How To Cook Like Your Grandmother
A Guide to Cooking with Real Food the Way Your Grandma Used to
This recipe came from my wife's cousin, Heather. It's a really easy way to add a ton of flavor to plain-old baked potatoes. And once you've done it, you'll start thinking of all kinds of ways to change it up to match whatever you're going to serve it with. … [Read more...]
If you were here last week, you saw the first version of these as asiago cheddar rolls. The wife and kids didn't get any of those, so I made them again, but this time added some ham and turned them into the main course. Sort of like mini-personal pizzas but without the sauce. You can do just about any toppings you like with this method. … [Read more...]
I grew up thinking "vinaigrette" just meant oil and vinegar. I also thought it didn't matter much what kind of vegetable oil you were using, and the only kind of vinegar was white distilled. Not surprisingly, I couldn't understand why would anyone want that on their salad. So I used the "creamy" stuff in bottles ... which of course didn't have any cream in them. (Rule of thumb: If the label on the front says "creamy" the ingredients listed on the back probably won't.) Then a couple of years … [Read more...]
There aren't many complex activities humans have been doing for longer than they've been making bread. But since the invention of sliced bread, most of us have gotten out of the habit. It's so bad that when I asked people who took my introductory cooking class -- you can still sign up using the form on the right side of the blog, by the way -- when I asked them what they wanted to know more about, making yeast breads was in the top three along with canning and knife skills. I didn't have … [Read more...]
Sloppy Joe is is a classic what's-in-the-fridge kind of meal. "Let's see ... I've got ground beef, onion, green pepper, and some leftover tomato sauce. I know! I'll throw it all together, add some spices, heat it up and put it on white bread." You do realize that's mostly what's in those cans of Manwich, right? Well, that and a bunch of corn syrup. And guar gum to thicken it up because it's mostly water. So I got to thinking: How would this come out if I were looking in someone else's fridge, … [Read more...]
