Eating Food Is Where the Fun is At

We may enjoy making food, yet somehow eating it is where the real fun is. Even the busy cooks, chefs and bakers enjoy the satisfaction of at least taking a small taste while prepping or when it’s done.

 

Slowly Savor Each Bite
Take the time to slowly savor each bite and morsel as you clearly distinguish each savory sensation.

Enjoy the Aroma
So many good aromas and so little time to enjoy them each. Each food group has it’s unique aroma and that triggers both current feelings, emotions as well as past memories. The aroma that speaks to you is the one that you can repeat and develop.

Feast on the Flavor
Each flavor is worth feasting on savoring. Find the flavor profile of each food that you taste and relish it.

 

Kick back, relax and enjoy the food. Enjoy the food you make and enjoy the food made by others. Bon Appétit!

Homemade Food Is Good Food

Most food is far better that anything you can buy. So for a great rule of thumb, if you can make it at home instead of buying it at the store, that’s ALWAYS the best choice. It’s healthier, usually cheaper and far more satisfying. One of the greatest pleasures is to learn make things at home. You will be far more self sufficient and a great resource in any environment. Thinking of the economy it’s important to know how to hold your own, now more than ever. Gourmet cooking isn’t the skill that everyone needs to have, but far more simple and basic cooking knowledge and proficiency.

1. Customize Your Food
Making homemade gives you the chance to customize your food. You don’t have to have ‘their’ choices of flavors, spices and ingredients. If I’m making chicken pot pie, then I want to leave out the carrots, but buying premade I simply don’t have that choice. I’d rather put in some potatoes, but I can’t. With everything from breakfast foods to lunch, dinner and desserts it’s the same.

2. Make It Healthy
Since you’re in charge, you can substitute regular ingredients that have less saturated fat, les sodium and you can leave out the preservatives completely. In addition to all the things you can leave out, you can can add things that are healthier. Adding vegetables, fresh ingredients and other simple substitutions are great ways at making your food far healthier.

3. Make It When You Need It
Time is a luxury to everyone and spending large amounts of time at the grocery store walking up and down the aisles searching for all of the things  you need to stock your shelves is made far easier when you are in control and are baking and cooking off of a standard list of staples. You can control your spending and your eating.

4. Make It Cheaper
Besides from making the right quantity and not being wasteful, it still is cheaper to make things at home that purchasing. Buying basic supplies in bulk becomes the best way to go and saves money immediately. Eating healthier is always cheaper in the long run as health care costs far more. Our entire country is facing the impact of eating poorly and it’s costing us all.

5. Make The Right Quantity
So much of the premade and prepackaged food has a serving size that varies substantially from real life. Some serving sizes are so tiny that you’d have to have 6 portions to make a meal. Other serving sizes are so large that it would take you and a couple of neighbors to come over and finish it off.

6. Get Creative
Oh ya, creativity is fun too, isn’t it. By being creative at food combinations, flavors and taste profiles you can express your culinary expertise and passion.

Making Cheap Kid Food Grown Up

Some of the cheapest meals out there are 1. Mac and Cheese and also 2. Ramen Noodles. Mac and Cheese can be bought for 35 cents for a box or sometimes even less. Ramen noodles are even cheaper than that. Perhaps 10 or 12 cents each, and that includes the seasoning packets.

The problem with both of those dishes? There aren’t very good. Compare a box of mac and cheese with homemade macaroni and cheese with real cheeses and there simply is no comparison. So what to do if you really only have a limited budget? Here are couple of simple ways to make your cheap mac and cheese pop.

First, swap from margarine to real butter. That will give you a much richer and deeper flavor. It will also change the consistency of the cheese sauce and making it more buttery and smooth. The cheap cheese like packet will regain some of the ‘stuff’ that was taken our of it in manufacturing.

Second, add some basic spices. I happen to love the flavor of the standard Mrs.. Dash on mac and cheese. I think you should try it too and see if you love it as much as I do. If Mrs. Dash isn’t your thing, then find another spice that you love. After your favorite spice, add some garlic.

Then my favorite addition – sprinkle a generous amount of coconut on top. Really Mac and Cheese with coconut and garlic is the bomb. It’s super yummy and the coconut adds some addition texture to an otherwise very boring and meaningless dish. It transforms boring macaroni to something that you can serve to company and not be embarrassed.  Sprinkling in a little bit of real cheese will add some stringiness that will add to the overall feel too. So for less that 75 cents you can have a dish you can show off and not be concerned about sharing with your friends and family.

For Ramen Noodles it’s a similar trick. But before you add any garnishing, make sure that you don’t over cook the pasta. Slimy and over cooked pasta is the quickest way to ruin it and there’s no way to recover from that…ever. Test the actual cooking time a few times so that you’re comfortable with that part of the preparation.

Once the noodles are prepped correctly, top it with the seasoning and drain off a portion of the extra liquid. One of the challenges with ramen Noodles is that the liquid proportion is off and when you drain off some liquid you recover and be ready to add some coconut. Like the mac and cheese, the coconut adds some crunchy texture and a flavor and aroma that stands out as having no part of the original ramen noodles.

YAY! for cheap food that tastes great!

Good Food Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive

Actually good food really isn’t cheap. Buying fresh vegetables, good quality ingredients and have enough of incidentals that you use in cooking and baking just isn’t cheap. So what do you do when you don’t have a lot of money to buy good and expensive food. One of the basic concepts is to start with less expensive products, but then treat your food in a way that elevates the flavor and taste so that even a sophisticated palate would not know whether the base ingredients are fresh, frozen or canned.

We’ll take a look at a whole bunch of different techniques and strategies to take food way up.