Tips for Cooks That Lazy Cook should also know

I came across this link at The Guardian - Kitchen confidential: what every cook should know. These are very practical tips that I would highly suggest for both serious cooks and lazy cooks to observe.

Follow this link - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/27/top-insider-kitchen-tips

Nothing to blog, not lazy - yeah indeed I have been going around farewell parties since I am leaving Seoul and another friend soon. So that's what lazy cook does - hang around with friends, asked to be invited to parties so you don't cook and enjoy others cooking or well dine at restos.

I am enjoying indeed farewell parties, but concerned gaining weight again.... hmmm...

The many uses of broth

The last time I cooked my pasta I kept the water I used to cook it. For my late lunch I made it into a thick soup. What was in it? When I boiled pasta I put some seasoning and spices to the water aside from the usual salt and oil. So I recycle it for broth.

So my lunch was just soup (I had a fantastic dinner from South Asia - Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan) and again a dinner out tonite with friends so I just had soup for brunch. The consistency of the broth was quite thick so from the other broth stock of mushroom, chicken and shrimp I added it to my pasta broth. Added some boiled potatoes, a fist-full of some frozen mixed rice-beans, spaghetti strands cut in smaller size, a piece of egg some seasoning - there I had a filling thick soup.

If you are too lazy to make new soup - boiled veggies and some food stuff to create a broth. It will always be handy to make soup anytime. Just freeze it or stock in the ref and make use of it whenever you want a soup - keeping in mind creativity and experimentation so you come up with a new variety for your original broth.

So what wikipedia says about broth:

Broth [brɒθ] is a liquid food preparation, typically consisting of either water or an already flavored stock, in which bones, meat, fish, cereal grains, or vegetables have beensimmered.^[1] Broth is used as a basis for other edible liquids such as soup, gravy, orsauce. It can be eaten alone or with garnish. If other ingredients are used, such as rice,pearl barley or oats, it is then generally called soup.

In Britain, a broth is defined^{[by whom?]} as a soup in which there are solid pieces of meat or fish, along with some vegetables. A broth is usually made with a stock or plain water as its base, with meat or fish added while being brought to a boil, and vegetables added later. Being a thin and watery soup, broth is frequently made more substantial by adding rice, barley or pulses.^[2][3] Broth is distinct from stock, which is a thin liquid made by simmering raw ingredients until all the taste has been retrieved from them, then sieving the resulting liquid.

United States cooking schools often differentiate between broth, usually made from portions of animal meat, and stock often made from vegetable scraps and bones.

Broth has been made for many years using the animal bones which, traditionally, are boiled in a cooking pot for long periods to extract the flavour and nutrients. The bones may or may not have meat still on them.

When it is necessary to clarify a broth (i.e. for a cleaner presentation), egg whites may be added during simmering – the egg whites willcoagulate, trapping sediment and turbidity into a readily strainable mass.

In East Asia (particularly Japan), a form of kelp called kombu is often used as the basis for broths (called dashi in Japanese).

Keep those Leftovers

Leftover food -  is not only economical or practical but it stirs up creativity in me. I like to keep them since it is useful for me to discover new dishes and recipes. Even the water where I boiled my pasta I would keep it for  broth for my soup. It is starchy so it is good  for a thick soup.

But most of the time, I use tidbits and  pieces of leftovers for my fried rice. So I would always come up with unique tasting, fantastic colored and textured fried rice. I also make use of them for my soup and also to come up with other dishes. Also, toppings for bread and make your own canape or pizza, so make that mozarella and other cheese handy to cover and melt on the toppings..

Well since I do experiment I do not necessary get the best result most of the time. Sometimes the taste is too contrasting and not blending, but still edible. And every time I come up with a nice concoction, then I would be so happy to eat and  feast on it.

For lazy cooks - leftovers are valuable ingredients to come up with easy to prepare and fast meals...


Wikipedia says:

Leftovers are the uneaten edible remains of a meal after the dinner is over, and everyone has finished eating. Food scraps that are not considered edible (such asbones or the skins of some vegetables and fruits) are not regarded as leftovers, but rather as waste material; any remaining edible portions constitute the leftovers.

The ultimate fate of leftovers depends on where the meal was eaten, the preferences of the diner, and the prevailing social culture. Home cooking leftovers are often saved to be eaten later. This is facilitated by being in a private environment, with food preserving facilities such as airtight containers and refrigeration close at hand. Some leftover food can be eaten cold from the refrigerator, while others may be reheated in a microwave or a conventional oven, or mixed with additional ingredients and recooked to make a new dish such as bubble and squeak.

New dishes made from leftovers are quite common in world cuisine, and many were created in the days before refrigeration and reliable airtight containers existed. Besides capturing nutrition from otherwise inedible bones, stocks and broths make an excellent base for adding leftover morsels too small to be a meal themselves. Casseroles,^[1] paella, fried rice,^[2] and pizza can also be used for this purpose, and may even have been invented as a means of reusing leftovers. Among American university students, leftover pizza itself has acquired particular in-group significance, to the extent that the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service offers, as its first tip under "Food Safety Tips for College Students",^[3] a discussion of the risks of eating unrefrigerated pizza, which are considerable.^[4]

Leftovers from a restaurant meal may either be left behind to be discarded by the restaurant, or taken away by the diner for later consumption. In order to take the food away, the diner may make a request for it to be packaged. The container used for such leftovers is commonly called a doggy bag or doggie bag; the name comes from the euphemistic pretense that the food will be given to the diner'spet, rather than eaten by a person.^[5] The term doggy bag is preferred over take away or take home bag as it was popularized in the 1970's etiquette columns of many newspapers.^[6] Doggy bags are most common in restaurants that offer a take-out food service as well as sit-down meals, and their prevalence as an accepted social custom varies widely by location. In some countries, like France, people would frown upon a diner asking for a doggy bag.

At some holiday meals, such as Christmas in Western countries and Thanksgiving in the USA, it is customary for the host to prepare much more food than can be eaten, specifically in order to send leftovers home with the guests. Cold turkey is archetypal in the United States as a Thanksgiving leftover, with turkey meat often reappearing in sandwiches, soups, and casseroles for several days after the feast.

The word "ort", meaning a small scrap of food left after a meal is completed, is not commonly heard in conversation, but is frequently encountered in crossword puzzles.

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When Lazy Cook goes High -Tech

Before going to the title of the blog I need to share this info first. I've been using paper.li for other interests (photogarphy)  and that's where I  found out about this new blog entry. So from their own blog:

What interesting links, blog posts, videos and photos are being shared on Twitter by Bill Gates, TechCrunch, the WWF, Stowe Boyd, Fred Wilson, the New-York Times AND the people they find of interest? This is what SmallRivers' Paper.li project is all about: turning a Twitter stream into an easy to read daily newspaper.

 

Twitter is currently a simple and fast way to point others to content of interest on the web. Twitter users do so millions of times a day, effectively giving their followers a glimpse of what they think others should see or read. Next to having followers, any Twitter thus follows others, generally a group of people they deem of interest and want to keep track of what they have to share. Any Twitter user is thus a kind of editor in chief, with the people they follow being trusted journalists. The sum of what is shared by them is thus a unique perspective of what is deemed of interest on the web on any given day. A bit like a newspaper.

So I created my own newspaper with the tag - food and cooking :

http://paper.li/tag/food

http://paper.li/tag/cooking

An important development that is sure thing to happen soon... Lazy cook goes high tech. Well perhaps the kitchen will soon be run by a robochef. Imagine your robochef is programmed to be an international chef that can cook all the best Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, European-Asian, Pinoy dishes and cuisines, well that's for a software cost and upgrade...

So what's the topic all about for now it is a mobile phone or a smartphone:

LG has detailed a future where you’ll be able to download a recipe on your smartphone and then send it to one of the company’s microwave ovens to set the cooking instructions.
“A simple user scenario is that you have a smartphone, download a recipe and instantly the microwave oven recognises the temperature and cooking time and all you have to do is put in your food and press start”, explains James Choi, marketing strategy and planning team director at LG Electronics global, to Pocket-lint in a one-to-one interview.

Read more: Can't cook? Web connected recipes from LG to make it easy - Pocket-lint http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/37916/web-connected-home-tech-lg#ixzz1Ba16sAw3

So more reason to be lazy cook?  So keep it to your robochef to do the cooking, leave it to the androids and smartphones to help you decide what meal is best for your health (by checking and pushing the health/mood button to verify on your blood pressure/sugar, mood swing, temperament, psychological/emotional make-up for the day). Then you get prompted what is available on the ref and how the cooking/non-cooking - re-heating should be done. That's high tech cooking, lazy cook days are soon to come...


 

Babette's Feast

Wikipedia says:

Babette's Feast (Danish: Babettes gæstebud) is a 1987 Danish film directed by Gabriel Axel. The film's screenplay was written by Gabriel Axel based on the story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), who also wrote the story which inspired the 1985 Academy Award winning film Out of Africa. Produced by Just Betzer, Bo Christensen, and Benni Korzen with funding from the Danish Film Institute, Babette's Feast was the first Danish cinema film of a Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[1] The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.[2]

I could say that this was the movie that moved me, hehehe... and made me start this blog. But then I realized that I always enjoy this kind of movies. Well aside from watching those cooking demo shows on cable TV, watching this kind of feature film really inspire and excites me to eat and watch some more movies...

The highlight of all the story after all was the preparation of a nice dinner that happened towards the end of the film. The plot of the story itself was interesting and unusual. Aside from being entertained I end up salivating with all the food that were prepared and served. Especially the remarks on the vintage wine and champagne was intoxicating hahahah...

For those of you who enjoy eating and watching movie this is a movie to enjoy. You should not miss it. Well should you want to read a review of the film check it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette's_Feast

Kitchen Utensil - Colander

Wikepedia says:

A colander is a bowl-shaped kitchen utensil with holes in it used for draining food such as pasta and rice. Conventionally, colanders are made of a light metal, such as aluminium or thinly rolled stainless steel, but some colanders are made of plastic or silicon. A colander is pierced with a pattern of small holes (or slots in plastic colanders) that let the liquid drain through, but retain the solids inside. It is sometimes also called a strainer or kitchen sieve. 

It is an important utensil for lazy cook - for reheating, steaming and draining. I use the folded one so it can be contained by a wide brim pot. I like these bun sold at the supermarket that have red bean paste filling and the bun is in different color and texture - I like the rough it seems made of wheat bun but violet in color. So stored in the ref and I would steam at least 2 pieces for light snacks and even desert too. So for my frozen/cold dishes it is easy to defrost/thaw them by steaming it and then after if it needs baking then  I  would use the oven toaster. Fast and easy for the lazy cook - steam and bake, reheat and eat.  

Google Alert - lazy cook, recipes,

Lazy blogging - not really but I am trying out this google service called Google Alerts. So from my email I can forward to my blog an email that get saved as a draft post. So it will be easy blogging as well - just by emailing. Google says:

Monitor the Web for interesting new content

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
Enter the topic you wish to monitor, then click preview to see the type of results you'll receive. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

So below is the result for my google alert using the keyword - lazy cook and recipe.

Wanted: Healthy Lazy Protein recipes - Healthy Food for Lazy ... The way I work lazy into healthy cooking and cleanup for 1 is to prep a few ... The recipes don't have to be uber-simple as I will cook once on Sunday for ... healthylazy.tribe.net/.../ac30fe6d-9abc-4e5b-82a3-5827e6166...

The Lazy Stay-at-Home Mommy » chicken noodle soup recipe The Lazy Stay-at-Home Mommy. Living and Learning with kids. Posts Tagged ' chicken noodle soup recipe' ... Posted in cooking/recipes | No Comments » ... crazymommy.weblogs.us/tag/chicken-noodle-soup-recipe/

Green Onion Chicken with Linguine Recipe | Reluctant Gourmet Mmmmm. Thank you for your sharing this great recipe, along with your tips and photos. I'm a pretty boring (and lazy) cook - I grew up on a ranch where we ... www.reluctantgourmet.com/blog/.../green-onion-chicken-reci...