by Donna | May 15, 2013
I usually steam my carrots, potatoes, and green beans before adding them to almost done meats (as opposed to cooking them all together from the beginning).
I have hit on a tip for potatoes in the past year or two that has made potato prep so much easier. This tip works for potatoes you want to peel or those you do not wish to peel (in that it helps clean them too). You should, of course, cut out bad spots before doing anything with the potatoes.
1. Put whole potatoes in large pot of boiling water.
2. Cook potatoes to the doneness you desire, boiling vigorously. (This will depend on the use you have for them. If you want them partially cooked or you just want the peeling off easily, etc.)
3. Drain the potatoes (use one side of the sink for draining and the other for peeling, so the heat from the drained potatoes and water doesn’t make the sink too hot to do the next step).
4. Plunge the drained potatoes into the other side of the sink that is filled with ice water.
5. In five minutes or so, simply reach into the ice water and start rubbing the skins off (or do not leave in water long, but get them out and use with peelings on). The skins rub off with your fingers only and very quickly.
6. Now cut, grate, slice, dice, julienne, or leave whole for whatever you are making.
by Donna | May 4, 2013
One of our many traditions/housekeeping rituals is that of cleaning out the refrigerator on grocery shopping day (which now with six “adults,” ages fourteen to over fifty living here is twice a week!). Everybody starts carrying in groceries, and as they are carried in, I sort them and bark out orders: “The SMALL deep freeze; not the big one. I need to be able to find this on Wednesday!” etc. etc. Also, while they carry (and I sort), I clean out the inside refrigerator and have people bring things in from the garage refrigerator. (Yeah, I am a mean multi-tasker after thirty years of homemaking/parenting/homeschooling/working!)
Anyway, all of this is going in WITH teenage boys talking about their day, our college age daughter going over her schedule with Mom or Dad (“Is it okay if I leave in ten minutes to run, so I can get five miles in before it gets dark?”), the dog pulling things out of the trash can as I put things in, and, of course, a radio drama playing in the kitchen cd player. (Yes, I can work with a lot of noise too, another survival skill developed through the years!)
Usually, one of these shopping days falls on “leftover night,” so I start organizing food for that night’s meal, “re-loading” (as my kids call it) some of the leftovers so that they look new, and cutting up old fruits and veggies before we put away the new ones. Someone will be called upon to make a quick fruit salad out of leftover fruits–and somebody will often start chopping leftover veggies to create a quick side dish to go with the main entree leftovers that we usually have.
We have gotten pretty good at throwing together fresh vegetable stir fries fairly quickly. We have variations on this side dish another night–we almost always have a chicken-veggie stir fry or beef veggie stir fry as one of our main entress each week. That night is is more involved and time consuming (cutting up meats, marinating meats, all the chopping and dicing and stir frying required for two huge pans of main dish meat/veggie stir fries). And, unfortunately, I don’t have much help on that night!
However, for “shopping day stir fried veggies” as a side dish, it is literally anything available chopped by whomever is available. I’ll give you some steps on tonight’s version, though it changes according to what’s left in the fridge on shopping day, who is home to help prepare veggies, and how many are there to eat it. (Leftover stir fry is not one of my family’s favorites!)
Tonight’s Version:
1 lb baby carrots
1 small zuchinni
6 oz snow peas
1 large green pepper
1 onion
1 lb brocolli
garlic
Mrs. Dash
oyster sauce
soy sauce
beef or chicken broth*
*Note: I seldom use oil to make a stir fry. If I do, it is just a little olive oil or coconut oil. I usually use broth to “fry” my stir fries
+I am a big pre-cooker. And I precook in the microwave, despite what some say about the microwave. It steams brocolli perfectly, and it is fast. So…
1. Steam carrots in micro. (I put carrots with a tablespoon or two of broth in glass measure and cover with plastic wrap. Then I steam for three to six minutes, depending on how many carrots I have and how done I want them before I add them to the stir fry pan.)
2. Heat small amount of broth in skillet while chopping onions, garlic, and peppers.
3. Stir fry aromatics (the three in #2) while you pull out the carrots.
4. Clean and chop brocolli and start steaming it in the micro in the same way as the carrots.
5. Slice zuchinni in thin rounds.
6. Add carrots, zuchinni, pea pods, garlic, Mrs. Dash, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and more broth, as needed and turn fire on medium high. Stir frequently as they cook.
7. When stir fry has just a minute or two left of cooking time, fold in the brocolli. (My guys do not like mushy brocolli, so I fold it in at the end.)
8. Continue to add more broth as needed while cooking.
And it looks like the picture below! 🙂
by Donna | Mar 6, 2013
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| Many jobs make for fun family cooking: sauce making, chicken cutting, pepper slicing, onion chopping, meat frying…..many hands make the work light! |
It’s last minute seminar preps…so that means it’s family cooking night…whoever is home gathers in the kitchen and slices, dices, and juliennes as fast as we can, so Mom and Dad can get back to work quickly, but everybody gets fed a decent meal.
What does your family like to cook together? I like to cook things with my kids that have a lot of/variety of steps (usually multiple dishes at one time with an Odyssey blaring in the background and three to five conversations all going on at the same time. Big mess….lots of fun and relationship-building! Smile…
