A Word To The Non-Cooks In The Crowd

Ivy says:

My inability to cook is legendary. Want a cake or a pie? I’m good at that- I can bake. But if you want some fried chicken, I am not your girl. That said, I have three kids and I’m on a budget. I have to cook. And in order to save money and try to be healthful, I have to cook from scratch as much as possible.

It’s funny. Some people, I think, are born with a natural ability to cook, and some people are not. The difference, I think, is personality driven. Baking is a fairly exact science. Follow the directions exactly on a good recipe, and you’ll generally end up with a good product. Cooking, on the other hand, is way more subjective. Try getting a recipe from a cook. They’ll normally rattle off a bunch of ingredients, and not much more. Ask for amounts or cooking times and they’ll shrug and tell you they’re not sure.

So what are those of us who are non-cooks to do when we want to actually cook something? First, you have to find some good recipes. We have a ton of good, easy recipes on this site. Also, I love AllRecipes.com.

And here’s a surprising place I found interesting things to make- the game Cooking Mama on the Nintendo DS. Now, the game doesn’t have actual recipes. It’ll teach you to cook in the same way Guitar Hero will teach you to play the guitar. However, it does have a lot of very interesting things that you make, and you get an idea of what goes into the recipe as well. I’ve seen things on there and googled them to get an actual recipe.

Cooking mama has taught me several things about real world cooking. Like the fact that you won’t always get a recipe perfect on the first try, and that’s okay. Like, last night I was making rice pudding (in the real world) and I managed to end up with a bunch of burny bits in it. Next time, I’ll know to stir while I’m waiting for the recipe to boil. See, all your cooking failures are just learning steps to success. And while it definitely sucks to have to throw out food, especially in this economy- at least next time I’ll know the right thing to do.

So, to all you just-learning cooks out there, chin up! Find some recipes and give them a try. I especially find various ethnic foods to be good to start with- many of the recipes are very economical, and since several of them require cooking techniques that are unfamiliar to Americans, they tend to be better explained on the internet, I have found.

Let’s hear it from the experienced cooks- what tips do you have for the newbies?

Menu Monday 8/18: Ivy Edition

Ivy says:

I’m feeling much better today, and got a clean bill of health from my doctor this morning. I’m in housecleaning Hades now, though, so I thought you guys might like to take a look at what my menu is this week.

Monday: Runskis (I tried to find a recipe for this online, but failed. It’s a family recipe- basically a pastry/biscuit-like outside with a ground beef and cabbage filling. I also could be spelling this wrong.), green beans.

Tuesday: Chicken Pad Thai

Wednesday: Church night, we eat at my mom’s. Knowing my mom, we’re having chili.

Thursday: Mr. Ivy is off, so it’s Iron Chef night. I give him the “secret ingredient” and he cooks something fabulous up. The secret ingredient this week is zucchini. Don’t tell anyone.

Friday: Gazpacho and cucumber sandwiches

Saturday: Oven fried chicken fingers, french fries, mixed veggies

Sunday: Roast chicken, baked or sauteed garden veggies (whatever I find at the farmer’s market on Friday), mashed potatoes

Why yes, we DO eat a lot of chicken at Chez Ivy. Well, Home Eccers, what have you got that’s good to eat this week?

Picky Eaters, Picky Eaters

Ivy says:

I have been running across a phenomena so often lately, that I needed to write about it here just to get it out of my head. The only thing is, I know around here, I’m mostly preaching to the choir. Even so, I hope I catch a few people and get them to thinking.

The problem? Picky eaters. I see it all over the place- in a frugality community I read: “Can you give me some recipes that are budget friendly? Here’s what I don’t eat: fruits, vegetables, seafood, fish, grains, red meat, white meat, chocolate, or pasta” I also see it in real life:

Them: Can’t you get Heather to post some recipes that are kid friendly?

Me: All Heather’s recipes are kid friendly, she has 4 kids.

Them: Oh, I’ve never seen anything kid friendly there.

Me: Oven Fried Chicken Fingers? Pizza???

Them: I don’t know. That seems awfully…hard to make….I just usually get takeout. And we have chicken nuggets and pizza all the time. I’d like something new.

Me: ::boggles::

And that’s the problem right there. By constantly catering to your kid’s tastes, you’re setting them up to be like the first example. Now, my kids have had their fair share of chicken nuggets and pizza. And yes, I’ve been through the McDonald’s drive through a time or two (hundred). But the bulk of my children’s diet is a variety of fresh, whole foods cooked in various ways. See, if a kid doesn’t like tomatoes raw, they might like them cooked. And the same kid that despises okra fried may love it steamed.

One of the biggest problems I see is parents who deicide ahead of time that their kid isn’t going to like something based on their own childhood likes and dislikes. I’m guilty of that myself. As a kid, I hated onions. So when my daughter at age 4 wanted onions on her burrito, I told her she probably wouldn’t like them. But she insisted and I let her have them. She loved onions and orders them any time there’s an opportunity. Lesson learned: Let them try anything they want, even if you think they might hate it.

Another problem is that I see too many parents who think they’re being nice to their kids by not making them eat stuff they don’t want to eat. I think they remember all too well being made to sit at the table until they finished their liver, and don’t want that for their kids. So they won’t man up and be parents and make their kids at least try unfamiliar food. In my house, you have to try a bite of everything that’s on your plate whether you like it or not. My youngest son always claims to hate scalloped potatoes until he tries a bite. Then he remembers he actually likes it and will eat it.

Now, of course, there are kids who have special needs or allergies that prevent them from being able to eat everything. And there are people who are just picky eaters, no matter what you try. My brother, who I would not classify as a picky eater, absolutely despises beans. This is the guy who will eat Rocky Mountain Oysters without a thought. But last Sunday at my mom’s, we had ham and beans and he just made himself a sandwich. Beans are just not his thing, and that’s okay.

So, let’s pull all this advice into a nice, neat list for the tl;dr crowd, shall we?

How to avoid creating a picky eater:

• Cook a variety of fresh, whole foods. Can’t cook worth a darn? Grab some recipes and start cooking anyway.
• Cook these foods in different ways. Remember, just because someone hates a certain food one way, doesn’t mean they’d hate it in another way.
• Avoid fast food and takeout. They just don’t serve a variety of foods. That’s not to say you can never go to these places, just don’t make that the majority of what you’re serving.
• Don’t base what your kids will like on what you like. Believe me, you’ll be surprised.
• Make your kids at least try it, and not just once. Over time, tastes change. If you get your kids in the habit of at least trying everything, eventually they will start liking new stuff.
• Finally, take into account your family’s likes and dislikes, but don’t cater to their every whim. Sure, the kids might love pizza and burgers and chicken nuggets best, but that doesn’t mean you have to serve it for every meal. If they HATE what’s for dinner and you don’t want them to starve, there’s always PB&J. (Unless they have a peanut allergy. Then there’s always J.)

Always do your best to keep from creating a picky eater. The future spouses of your children will thank you for it.

The Cascade Vs. Electrasol War

Ivy says:

Recently I was sent both Cascade Complete liquid dishwasher detergent and Electrasol liquid dishwashing detergent to test side by side to see which one was a winner. For full disclosure, let me tell y’all a few things:

1. I haven’t used Electrasol in years because I thought it did a crappy job of cleaning my dishes.

2. I have a dishwasher that is a total piece of junk and should probably be thrown to the side of the road. Seriously, if you leave one speck of food on your dishes, you can rest assured that it will still be there when you go to empty the dishwasher, no matter what kind of dishwasher detergent you use.

3. It was Cascade who sent me this dishwasher detergent. They told me to be completely honest, so I will. If Electrasol had sent me this detergent, my review would be the same. No other compensation was given for this trial- just a full sized bottle of Cascade and a full sized bottle of Electrasol.

All that said, let’s forge on with how Cascade and Electrasol did with my dishes.

I decided to play with it, doing first one load with Cascade and one load with Electrasol. Because my dishwasher is such a piece of junk, I did the dishes as I normally do them and rinsed the heck out of each dish beforehand. Cascade did its normal fabulous job, and surprisingly, Electrasol did a good job as well.

“Hmm,” I thought. “I might start using Electrasol again. This isn’t so bad.”

Then I put it to the real test. I let the kids do the dishes. This changed things immensely. When my kids (14 year old son and 7 year old daughter) do dishes, I hear a whole lot of water running, but they are pretty haphazard about how well the dishes are rinsed. Sometimes all the food residue is rinsed off, but more often than not, they leave food on at least some of the dishes.

Cascade, again, did a fine job. A few specks of food were left on the dishes, causing me to have to rewash them, but nothing major.

I figured Electrasol would do the same job. Not so. The kids were “kind” enough to put the dishes away for me this morning, resulting in a big surprise when I went to get a bowl so I could eat some cereal. I pulled a bowl out of the cabinet and -bang!- it was still dirty. Not the usual speck or two that’s left, but that ugly nearly baked on, deep down funk. I set the bowl aside and pulled out another one. It was really funky as well. I ended up pulling out nearly every dish I own and hand washed them.

This leads me to a few conclusions. First, I really need to save up and buy a new dishwasher. The whole point of having a dishwasher, theoretically, is to save time. How much time, really, does it save when you have to completely rinse each dish beforehand, then load and unload the dishwasher?

Second, I believe I’ll be hand washing my dishes until I can get a new dishwasher. I think it’ll save water and it will definitely save a lot of time. Total time spent washing dishes by hand with my daughter after dinner tonight: 15 minutes. And it was a fun 15 minutes, at that.

Finally, in the case of Cascade vs. Electrasol, Cascade wins. At least it does in my household, with my crappy dishwasher. I gave the rest of the bottle of Electrasol to my mom, who has a good dishwasher and says she notices very little difference between Cascade and Electrasol. So, if you have a good dishwasher or you like to spend a lot of time rinsing dishes, either might be fine. But for me and my dishwasher, it has to be Cascade.

Or, I’ll just hand wash the dishes. Ha.

“Mom, it’s hot!” aka Smoothie Making 101

Ivy says:

I may never be a decent cook, but I can make one heck of a good smoothie.  Smoothies are ridiculously easy to make, and they’re a good way to have something sweet without totally breaking your calorie budget.  Plus, when it’s hot like it has been, it’s a refreshing way to begin, middle, or end your day.

Here are the basics of smoothie making:

First, you’ll need a blender.  Any old blender will do- when our blender that was born sometime in the 1970s finally died, I bought a mid-range blender that suits our needs perfectly.  You don’t need a “smoothie blender” or anything of the sort. Just a plain old blender will be fine.

Then, you’ll need a liquid of some sort.  You can use fruit juice, soy milk, regular milk, even ice cream, although the ice cream will help to blow your calories up.  Me, I like to use plain or vanilla yogurt.  And yes, I know that yogurt and ice cream are not exactly liquids, but they’re not exactly solids, either, are they?  I use about a cup to two cups of yogurt in mine, normally.

Then you’ll need some fruit.  I use fresh fruit in the summer when it abundant and inexpensive.  Offseason I head to the freezer section.  Use your imagination as to what will taste good.  What I like to do is go to Publix and look at what they’ve got in their super expensive, already cut up “smoothie mixes” and just buy the uncut fruits from their example.  Lately I’ve been digging mango, banana, and papaya.  I’ve also been loving strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry.  And sometimes I just add a single fruit. You’ll need about 2 cups of the fruit.

Then, you may need some ice, depending on whether or not your fruit fresh or frozen.  Generally, if you use frozen fruit, you don’t really need ice, unless you just dig ice.  When I’m using fresh fruit, I generally toss a handful of ice into the blender.

Then you can add a scoop of something healthy like wheatgerm or wheatgrass powder.  Or, not.  You don’t have to, these things just add healthy goodness.

Finally, blend.  At first you’ll want to pulse your blender a bit to get everything going without clogging up the works.  Once it looks somewhat blended, go all out with your bad blending self.  Pour into glasses and enjoy.  The amounts I recommend here usually serve about 3-4 glasses of smoothie goodness.

The cool thing about smoothies is, you can make them as healthy or unhealthy as your little heart desires. Now, go and be one with your blender, Home Eccers!

What’s your favorite fruit combination for smoothies?

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