Cooking Rant

I know I said I want to talk about cooking here, and yet I have mentioned nary a recipe or food (except Doritos, and I'm pretty sure they don’t technically count). And so, without much further ado, a cooking post...

...Well, first, a little further ado. I do need to make it perfectly clear that when I talk about cooking, that in no way do I fancy myself as anything other than a home cook trying to find ways to feed her family “cheap, healthy, good." Wow, too bad Kris and the other folks there already named their blog that or I totally would have been all over that name. Anyway, I digress... Recently, in an attempt to reduce our food budget, I have been trying my hand at more and more things that were firmly ensconced in the “buy in a package because it’s way too freaking hard to make” category for me. I roasted my first chicken! (and to my complete amazement, it really did make 17 servings for us.) I’ve been making homemade bread and pizza dough! I’ve made salad dressing and granola and pot stickers!

These things may come as second nature to some home cooks, but for me, each one was deep in the realm of “must buy in package, definitely don’t even know where to start to make this.” In fact, the only time we ate whole chicken was when we got rotisserie from the market. What a fool I’ve been! These things can be so easy and taste so much better than any crap you can buy pre-made. Plus, added satisfaction of feeding your family things you are familiar with and they can pronounce all the ingredients. Bonus!

I saw a link on Cheap Healthy Good last week to an article by Michael Ruhlman that talks about the effect of 30 minute meals on our families and society. I believe he was dead wrong about at least one of the two examples he gave (I've seen Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals a few times, and though I question if what she does can really be done in 30 minutes, she does cook actual food from actual whole ingredients.) Oh yeah - and he sounded like a total dick - but the point he made was valid. What are we telling our kids when we don’t take a little time to cook some meals a few days a week? We tell them they need to eat healthy, eat their vegetables… but they never see what healthy looks like at home. They see vegetables from a can (that really are disgusting looking… how can we really blame them for turning their noses up at canned green beans?), meat and potatoes from boxes. Or worse, they see an endless parade of fast food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Is anyone really surprised that our kids are gaining weight along with the rest of us?

And to make it worse, the proverbial "they" try to tell us that it will be cheap! and easy! and fast! if we eat this packaged junk. Several months ago, when this recession was in full swing and everyone was trying to jump on the savings bandwagon, one of the grocery stores in town started doing this “4 for $15” promotion. You could go in and buy, right from a single case waiting by the entrance, dinner to feed four people for $15. I remember thinking at the time what a scam this was. Even then when I wasn’t on this crazy money saving kick, I knew I could feed my family of four for much less than $15, and have it be less processed and healthier than anything they were pushing! Their idea of a $15 dinner was a packaged meat product, a packaged salad, and packaged French bread.

omg, rant over. This is supposed to be a cooking post, right?

pretty pot stickers

The really fantastic thing about trying to cook and eat healthier is trying all these new things. On Friday night, I made some vegetarian pot stickers that I found on j’s 365 Dollar Year blog. I made just a few modifications, added some chopped mushroom (before they went bad in the fridge), a bit of sesame oil, and some more salt (I know, I know, bring on the sodium police. I’m aware there was soy sauce in there already. It still needed it).

scallion, carrot and edamame for fried rice

finished fried rice

They came out beautiful and yummy, and with some stir fried brown rice and veggies, they made an awesome Friday night dinner. For around $2.50 total for the four of us.

please don't get me started on the plate! :)

Take that, big supermarket scam!