Older Daughter has begun a new cooking campaign.
To recap, Older Daughter pays "rent" by cooking for us. She has become an impressive and creative cook and has introduced us to many new and wonderful dishes. She's also great at improvising, and she's been doing this a lot lately. How?
Well, with our spending lockdown after my job loss, she is determined to use up a lot of random things we have in the chest freezer. She is almost to the point of closing her eyes, extracting something random from the freezer, and creating a meal around it.
Today she pulled out a pound of ground turkey. From this, she created what we called Whatchamacallit Stirfry, which consisted of:
• Veggies we already had in the fridge, including sweet peppers, carrots, cabbage
• A few random potstickers from the freezer
• Angel-hair pasta
• Ingredients we keep on hand such as sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger
It. Was. Fabulous.
Older Daughter's culinary creativity is saving us a fair bit of money as we adjust to this new lifestyle. It's also underscores what items we hope to grow in the garden this year to supply ingredients for her next Whatchamacallit Stirfry.
Sounds like she could probably write a very successful cook book.
ReplyDeleteMy sister used to make a breakfast dish she named "egg thingys." That is what I called it for years until someone whom I served to said "Oh! Toad-in-a-hole." I love both names (grin).
I love that your daughter is so creative with her cooking and uses what is in the house. You and Don raised her well.
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful. A solid foundation in the kitchen really is such a useful skill. Well done older daughter and well done mom and dad!
ReplyDeleteUsed to make variable "egg scramble" with whatever was on hand until a friend asked me to make a frittata for her. Same thing basically, just baked and a lot nicer presentation. Now I compromise by layering stuff with onions on bottom and poured eggs on top cover it and cook it on stovetop. Half the baking time same result. Bon appetit!
ReplyDeleteI do the same thing but don't scramble the eggs.
DeleteUsed to make "egg scramble" with whatever was on hand until a friend asked for a frittata. Had to look it up; basically the same thing only baked and nicer presentation. After a few times it was faster and easier to layer the ingredients in a skillet with onions on the bottom and beaten eggs on top of everything. Covered and cooked on stovetop takes half the time as baking and comes out perfectly. Bon appetit!
ReplyDeleteI love using up leftovers with stir fries. Three tips: Chinese Shaoxing rice wine, something crunchy to set it off, and some crushed red pepper. If you like Chinese-American food, rice wine is used in practically every recipe. Red pepper adds as much bite as you like, and something crunchy on top could range from cashews, sesame seeds, to Chinese crunchy noodles.
ReplyDeleteThank you thank you thank you Krab! You sound like an excellent cook! I'm sure OD is too, but sometimes I get so used to things I'm accustomed to using. Will invest in some of your "new to me" ingredients. Already have the sesame seeds and nuts.
DeleteIt's also time to get more ginger from Azure. I go through a lot of that because it is good for a tea as well.
I'm trying to grow some stir fry veggies this year. Especially broccoli, my favorite veggie. So far all those seedlings are doing well!
Also, toad in the hole is a British dish of sausages cooked in batter.
ReplyDeleteMy kids:
ReplyDelete"What are we having for dinner".
Me:
"An experiment" (dubious looks)
Not all my experiments were successful.
My kids: "What's for dinner?"
ReplyDeleteMe: "Poison."
Kids: "Again?"
I sometimes plan in advance for leftovers.
ReplyDeleteFor example, black bean chili. This requires portion control, and for me, freezing some portions.
Meal one is the chili with planned sides.
Meal two, burritos. You can add something like cilantro lime rice to the burrito, and what ever else you like. Meal three can be a black bean taco salad. That idea came from Wendy's because they used to serve a taco salad which featured chili over salad with other stuff to add to it. Fritos are a good crunchy instead of croutons. Meal four can be black bean soup. I like to use black bean burger mix to make an almost instant soup for snacks all the time. To that add the chili and top with Greek yogurt which is also high in protein.
Spaghetti works the same way since I don't like or do meatballs, but simply break up and brown all the ground beef to go in the sauce.
The spaghetti sauce is good for Sloppy Joe's. Or salad with other Italian additions, or spaghetti vegetable soup. In which is lots of zucchini, carrots, and other stuff.
This approach means meals in minutes when those original portions are frozen.
And those leftover spaghetti noodles make a great quiche like fritata too. For that stir fry gets tossed with leftover noodles and/or anything else you want then pour in eggs and bake. The noodles wind up on the bottom where a crust belongs anyway.
Home made fast foods.
Patrice I think many more of us will have to get used to a different lifestyle. I have this feeling back in my head that economically speaking we,as a whole, are heading for some turbulent times. I hope I’m wrong but I can’t get rid of it.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned your article to my oldest daughter who lives with us. She replied, “I hope you like noodles.”
ReplyDelete