Tinfoil Chef

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One of the jobs I’ve always hated is the task of once in a while going through the refrigerator not only to clean it (which isn’t a bad job in itself really), and find the occasional mystery item that got put away only to slip behind or under something else and get forgotten.

You know, the block of cheese that suddenly looks like blue-green home theater carpet, the plastic storage dish that you forgot was in there and when it’s opened you suddenly decide you don’t care why it’s in there or what it once was. That sucker’s going in the trash and if it won’t easily come out of the container then the whole thing gets pitched.

On the other hand, I learned something once about hard blocks of cheese. When they get that fuzzy blue-green growing on them, all you need to do is use either a sharp knife or a cheese slicer to cut off all of the outer surface layers. Those you pitch, the rest is perfectly good cheese.

It’s a good idea when doing this to make sure that none of the clean surfaces you expose touch the stuff you’re cutting off. The way I avoid that is to clean the knife I’m using every cut or two in order to prevent any of the blue-green from collecting on the knife and spreading onto the rest of the cheese.

I’d say that it almost goes without saying that once this is done it’s a good idea to be sure to use that cheese soon. And if you don’t use it right away, be sure to store it in a fresh, clean container that seals tight.

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Over the years we’ve changed a bunch of our old habits. A lot of things that we used to eat we never have anymore, or when we do have them, we make them differently. For example, anything with grease in it can be a real problem these days.

Time was it wouldn’t be a problem at all to have a burger with the juices dripping out of it and then use the fries to sop up some of the juices that dripped out of it. Then we started moving away from the greasy foods and next thing you know, our tastes changed. Now if we have a burger we really want to cook it in such a way as to allow the grease to drain out of it so that we don’t have to eat as much grease.

Chicken is another thing that’s changed. Time was when something like fried chicken wasn’t a problem at all. Now I doubt I could eat it. There are times now when just the sight of grease cooling and congealing is enough to make me queasy.

That’s one of the reasons we started using ground turkey instead of ground beef in a lot of dishes. When you cook up ground turkey there is little to no grease involved and most of what does render out of it is actually water from when it was packed and frozen. (we buy it in frozen one pound rolls)

Ok, actual burgers made with turkey just aren’t the same, but in most other dishes, using turkey instead of ground beef not only won’t hurt it a bit, it’ll probably improve it. Even those Hamburger Helper type box dinner things work just as well with ground turkey as they do with ground beef.

The best part of it is that the turkey is cheaper. I don’t even know the price of ground beef anymore these days but I think that around here it’s $2.50 to $3.00 or more a pound.. and that’s not even the better, leaner varieties. Ground turkey on the other hand, we usually get it for like 89 cents a pound. Just on price alone there is no contest, the bird wins feathers down.

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I was looking for something in the kitchen cabinet and ran across a jar of dijon style mustard that had gotten buried under and behind several other things. Looking at the expiration date was something of a shock….. it was some time in 2005.

Of course I wasted no time in getting rid of that sucker. It’s actually pretty rare to find something THAT far past it’s use by date but it happens to everyone. You get something with the intent of using it and it gets put away and forgotten about. Then over time as other things in the same area are used, replaced, moved around and searched through. After enough of this something will end up in a place that nobody ever looks and then a year or two later it shows up looking like a can of fresh mesothelioma…. guaranteed to inspire whoever finds it to set new records in getting rid of it. Especially if they’re unfortunate enough to open it first. … (That’s never a good idea with really old stuff like that.)

The moral of the story is that it’s a good idea to take one day every month or two and go through cupboards, refrigerators, cabinets, etc and see what’s in there that might have been forgotten about. Who knows, even if you’re blessed and don’t find any ugly surprises, what you do find could inspire a meal idea that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

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Someday I’m looking to have what I’d like to think of as a “REAL Kitchen”… Don’t get me wrong, the one we’ve got now is good, and in fact it’s better than many that I’ve had to deal with in the past but it’s still not the really big, open thing like you see on tv cooking shows… heck, even most of the kitchens on tv sitcoms are very nearly big enough to be considered commercial real estate.

Any time you have something big enough that it takes four or five steps to go from one side to another you’ve got a seriously nice sized kitchen. I realize we don’t need something big enough to run a restaurant out of but at the same time, It’d be nice to not have to move one appliance in order to use another one.

In our kitchen now, If we want to use the bread machine for example, The slow cooker and the food processor need to be moved to the table while it’s in use. And while I’m at it, there’s the issue of outlets. A kitchen should have plenty of them and they should be on at least two, possibly three circuits. You need some that are placed for the major appliances.. refrigerator, stove, microwave, freezer… and then you need some along the counter top for use by mixers, crock pots, toasters, can openers, the coffee pot and anything else that needs one.

As for counter space and cupboards, I’m of the opinion that it’s hard to imagine having too much of either. Most of our food prep is done on the table and if I move the food processor there’s a 1 foot square chunk of counter that I use for cutting and chopping.

It works, we get everything done one way or another, but just once I’d like to have a kitchen with a 15 x 20 floor-plan.

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It wasn’t more than a year or two ago that the only thing I knew about herbs was that in spite of the spelling, it’s not talking about a guy named “Herb” and that it was something that you could put in food to affect the flavor. So it isn’t a big push to realize that there’s a lot of people that really don’t know that much about herbs and that if they did know a few tidbits here or there then they could add some zip to their meals.

With that in mind, I’m going to start out by talking a little bit about what herbs are and then I’m going to do entries talking about individual herbs, their qualities and a little bit about how to use them.

An herb is basically the leaves of certain plants that are used as flavorings. You can find them dried in bottles in the store, most larger stores carry some fresh herbs. You can also buy them growing in a pot so that you always have them fresh.

When buying herbs you want them to have good color and aroma. You do NOT want any that are limp, yellowing, or that have black spots on them. It’s better to buy herbs that are field grown as opposed to hothouse grown because they’ll typically have larger, stronger leaves that are more fragrant than their hothouse counterparts.

To store herbs spread them out and throw away any that are yellowing or slimy. If they still have roots cut them off to keep the tops from wilting. The roots can be saved and used in soups and sauces. Trim the excess stems and rinse the herbs by swishing vigorously in cold water, then spread them out on a paper towel to dry thoroughly before storing. You could also use a salad spinner to speed up the drying process.

Store them wrapped in paper towel in a zip top bag or in an airtight plastic container. In either case you want to avoid crushing them.

Technorati Tags: herbs, what+are+herbs, herb+preparation, herb+storage, buying+herbs

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