Moderation in most things
I am a late bloomer, and learning how to cook was no exception.
I had little interest in the culinary arts until I moved into a house with my then-boyfriend and we decided to get a roommate: Meet Kari.
Kari is an amazing cook. Kari is amazing at everything. Her meals were hot and tasty and she prepared them while singing along to CBC, cleaning up as she cooked. We would eat her grilled steak with black bean side salad and sit around feeling replete and happy; my boyfriend would have a look on his face like he had just found a $50 bill lying on the street. This drove me insane: how had MY kitchen and MY boyfriend's stomach been annexed by another woman?!
I decided that I had to start a cookbook with recipes that I had attempted, written in my own lingo. My first book began in the summer of 2005 and lasted me a few years, until my tomato-paste-stained, inky scribbles covered all 80+ pages. It holds the distinction of being not only the first blank notebook I'd ever filled up, but also the only one I actually wanted to keep after completion.
I made lots of things. First it was mostly baked goods - an area I felt comfortable in since I'd made pies with my grandmother as a kid. Then I added the Kari staple recipes, including the black bean salad, her weird "keen-wah" salad, her lemon bars, and some amazing things she'd done with the butternut squash we grew in the backyard. I also begged recipes from my boyfriend's mom, for his favourite mini banana muffins, her carrot cake, and her chocolate chip cookies, to make him happy.
The boyfriend didn't last, but thanks to the cookbook, my determination to expand my repertoire of recipes did, and I started a second notebook with more vegetarian recipes, soups and healthier fare, especially after I got pregnant and had to be eating for two.
During my maternity leave, I went into a domestic frenzy, peeling and steaming mounds of organic fruit and veg when baby looked ready to try solids at four months, then finding ways to sneak them into her preferred all-carbohydrate diet at fourteen months. I started shopping with extreme frugality in mind, buying in bulk and waiting for sales. This is what lead me to some new discoveries.
A $7 sale on 10 pound bags of flour was too enticing to be missed, and in a moment of insanity, I bought TWO. That's 20 lbs of flour, for those of you who aren't so good at math. That's a lot of flour. At first I used it for my standard recipes: cottage cheese pancakes, thickening soups, as part of the crust for an apple-oat crumble. This was far too slow a way to push through such a wealth of gluten-y goodness, using a few tablespoons or a cup at a time.
I needed to make bread. Not banana bread, not zucchini bread, but everyday toasting bread. I experimented with english muffins, and found a recipe that worked for me. My partner and I had a baguette bake-off (he won), and tried cheese and tomato quick loaves and tortilla and pizza dough. Forced by the sheer quantity of flour, we stretched our horizons. We learned.
I have since gone out and bought 20 pounds of potatoes, 20 pounds of onions, and 20 pounds of carrots; 'tis the harvest season and I have ample cool storage downstairs. So far, we've enjoyed a great shepherds pie, Glico curry, and french onion soup.
The moral of the story? Get a notebook, hand write the recipe for anything you cook as a record of your successes and failures, and don't be afraid to buy in bulk. Moderation in most things, but not pantry staples or root vegetables.