The Cheap-Ass Gourmet Cooking School: Introduction [Updated]

Tod Kelly

Tod is a writer from the Pacific Northwest. He is also serves as Executive Producer and host of both the 7 Deadly Sins Show at Portland's historic Mission Theatre and 7DS: Pants On Fire! at the White Eagle Hotel & Saloon. He is  a regular inactive for Marie Claire International and the Daily Beast, and is currently writing a book on the sudden rise of exorcisms in the United States. Follow him on Twitter.

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59 Responses

  1. NewDealer says:

    I am looking forward to this series because I want to cook more. My biggest issues about cooking are that I live alone and.

    1. Most recipes seem to be made for two or three people or more.

    2. I can stand making enough food that it serves me two or three nights but I have never been able to do what my friends do which is spend an entire Sunday cooking enough food for the week.

    3. Cleaning. This is the big issue. My kitchen is big enough but I don’t have a dishwasher and the idea of using multiple pots and pans for one person and then needing to clean them always depresses me.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to NewDealer says:

      Walking past a rack full of clean dishes is one of life’s great small pleasures (I almost never hand dry my dishes). If the thought of that isn’t enough to motivate you, find something to occupy your mind while you wash. Turn the music up loud and sing along. Explain your current problem at work to the dog. Compose a guest post in your head. Or just count your blessings — my father told me once that he never thought he would miss washing dishes, until his arthritis got bad enough that he didn’t dare wash anything breakable or sharp because his grip wasn’t reliable.

      Doesn’t apply to you, but one of my parenting tips is, “Wash dishes with your kids. Start when they’re young so it’s a habit. It’s amazing what an otherwise surly teenager will tell you while helping with the dishes.”Report

      • Miss Mary in reply to Michael Cain says:

        I wash dishes with my four year old, if playing in the bubbles and mopping up after counts as “washing dishes”. Thanks for the heads up, Michael. It’s nice to know it will pay off when he’s a teen.
        @newdealer As a single mom, cooking enough on Sunday to last me several days is like walking past a rack full of clean dishes. Ahhh 🙂Report

      • I listen to audiobooks throughout the day, especially when doing chores like dishes. Since it’s done in one place (as opposed to cleaning) I actually half-watched a TV program on my phone while I did it these past couple of weeks.Report

      • Thanks, Will. This will be a more common site in my kitchen when the dishes are being washed in the future. I must have a dozen different lectures that I’ve been putting off watching.Report

      • Tod Kelly in reply to Michael Cain says:

        I very much second the listening to music part. Which, by the way, I also recommend for the cooking phase.Report

      • krogerfoot in reply to Michael Cain says:

        Mastering the simultaneous dinner-ready/pots-washed stage of cooking single is enormously satisfying. With two cats that aren’t allowed to have people food, I’ve had no choice but to get kind of good at that. Plus, there are stir- and pan-fry dishes that are most appetizingly served, and sometimes eaten, right out of the cooking pot, which cuts down on the work.Report

    • Tod Kelly in reply to NewDealer says:

      My recommendation for cleaning after dinner, with or without a dishwasher: do all the plates, glasses, and silverware after you eat and set to rack dry. Soak all post and pans, clean in the morning. Cleaning pots and pans right after you cook with them can e a chore; cleaning them after you’ve let them soak overnight is almost always just rinsing them out.Report

    • Kim in reply to NewDealer says:

      Man, you are just begging me for more posts, ain’tcha?
      A week of cooking shouldn’t take much longer than a day of cooking — economy of scale, man.
      And if you’re doing a stew (and why not, it keeps well), you can read a book the whole time (so long as you remember to stir! set timer!)Report

    • j r in reply to NewDealer says:

      Stir-fry and other one pan meals are the way to go.

      For instance, I often cook some kind of protein in a skillet (sometimes all on the stove, sometimes finished in the oven), then remove the protein and wilt or saute some greens in the same pan.Report

  2. zic says:

    I recently started volunteering at our community food pantry.

    This is, in some ways, pretty disheartening; boxes of food from donations and purchased at steep discount from the Good Shepard Food Bank.

    And one of the things I realize I should do is develop recipes that use the food we place in the boxes we distribute; but I need a few more months to clearly understand what’s regularly distributed and what’s a one-off (like the packages of bacon that don’t need refrigeration. What’s up with that?)

    No matter, some recipes for lentil soup are definitely in order there. And I may well take your ideas and use them as a springboard, too; I hope you appreciate the spreading of good skills, Tod.

    (And today’s must cook something new each week venture is a bulgur salad, Greek style, with lemon juice, mint, and olive oil, tomatoes, cucumbers; probably based on this recipe: http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2009/08/recipe-for-bulgar-salad-with-tomatoes.html.)

    For your skills list, baking and fermenting seem crucial to me; but I’m old school.Report

    • Kim in reply to zic says:

      eh. fermenting is a real chore. But, yeah, baking.

      Also, if you master just one of these basic cooking styles, well, you don’t really need the rest.Report

      • dragonfrog in reply to Kim says:

        “Fermenting is a chore” depends how complicated you’re getting, maybe.

        If you’re brewing beer, that’s a lot of effort.

        On the other hand, when we were perpetually half-broke students, one thing I did to save a bit of money was make yogourt at home. All I did was fill the nearly empty yogourt pot with milk, stir it, cover it, and leave it for 24 hours on top of our inefficient fridge that kicked out way too much heat. The culture started to get weak after a few generations at which point I’d buy an other pot from the store. It cut the cost of yogourt to about a third of buying new every time, for minimal effort.

        I also made bread pretty often before my wife realized she’s allergic to wheat. The fermenting aspect there was similarly little bother – leave the bread pans in the oven overnight, set the alarm an hour early, turn on the oven, go back to bed, get up to fresh bread.Report

      • Kim in reply to Kim says:

        df,
        yeah, bread’s no chore. you can do it at basically any temp, freeze it, etc etc.
        Yogurt? well, you’re braver than I am.Report

      • zic in reply to Kim says:

        DF, can she eat spelt flour?

        I’ve been working on a spelt recipe, since I have several friends who can’t eat wheat but can eat gluten (and so can eat spelt.) It’s my favorite flour for anything you want a tender crumb to; I use it for pie crust, cookies, muffins, etc. And it can make excellent bread if treated properly.Report

  3. greginak says:

    This should be fun. Learning how to cook more and better food was an important part of getting healthy and in better shape for me. If you don’t like the food you make at home you are more likely to go out for crap out of desperation and hunger instead of as a fun treat. My wife also has a restricted diet and likes/needs bland food while i like spicy food so we need to cook separately. It is amazing that it isn’t all that hard to cook good healthy tasteful food for yourself. It seems like it should be hard before you know what you are doing.Report

  4. Miss Mary says:

    I also learned my love of cooking through exchanging letters with a friend that taught me what little I know about making food. (Except, I’m slightly younger, so these “letters” are what we now call email.)

    I think I’ll go searching the archives for the series of posts you did a while back about all of the chicken. I’ve been wanting to get a “happy” chicken for a while, now I’ll know what to do with it!Report

  5. Mike Dwyer says:

    This should be a lot of fun. I learned how to cook backwards. I wanted to master various ethnic cuisines so I would tackle various dishes and then back into the necessary techniques. A couple of years ago I decided to go back to the basics and have been trying to master basic cooking techniques like you describe here. This will be handy to cook along with.Report

  6. Catherine310 says:

    For this to be a (somewhat) more complete tutorial, I would urge you to include “Baking” as an additional skill. There is nothing better in life than a fresh-from-the-oven loaf of homemade bread (let it rest about 20 minutes or more before slicing into it). Butter optional. And homemade cookies are cheaper and a thousand times tastier than store-bought. In our house, I make bread more often than the cookies because the spouse doesn’t have a sweet-tooth. And it’s not the huge investment of time that people think it is. A bread-making session usually involves about an hour of real time investment; all the rest is passive/rising time.Report

    • Tod Kelly in reply to Catherine310 says:

      I thought about this, but I decided that I would rather attach baking to roasting. After all, the difference between baking and roasting is somewhat nebulous — each are cooking methods that use dry, indirect heat; each can be done at higher or lower temperatures depending upon the dish and desired outcome. In almost all cases, we use “baking” or “roasting” as a way to differentiate not the cooking method, but the the type of food we are cooking. (e.g.: Red meats, root vegetables, whole poultry are described as roasted; pieces of poultry, fish, and foods that lack structure prior to cooking we describe as baked.)

      If you learn the hows and whys of roasting, in other words, you don’t need to also learn baking.

      In fact, when I discuss roasting I will also talk a bit about barbecue. (As opposed to grilling, which I will discuss when we talk about broiling.)Report

      • This joke is probably getting old, but I’ll say it anyway, mostly because I can:

        Aren’t you posing a false equivalence between roasting and baking?Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Tod Kelly says:

        Only for things you rotate half-way through (i.e. where you do it to both sides.)Report

      • zic in reply to Tod Kelly says:

        There is that. But.

        There is also some chemistry to baking (ratios of flour/liquid/fat and leavening agent) that are pretty easy to grasp and takes you from cookies to scones to muffins to quick breads to pancakes in pretty sort order.

        Plus bread; which is why I also recommended fermentation. Bread plus salt-brined pickles and yogurt/cream cheese are pretty easy and tasty things to master at home.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to Tod Kelly says:

        I was torn on the distinction because “roasting” doesn’t cover casseroles, at least IMO. Casseroles certainly fall under the cheap-ass adjective in the title, but not necessarily gourmet. When I moved out of the dorms at college and became the cook (by default, but I’d cooked all through high school), the things that were subject to the “can we have…?” requests seemed mostly to be casseroles.Report

      • Catherine310 in reply to Tod Kelly says:

        I was going to quibble with you on this, since much of baking (especially bread) is about the preparation methods before hand, rather than just the heating of it (you can roast a chicken by making sure it’s clean, adding salt and pepper and chucking it in the oven). But I checked the definition of “cook” and almost all defined it as preparing food by applying heat. So, the quibble is withdrawn ….Report

      • Tod Kelly in reply to Tod Kelly says:

        @catherine310 Whew!Report

      • Kim in reply to Tod Kelly says:

        Baking versus roasting is a matter of temperature, as well. Roast means low heat, baking is more moderate, grilling is high heat.Report

    • Mike Dwyer in reply to Catherine310 says:

      The thing about baking, IMO, is that it’s less about the cooking techniques and more about the assembly. Baking scares me. It’s like chemistry. Black magic. I don’t ever bake from scratch although I will do boxed items like brownies or bread mixes. Maybe I am wrong about that…?Report

  7. I’m really looking forward to these posts. Like Tod, in my early 20s, I used to think I could cook, but for me, that meant that I knew how to preheat the oven to 350 and pop in the swanson tv dinner (with the chicken, potatoes, corn, and brownie dessert).

    Now, I’m at the stage where I can make a few recipes, but probably still rely too much on processed foods. For example, I don’t rinse/soak my own beans, but prefer the canned kind for the convenience. I buy pre-cut chicken pieces rather than whole chickens, and one the rare occasions I do buy whole chickens, I usually don’t save the bones for stock. My “tacos” are hamburger with McCormick seasoning and my enchiladas are enchiladas because I add enchilada sauce.

    So….I have a lot to learn.Report

    • Miss Mary in reply to Pierre Corneille says:

      See, in my early 20s I didn’t see the need for cooking. I infrequently resorted to heating things up. My favorite foods have always been fruit, vegetables, nuts, cheese, pickles, crackers, and other items that can be eaten just as they are, and so that is how I ate them.Report

  8. Marchmaine says:

    I look forward to these articles… and I heartily agree with the counter-intuitive that better ingredients used to the fullest will provide a greater yield. Also, the way in which you buy can influence cost… we provide on the website an ROI calculator to show how buying Grassfed beef and lamb by the side is closer to Costco prices than Wholefoods (and WFM is not even grassfed, in general).

    In fact, I’ll de-cloak for a moment and offer a free “beyond organic” pastured chicken (Label Rouge Method) and a dozen eggs from our farm to any OTimer that asks… and is willing to drive out to the Shenandoah Valley to pick them up (45 minutes west of Dulles) – we don’t ship, sorry @tod-kelly .

    If you mention BlaiseP, I’ll give you some meat from an old goat. If you mention Kazzy, I’ll give you a free “get-out-of-wholefoods-jail” card. Dwyer gets you some Venison, and a Schilling reference, well, I’d say Ham, but that might be insensitive – so maybe cheese instead.

    See link above or email us at Nottinghill at embarqmail dot com. [re-cloak]Report

  9. krogerfoot says:

    I love cooking, not least because I drink while doing it. (A lot of my recipes employ adverbs like frantically, vehemently, furtively, and smugly.) The ingredients I count on in my home country are unavailable or exorbitantly priced here, and ovens and dishwashers are pretty rare. Instead of learning to cook local dishes, which would make a lot more sense, I’ve gotten into recreating the stuff I miss using what’s available. My repertoire is limited, though, so I will be following this series with great interest.Report

  10. Anne says:

    @tod-kelly I am really looking forward to this. Growing up my mom cooked but…other than her apple pie and potato salad she was not the most adventuresome cook. I dated a real Foodie for awhile who showed his love by cooking. I always told him he was ruining me for other men because boy I really like someone else cooking good food for me and packing my lunch. Though the relationship did not last I learned so much by watching him cook. I took that and have expanded on his recipes and now really enjoy cooking for my friends and family. I also have a slight obsession with food porn (cooking shows).

    My skills can always use improvement. I know you are not going to touch on baking much but here is a recipe for bread I am going to try and thought others here might be interested too
    http://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/refrigerator-stored-artisan-boule-with-whole-grainsReport

  11. Kolohe says:

    I imagine you’re going to cover this based on the example of the whole chicken, but a primer on how to properly use a knife, (and how a good knife is another Sam Vines example) pays dividends. It’s something I’ve only come to appreciate recently, and wished I learned much earlier.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to Kolohe says:

      A really sharp knife makes so many things easier. Over the years, I have lost track of the number of times I have been in someone else’s kitchen, struggling with a dull knife, and drew only a blank look when I asked where they kept their knife sharpener. Even cheap knives can be kept sharp, and little gadgets for doing so are inexpensive and easy to use.Report

  12. Damon says:

    I’m looking forward to this as well. I’m a pretty damn good cook, but I always like to read about new things to eat or ways to prepare stuff.

    It’s sad, really, that not as many people cook anymore. It’s cheaper and better than going out all the time, and I judge a resturant by one primary question: can i make this as well or close enough? If yes, I’ve misspent my cash.

    I learned from my Mom many things: how to do laundry, sew, iron, cook, budgeting, etc. Something I think we do a disservice to our children in school. That and the fact that no one seems to teach them economics and the laws of supply and demand.Report

  13. North says:

    I am a half assed cook at best so I’m enormously looking forward to this.Report

  14. Kim says:

    Of course this reeks of privilege.
    http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/will_wal_mart_replace_the_supermarket_partner/
    http://pollan.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/05/15/wal-mart-goes-organic-and-now-for-the-bad-news/

    But that’s not to say it won’t make for entertaining reading.
    And I’ll have far fewer quibbles with it than your “kitchen basics” post, I’m sure.Report

  15. Kim says:

    post in modReport

  16. Tod Kelly says:

    For those arguing Roasting v. Baking, please see update in the OP.Report

  17. Kim says:

    Where will you be covering Steamed Hams?Report

  18. Michael Cain says:

    One of the reasons I’m strongly in favor of this series is that I believe everyone should have at least one good cooking story in their collection of amusing tales about themselves. If you don’t cook, you can’t have one. This is mine…

    When I moved off campus as an undergraduate, I became the cook by default (because Mom and Dad were unusual in thinking that everyone, including boys, should be able to cook, I was the only one who could). After a few weeks the question arose as to whether one guy’s girlfriend could eat supper with us, if she made the requisite monetary contribution. It didn’t bother me — cooking for one more wasn’t a hassle — so she joined in. She was a very polite and proper young lady, even for that time and place, which was Nebraska in the mid-70s. Never cursed. Never used any “bad” words.

    One of the things I made occasionally was chipped beef in cream gravy served over homemade biscuits. It can be pretty good, if you put the right things into the gravy along with the chipped beef. Within the group, it had acquired the standard Army moniker for such a dish. It turned out to be one of the young lady’s favorites, which I found out one evening when she asked, “Mike, when can we have… <agonized pause>… shit on a shingle again?”Report

    • Maribou in reply to Michael Cain says:

      My favorite kitchen story doesn’t even involve cooking.

      I was helping a friend make tea. At her apartment, the first time I’d ever been there. A little bit distracted, because her not-much-younger brother was extremely attractive and he kept flirting with me. And her boyfriend came home, fresh from his ridiculous residency schedule, *just* as I went up on tiptoe over the stove, reaching up to a little cupboard where she kept the tea. But I wasn’t used to an electric stove, you see – mine was gas – and so I hadn’t noticed that she’d turned the burner on *before* taking the kettle over to the sink to fill it.

      He opened the door, saw me, and didn’t say anything, though his eyes widened. “Maribou, this is James*,” she said from behind me, and I turned away from the stove towards him, noticed my leg was on fire, beat it out, and shook his hand, without even batting an eye.**

      For months afterward, if I ran into her 6-foot-tall, green-eyed, half-Egyptian, half-Polish, all-yummy, leather-jacketed brother on the quad, he would say, “HEY MARIBOU HOW ARE YOU?” and then introduce me to his friends with an appended, but not explained, “She’s a bad-ass.”
      ——
      *I have no idea what his name was, actually. I remember her name but not the names of either of the men in this story. Shortly after this story happened, I became involved in some relationships of which she did not approve, so we never became really close friends.

      ** It helped that the part of my leg that was on fire was not my actual leg, but rather the outside of a front jeans pocket, and that the pocket had a leather wallet in it. Miraculously, the timing was so good that neither the pocket nor the wallet were ruined; my t-shirt had scorch marks, but since it was my exam study t-shirt, and already had holes and blood stains, a little burninating just added to the ambience.Report

  19. Catherine310 says:

    Hey, as a lurker, I will lend a voice on the cooking front. I cook, I bake.. (Sometimes, that, is.)….Report

  20. Rufus F. says:

    One of my many jobs right now involves prep cooking in a banquet hall where the head chef is not really working out in bizarre ways. It’s interesting to watch because of how weird his screw ups are, but one from last week was that he didn’t understand braising. We’re all trying to help the guy before he gets fired, but holy crow, he’s a head chef who doesn’t know know to braise food!Report