"