Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Essential Tools
In this episode we'll discuss the premise of the series and cover off the basics.
This show was born in a fever dream, but I don't let anything so mundane dissuade me. Basically, and it seemed like a good idea at the time, I wanted to host a cooking show that was all about how easy it is to actually cook stuff, based on the stuff I had available to me when I lived in my brother's basement. What that amounts to, in essence, was a fridge, a stove, a microwave, a kitchen (literally!) the size of a closet, and a teeny pantry shelf able to hold about 2 grocery bags worth of food, if the bags were small. The only redeeming feature was a long counter (that happened to be around the corner in the bathroom). Now that I'm not feverish anymore, it makes way more sense to update that with the experience I've had in the decade+ of cooking since I lived in the Basement of Doom.
So, the essentials. This is the stuff that I think is the bare minimum for a kitchen to have and be a useful place to cook. As I go along, for any given recipe, I will note what you need above and beyond the essentials.
- Fridge. Can be a bar fridge, needs to be a real fridge if you regularly cook for more than just you.
- Stove.
- Oven. Probably not an issue, since 99% of stoves and ovens come attached to each other. (If you're like me, you went the majority of your life not knowing that a stove and an oven were not the same thing. The oven is the inside part, the stove is the stuff on top.)
- Oven mitts
- Microwave
- Small pot (comfortably hold a can of chunky soup with an inch or two of space at the top), lid optional
- Oven-safe large pot (comfortably hold about 5 liters of water, with an inch or two of space at the top) with lid
- Largish frying pan, 10-12 inches across, ideally with a high side.
- Baking sheet (often called cookie sheets); one with 4 raised sides is recommended.
- Tin foil
- Stirring spoon
- Spatula (plastic, if your frying pan is non-stick)
- Small sharp knife
- Large sharp knife
- A cutting board
- 2-cup microwave safe measuring cup
- Set of measuring cups (1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1 cup)
- Set of measuring spoons (1/4 tsp through to 1 tblsp)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Multi-spice. Everyone has their preference; pick one or two. Spike, Lawry’s seasoning salt, Mrs. Dash, lemon pepper mix, whatever you prefer.
- Italian seasoning mix. You can’t make Italian-tasting pasta sauce without something like this. Believe me, I’ve tried.
- Tupperware or equivalent other-branded food storagey thingies. One that’s as big as you can make easily fit in your fridge, one that’s a convenient lunch size.
- Tomato sauce
- Tomato paste
- Cream of chicken soup
- Ichiban noodles (not the ‘bowl soups’, just the noodles+flavour packages)
- KD
- Dry vegetable soup mix
- Dry onion soup mix
- Carrots – goes into a lot of foods, stays good for-almost-ever in the fridge.
- Celery - ditto
- Onions - ditto
- Ketchup
- Mustard
- Rice (if you love yourself, get real rice. Minute rice isn’t actually any easier to make, and is much horribler. Voice of Experience talking here.)
- Bread
- Butter or margarine
- Sandwich stuff (whatever you like to put in/on your sandwiches.
- 2 or 3 prepared foods; stuff like Chunky soup, Lipton Sidekicks, frozen entrée’s if you have a freezer
- A “tells you how to make everything” cookbook.
- A “tells you how to make easy stuff for people who can’t cook” cookbook.
- Someone you can phone to say “How do I…” This is one of the traditional roles of mothers. If you don’t have someone already doing this, I’ll do in a pinch. E-mail me for my number if you don’t already have it.
Highly recommended, but not strictly necessary:
- A freezer is also highly recommended; not so much for the cooking part as for the “not going to the store every other day” part. Food storage=good.
- Tupperware or equivalent other-branded food storagey thingies above and beyond the minimum two is good. Food storage=good.
- Frozen veggie mix (if freezers were required instead of recommended, so would this be).
- Other condiments of choice. (relish, whatever. Ketchup and mustard, however, aren’t optional.)
- Cassarole dish, with lid. If you have one of these, your large pot above doesn’t have to be oven-safe anymore.
- Toaster ovens are da bomb. But they don't actually do anything other appliances can't, except be small and convenient.
Labels: Cooking isn't complicated
posted by James at 12:05 PM
3 Comments:
Ya know, theres a bunch of stuff on this list that I don't regularially have or use in cooking. Not because I do high brow cooking or anything, but because I never had a use for things like Cream of Chicken soup.
But we all have different styles.
Yup. I do say, right up there at the top, that this is the stuff *I* think is essential. :)
Can I hire you to make some meals??? :)
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