Decorating Your Food

My first memory of food as a plaything was pressing the tines of a fork down the sides of a cucumber and then slicing the cucumber into rounds.  I was probably about six years old when my mother showed me how to do this, and I was enchanted.  Maybe that was both the beginning and the end of my trying to impress people with the food I prepared.

Yes, the cucumber slices looked cool, and so did the subsequent radishes that I carved into roses and then soaked in cold water for a while so they would open.  The bigger lesson was that despite the way these vegetables now looked, they tasted exactly the same as the plain ones.

Would I grow up to be a people pleaser?  Probably.  But...

Plugra Butter: What Is It and How Do I Use It?

I’ve read that chefs like to use Plugra Butter, especially for baking.  But I never bought any until I noticed it on sale at my local supermarket for $2.99 instead of $5.99 for an 8-ounce block.

Can Plugra be that much better than plain Land O’Lakes, Land O’Lakes’ European Style Super Premium Butter or even the store brand? We’re talking a slightly higher milk fat content, but what does that really mean?  It’s a little creamier.

How to Stock a Pantry

If you really want to cook, you need a pantry.  In “Little House on the Prairie” days, this often meant aroom off the kitchen full of shelves to store fruits and vegetables you canned and jam you made. 

Today you don’t need a whole room to store much-used ingredients, but you do need several shelves or a cabinet, preferably near the fridge and stove..

Then you need basic ingredients like flour, sugar, salt, mustard, ketchup, soy sauce, vinegar, packages of dried pasta, rice and olive or canola oil.  Add some...

How Much Does a Home-Cooked Meal Really Cost?

Crunchy Baked Fish Sandwich

It depends on the menu, how many people you’re feeding and how well stocked your pantry is.  If you’re a minimalist cook, you might have to add into your budget as much as $50 for basics that a long-time cook already has on hand—oil, vinegar, flour, sugar, rice, canned tomatoes, spices, soy sauce.  Also, you might need a frying pan or a big pot or a set of measuring spoons and cups.

And you haven’t even bought the main ingredients yet.

Let’s take the pantry issue out of the equation and concentrate on an easy meal for 4 people:

Mom Cooking Tip 127

Freeze pre-shaped but unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough on a flat sheet or container.  When frozen, remove the cookies and put them in a plastic freezer bag.  Bake them as you need them, adding at least 1 extra minute of baking time or more if they’re too soft.

                                                          See all my Cooking Tips!

Question for Mom

How can you tell when pancakes are ready to be turned over?  --Walter F.

Pin-sized air holes will appear on the uncooked side of the pancake, indicating it’s almost cooked.  Flip the pancake with a spatula and cook for another 10-15 seconds and then serve. 

                                                       See all Questions for Mom

Does Salad Require Lettuce?

After a young life filled with iceberg lettuce, I spent years swearing off salad.  Caesar Salad intrigued me for a few months after I watched my college roommate’s father crack a raw egg into the family salad bowl.  I couldn’t decide if that was Yuck! or the greatest adventure of all time.  Yuck won out in the end.

Mostly, though, I was served tossed salads made of lettuce and tomatoes, and they were boring.  Three-bean salad was pretty good as long as lima beans weren’t included, but the grocery store versions were usually too salty.

A few years ago I began my romance with home-grown tomatoes.  Now my go-to salad is a colorful mixture of tomatoes, cucumber and radishes.  No lettuce is in sight.

                         For easy recipes, order "Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen!"