Author: Julz

When you see a 5 lb package of split chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound buy them. I’m going to show you now to tackle it. First of all people ask me all the time how much I spend on groceries since I cook real food every day. I am so tired of hearing people say that’s its more expensive to buy real food and that junk food is cheaper. Buying organic hell yes is more expensive. Any “diet” food is more expensive, but real food is not. The thing that people don’t like to hear is that you actually have to cook. They prefer quick prepared items, if you cost it out prepared food costs more without a doubt. for example I grew up eating instant potatoes. The box of potato flakes isn’t expensive. You can buy a whole bag of potatoes and make 3 times as much and it will taste so much better. Just sayin’. This Marty and I know because as school lunch directors we had a budget of around 74 cents a meal. That was for a protein, starch, veg, fruit and milk, all for only 74 cents. We did it and made some pretty damn good food that kids enjoyed. It involved cooking from scratch, looking for bargains and bought what was in season. We in most cases, introduced children to real food. The first time I made homemade chicken noodle soup all the kids didn’t know what it was. “What’s that?That doesn’t look like my mommy’s soup.” LOL Most of them tried it and liked it. However, some kids dumped it straight into the trash that first year. Many of them could tell what I was making just by the delicious smells going through the hallways of the school.

Like I wrote about yesterday, when you are not being tied down to a certain list or menu, you can keep your eyes open for bargains. Figuring out what to do with it comes later. Of course, you could always take it home, break the package up into smaller portions, wrap them up well and throw them into the freezer for a few meals. You can also plan your week around such a bargain like I did today.

When I got the chicken home yesterday I really had no idea what I was going to do with it. I slept on it and came up with a couple ideas. At this point I decided I was going to roast the whole 5 lbs. I took the chicken out and patted it dry with a paper towel. Put it into a pyrex dish that would hold 5 lbs of chicken. I rubbed the pieces down with olive oil, granulated onion and garlic, paprika, kosher salt and pepper. I baked the chicken uncovered at 375 degree for about 50 minutes.

After my timer went off I took the temperature of the chicken with a digital thermometer. Since the pieces were all such different sizes I took the temps of 3 different pieces. You can see how they varied. You always want to cook poultry to at least 165 degree and the only way to tell is to temp it. Some recipes say it’s done when the juices run clear. That is a bunch of horse shit. You do not want to give yourself or your family food poisoning from undercooked chicken.

After the chicken cooled, I took the meat off the bones and you can see how nice it came off . I was amazed at how much chicken I had to work with. If I was bored I would have taken the bones and made a pot of chicken stock, but not today. I have a couple meals planned, then whatever is left I will wrap it up well and freeze the cooked chicken for another day. Stay tuned to see what dishes I make. It smelled so comforting in the house while it was baking, perfect on a snowy winter day.

When I was young I used to watch the Galloping Gourmet with my dad. It was on tv from 1969-1971 so I was pretty young. We also watched Julia Child along with any other cooking shows first on PBS then later on the Food Network. My dad loved to cook, but not regular supper type food. He loved to make gourmet dinners and desserts. I remember my dad going to the big public library in Elizabeth, NJ where we lived and he would come home with arm loads of cook books. He worked nights then and didn’t start work until 3 pm. He used to sit and pick out what recipes he liked and ones that he wanted to try to make. Of course, there were not Xerox machines to copy the recipes he wrote them all down in his own cookbook that he made.

The book is huge with hundred of hand written recipes. I remember him making many of them. I also remember watching him prep all his ingredients on our kitchen table since we had literally no counter prep space. He was doing his mise en place like he saw on tv! His cookbook was so organized he had different sections with an index for each one. Every recipe was numbered in the index so recipes were and are easy to find.

Who did he cook for? Well not for me, I know that. My parents liked to entertain and so did their group of friends. They had a supper club that they would take turns each month and go to each others houses and basically out do each other and even themselves year to year. My dad always picked October since he was German since he liked cooking German food and March because that was what my mother wanted since she was Irish. He really didn’t like that he always ended up making Corned Beef and Cabbage. Not a culinary challenge or fancy, but he did whatever made her happy. I think one year he made a Guiness stew along with the usual dishes and she refused to eat it. Funny the things we remember.

I mentioned that my dad didn’t like to cook regular old week night food, so that was up to my mother who hated to cook. I am adopted so its funny that I got my love of cooking from my dad, along with a lot of other things as well. What did someone who hated to cook make? I grew up on frozen, canned and boxed meals. Lots of meals with Campbell Soup. I only had real mashed potatoes at other peoples houses or on Thanksgiving. To be perfectly fair my mother put a balanced, good tasting dinner on the table every night. Not everyone enjoys cooking, planning, prepping so I get that. She would eat out or take out every night if they could afford it. I’m not saying that she didn’t make anything from scratch. She made things she liked, shhhhhhh but not well. Sorry its true. I didn’t realize how bad they actually were, until I began cooking. Meatballs and sauce, beef stew, lamb chops obliterated beyond any mint jelly could help and london broil. Besides chop meat & cube steak that’s the only cut of meat I think any of us had.

My dad was a fun guy. He liked to cook and drink. He was a bartender for a caterer and made some mean ass drinks. Everyone liked him and his easy going way and funny stories and sayings. He passed away in April of 2000. I still miss him greatly and think of him so often when I am cooking or mixing a cocktail with one of his glasses or drink stirrers. I am so grateful that I have that cookbook in my possession. I cherish it and really feel like I should keep it in a safe. I looked through it this morning and picked out a bunch of recipes I want to make.

Ok, so I wasn’t going to write about this. I even said out loud that I wasn’t going to write about this, but the more I thought about it, the madder I became. So fuck it, I’ve decided if I am going to be honest on here, I should be honest. Here is book that someone put hundreds of hours into creating and treated it like a bible. I can still see my mother with a cigarette dangling from her lip on the phone and needed something to write down a phone number and some other information. She used his fucking cookbook! I remember getting up from the smoke filled kitchen and going upstairs to my room and punching my pillow and crying. I couldn’t stop her because that would have had a terrible aftermath, so I never said anything but it changed something that day, how I felt and how I viewed other people. Everything that I learned from watching other people in my childhood did one of two things, I either wanted to be like them or not.

We went to the store today to pick up a few things for dinners & lunches this week. I spent about 40 minutes this morning trying to menu plan for the week and came up with nothing. The hardest part of cooking is what to make right?? I decided I would figure it out when we got there. We shop at Aldi because its a smaller market with fewer choices. I don’t need 10 different types of everything to choose from. We basically only buy some produce, proteins and gluten free items there. When you shop at a farmers market things aren’t available and you just buy what’s in season. That’s another blog post another day. Yes we have to go to big supermarkets to pick up some things you can’t get anywhere else and I hate it. If I had a nice little market in our town like some of our wholesale customers markets own I would shop there daily. Would I spend more no. Would I waste more no. Would everything be fresher yes! Would I be a nicer person….YES!

Minding my own business in the produce area I heard a ripe avocado say “hey you!” I actually turned around and went back to the avocado section. I looked at them skeptical because they are usually hard as rocks and by the time it ripens I forget about it and its bad. Sound familiar?? I wasn’t looking for an avocado or ingredient for a Mexican meal, but I picked up one that looked perfect, looked around to see if anyone was looking and gave it a gentle squeeze. A tiny one. It was perfect. I still wasn’t sure what was going with it until we got to the meat section. I chose a package of country style boneless beef ribs that were $2.89 a pound. Everything else in the beef area was considerably more expensive.

Cuts of meat like these boneless beef ribs along with chuck roast, bottom round, rump roast etc are not pieces of meat you can come home and slap on the grill. If not cooked long, low, slow or under pressure they will be tough AF. I decided I would make Barbacoa Beef for tacos. I got out my pressure cooker and started my dinner. The meat was done in 23 minutes! I made my crunchy turmeric cumin rice, cut up some toppings for the tacos and called it dinner. As soon as I figure out how to share recipes I use I will add the link and eventually there will be a recipe section. That is in the near future. Today Marty figured out how to let people subscribe and comment!!!! This was a big deal after trying to figure this WordPress out.

When you go into a store shop like a chef does, let the ingredients speak to you and be ready to listen…the rest will fall into place.

Ugh I overcooked my gorgeous asparagus!!! I tell my cooking students if they want to enjoy cooking don’t overwhelm yourself. Pick recipes that are correct for the amount of time you have. I also tell them to Mise en Place which means to make your place or in other words prep your food ahead so the actually cooking is quick and easy. So I was blanching my asparagus for dinner the next night. I did this while I had a lot going on including feeding our dogs Otto & Klausie boy. Needless to say I overcooked the asparagus. Sigh, I wanted it to be crisp tender and ready to be sautéed with a little butter and lemon to serve with my scallops and gnocchi the next night. Damn no other green veggies in the house so my dinner will be not what I wanted. Now what do I do with this limp, boarding on mushy but still green asparagus????? I decided the next morning to make egg cups. So I cut a bunch of the least mushy pieces into little pieces, chopped up some off the bone ham, grated some Swiss cheese, grabbed a pinch of dried onion flakes and tarragon. Cracked some eggs, throw all the stuff in with a splash of half and half and prayed. LOL I’ve made egg cups before so I knew that my 2 cup liquid measuring cup filled to the top is the perfect amount for my 24 cup mini muffin tin. Threw in a 350 degree oven for about 13 minutes and boom we had Sunday breakfast. The rest of the mushy asparagus will get mixed into Otto and Klausie boy’s food for the next couple of days.