I remember when I was younger, I used to spend a lot of time cooking and learning how to cook. I would watch Rachel Ray, Alton Brown and American's test kitchen to learn cooking techniques, then I would learn from many recipe books to try different dishes. Watching cooking shows was one of my favorite pass-time.
I used to spend hours after work cooking a meal. I have to say most time spent was on rinsing the vegetables multiple times, and chopping up ingredients.
These days, I don't spend that much time cooking anymore, and I'm not sure why. Once a while, I still cook a good meal, but now I like to make simple dishes quickly. One example of these quick dishes is the Campbell soup cream of mushroom with chicken.
I put some chicken in a oven proved dish, then put some sliced mushroom and chop onion on top, and then add a can of Campbell soup cream of mushroom, then pop that in the oven to bake for 30-40 minutes. That's dinner. While the food is in the oven, I can do whatever other things.
The oven is becoming my best friend, even though I still need to figure out how to not overcook the pork loins and bake sweet potatoes without exploding them.
When I started doing this Jack joked that I've gone to the dark side.
I am the opposite. I used to hold a turning shovel with the wrong way, but now I am holding it for at least 1 hour a day. It is fortunate to have someone cook for you ^_^
ReplyDeleteWhen cooking in an oven, not only time matters: you need also the right temperature, and you don't necessarily need the same temperature from beginning to end : sometimes you may want to start high and decrease temperature after 10 mns or so. All meats don't require the same temperature (lower for pork, as it gets dry and hard easily).Also, meat improves when resting a little bit at low temperature before serving. It's all about knowing basic rules and ... experimenting!
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