Adventures in Cooking

[sorcyress]

My usual preface: I don't cook, and any evidence to the contrary has probably been invented by the government to confuse you. On a totally unrelated note, I made a roux yesterday. It was terrifying, but somehow did not explode, so I count it as a success.

So, there's about one thing in the world that I actually consider myself to be able to cook. I call it "eggs etc", and I can teach you how to cook it too!

Get a frying pan
Get a bowl
Put the insides^{1, 2} of some eggs into the bowl
Put some milk and some teriyaki sauce and some cheese and basically anything else you have lying around the kitchen into the bowl
Mix
Dump the bowl into the frying pan. You can actually add the etc at this step if you want.
Ham is pretty good. So is broccoli
Cook over low heat³
Keep cooking and stirring with a spatula or something until the egg bits are pretty solid
Put it on a plate and eat.

Brilliant recipe, right? The best part is that you can make it with basically anything in your kitchen that tastes good with eggs. Every ingredient I mentioned above is optional.

Including, as I learned tonight, the eggs. I had a can of sliced potatoes (expired in July of 2008, so if I die, I'd start by blaming that) and no eggs. Ergo, I made "Eggs etc without eggs".

Ingredients included butter and canola oil, to give me a little bit of frying ability, the aforementioned deadly potatoes, some Melting Pot garlic powder etc, and some Crazy Jane's mixed up salt. Oh, and teriyaki sauce. That's like crucial to making things in the frying pan.

It was okay. I ate about two-thirds of it⁴ --a little too much salt. Also, the potatoes weren't very good to start, so, you know. That. I will either finish it later or ruthfully⁶ cheat and send them down the drain for reasons of not wanting them.

So, notes for the future:

Eggs etc should contain eggs.
Also, the fridge in the empty city should contain eggs.

Woot.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: As in, everything but the shells
2: Crack eggs on flat surfaces --it won't drive bits of eggshell into the soft gooey stuff. Thanks Alton!
3: Thanks Vienna

4: Mr Belm's second law of the kitchen⁵: Eat all the leftovers. Mr Belm's third law of the kitchen: If you ruin a dish, you still have to eat it. Burnt or improperly seasoned food is a powerful motivator to improve.

5: As well as Mr Belm's Laws of the Kitchen (which should technically be the Belm Culinary Laboratory Rules for Learning to Cook), my brain also has Chris's first law of cooking (Wash the knife immediately after using, dry it, and put it straight away. Knives are too good for dishwashers or soaking) and Chris's second law of cooking (Pans are a lot easier to clean when they're still hot).

There are probably other rules I'm not remembering --there's certainly a Belm-based rule of using knuckles when cutting vegetables such to not chop off fingers-- but that's the stuff I more or less live by in the kitchen.

6: It is impossible for me to be ruthless.

Comments

[vtladyhawke.livejournal.com]

You know, I've been meaning to do a cooking post with some of the recipes that I've concocted lately...must get round to that.

ruthfully

[dhs.livejournal.com]

: It is impossible for me to be ruthless.

*snerk*

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Lol. I like how one of your steps is just commentary, not an actual action one must take.

I love eggs. Variety and simplicity in cooking and yum makes for a good food. Also I'm inspired to suggest two simple yet yum foods to add to your arsenal.

A) Toast and eggs

1: Cook one egg via one of the following methods, in order of preference: soft-boil (2-3 minutes) or your preferred variant of over-easy/firm/etc. (you want a liquid yolk)
2: Make toast, with a small amount of butter. 2 slices, no more, no less.
3: Slice toast into half, then each half into strips thin enough to dip the end into your egg yolk
4a: If you boiled the egg, put it in an egg cup, lobotomize it with a spoon, dip toast strips in, and enjoy.
4b: If you over-Xed the egg, just dip and enjoy, the toast will rupture the yolk on its own.

B) Grilled cheese

1: Get two slices of bread (any type), enough cheese to cover (any type, but American is flavorless and runny ew), butter/butter substitute, and any miscellaneous cheese additives you might like (think omelette ingredients).
2: Butter both sides of both slices (some people consider this too much butter, but I consider such people to be weak of artery), not too thick
3: Assemble sandwich on griddle-esque (flat-bottomed and low-walled) pan on stove. I think the method here is obvious.
4: Cook sandwich on medium, not high, for several minutes. Good technique, as this is griddle food, involves smushing the sandwich with your spatula. After 2-ish minutes, flip it and see how the cooked side looks while the other side cooks for a similar amount of time. Add cooking time per-side as needed to achieve toastiness. Once a side is almost done, flip frequently to avoid burning.

[harena.livejournal.com]

i tend to cook my eggs at high heat (and with entirely too much butter >.> (i've never learned to like the taste of olive oil which, i know-i know, is much healthier)) 'cause that prevents them from sticking to the pan and making clean up Immensely Easier. This is, of course, because i use cast iron skillets instead of no-stick teflon because tiny bits of iron are far better for my body's health than tiny bits of teflon. *nods*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

So, regarding eggs: We almost always buy vegetarian-fed eggs from small local farms, which have good thick tough shells, so a good smack on the counter (as noted) and a little pulling to separate, and voila, clean break, no shell bits.

Whenever I'm cooking at my folks' (or R's folks') kitchen, though, or anywhere else where someone's bought the factory-farmed, thin-shelled weak eggs, I almost always forget that for about the first egg, which I smack onto the counter like it had a real healthy shell, and, um, make a mess. Oops.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

Oh, and more in my not-quite helpful commentary:

As my brother helpfully pointed out over the holidays,
"If you're worried about cutting your fingers while chopping vegetables, have someone else hold the vegetables."

[mogwit.livejournal.com]

New skill for you to practice: cracking eggs one-handed on the inside of a bowl.

[mrs-pansy.livejournal.com]

What was it you made out of your roux?