grocery shopping for the culinarily challenged

i often go shopping for groceries with friends who cook maybe one or two things. they never know what to get. they then end up getting drinks, junk food, sandwich stuff, and pasta. its all fine, but after a couple times of that, they tend to start eating out again. there seems to be a hump for these people where they can never get into the habit of eating in.

its hard to figure out what to get if you dont know how to make anything. you mostly try to cook by recipe. the problem is you're never going to the supermarket with a tome of them. as you stand amidst the overwhelming aisles of produce, it is hard to not be a deer in headlights.  

the first step is to not be afraid that you wont know what to do with what you buy. let's assume you have no idea what to get. well, what do you like to eat? by that, i dont mean particular dishes, but rather, ingredients. for example, i like chicken, and being asian, i prefer dark meat. i always get a bunch of thighs. be sure to store them in meal sizes (two or three pieces) in freezer bags and store them for later. do this for your meats, vegetables and carbs. unfortunately , vegetables and certain fresh carbs (breads, fresh pasta, unfrozen bagels, etc) have a shorter shelf life than meats, so you may not want to buy as much and make another trip to the grocery store.

once you get all that stuff, then you can start thinking about what to cook. to help, there are a lot of sites and chefs that specialize in simple meals. after you've done this a few times, you can start making your own creations. later i will drop some wisdom on general cooking techniques that works for everything. it'll make sure you dont make bland or burnt food.

right now i gotta goto the supermarket. i'll let you know what i come back with.

Ian!

Because I post here so rarely, here is another person who apparently shares my spontaneous cooking style and lack of commitment to blogging.

Introducing my buddy Ian, who will possibly post something on here sometimes!

Enjoy. :)

French-ish Beet Salad with Rosemary flowers

Ahhh rosemary flowers! My favorite new discovery. My rosemary bush is in bloom and I thought "why not?" and put a flower in my mouth! All the delicious rosemary taste without any of the harshness and hardness that you can't swallow.

Here's my mom's trick to beets: suck it up and peel them before you cook them, wash them and there you go: no earthy taste. She likes to microwave them in a glass dish, but I'm sure you could bake them with the same results.

Ingreds:
a couple cooked beets, grated or sliced thinly
a handful roasted almonds, sliced
a spring of chives, chopped
a handful fresh rosemary flowers (yum!)

1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1 tsp spicy mustard

Well it's a salad, you know what to do.

Oh and if you're lame and turn your nose up at beets, you can do this same salad with spinach or arugula and it's just as delicious. Just add honey to the dressing to make up for the sweetness of the beets.

Mediterrasian Veggies

As you can see to the right, I link to a site called Mediterrasian Cooking. It's a cute site, but it fails to live up to the interesting name. Really it just talks about the health benefits of Mediterranean and Asian cuisines, but speaks not of the fusion the name seems to imply.

So here is my attempt at East meets... Middle East (my two fav. areas, foodwise).

Indgreds:

1 clove garlic
1/4 onion, sliced in half rings
2 tb. spoons olive oil
spices: turmeric, coriander, allspice, dried mint
1/2 cup coconut milk

a couple white mushrooms, sliced
1 zucchini, sliced
any other veggies you may wish

Caramelize the garlic and onion in the olive oil with the spices. Add the coconut milk and the veggies and simmer until the sauce is thick. Serve over rice.

There you go: Mediterrasian!

PS I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that this is, in fact, a vegan recipe. Triumph!!

PPS I made this recipe again recently, with a whole bunch of other veggies and also some mango cubes I threw in at the last minute. Worked out well :).

Red Cabbage Apple Salad

This is an Isreali-inspired salad that was some kind of stroke of genius. Since I made it up, I've made it like three times in a week and a half, which is amazing, since the dish turnaround for me is usually more like a month or two. Literally, I made a batch of it, ate HALF of it and then, in the morning, took some bread, butter, cheese, and put the salad on top of it for breakfast.

The proportions change from day to day, but overall here are the ingredients.

1 apple, grated
small piece of a red cabbage, sliced thinly
1 red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, sliced thinly (optional)
1 tb spoon mayo
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice

sometimes I also add olive oil.

Each time I make it, I make the apple a larger portion of the salad than before hehe.

Sasha's Sake Chicken Surprise

Sorry for the stupid name, guys... I just had no idea what to title this one. To be honest, this chicken kind of surprised me too :).
So lately I've just been throwing together random sauces. I'm not worrying too much about veggies in the dishes because I've gotten really into fresh salads (thank you Israelis!!).


Ok, seriously, I am no food photographer. For that, I'd need a better camera, better lighting, and possibly some skills.

This is for about 2 chicken breasts. I never cook a lot, since I am not cooking for a big family. And as always, the measurements are guesstimated at best.

Sauce/Marinade:
1/2 cup sake (I use Nigori Creme de Sake, which is coarsely filtered. It's very sweet and mild)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp dijon mustard (I have some sweet honey dijon mustard)
2 tbsp honey

Preparation:
Wash the chicken and pull off all the excess fat. Marinate it in a ziplock bag for about an hour. Rub the chicken with salt and pepper and simply place chicken on a frying pan, and pour some of the marinade over it and set in on medium heat. (I suppose you could put the salt and pepper in the marinade, but that's not how I did it).

I know it's taboo to use chicken marinade as the sauce, but that's why we wash the chicken first. Anyway, this time around it worked out very interestingly for me. That's where the surprise came in, I guess. The sauce browned and congealed very quickly. Why didn't I expect that? I'm not sure. Anyway, this caused the chicken to brown beautifully. I poured in the rest of the marinade when I discovered this and stirred it all around. It still boiled away rather quickly, but it was enough time to finish cooking the chicken and caramelize some thinly sliced onions on the sauce.

In the end this turned out to be a really strong flavor, and I'm not totally sure how to make it milder. So the simple solution was to couple it with some very yummy coconut rice! They work very well together. Maybe next time I'll just put coconut milk in the sauce?

Reheating Chinese Food

(and other saucy asian food)

I know a lot of people have trouble with this and it took me a little bit of time to figure this out, so I just thought I'd share real quick. All you need is a skillet (or a pan), heat, and WATER. Yes, water, to dilute the sauce, so it doesn't congeal and burn.