Comments on: Quick and Easy Dinner for a Busy Week

By: cmf

cmf — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:41:12 +0000

I think it’s one of the reasons it’s important to cook with kids. Our mom made sure to cook with both my brother and I — it was one of the things we all did together, especially after we went to live with our dad and spent weekends with her. During the years he lived alone, Patrick got kind of lazy and ate all sorts of crap like Lean Cuisine and Hot Pockets — but during the 5 years we lived together, I put my foot down about that stuff, and we cooked dinner most nights. Over time, he got much better at just making dinner. I remember a year or two in when he looked at me one night as he was making a quick pasta sauce from a can of tomatoes, a sauteed onion and some garlic and said “why did I ever buy sauce in a jar? this is just as quick and it’s so much better.” So yeah, a lot of it is practice. Like anything really …

By: Tara

Tara — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:28:46 +0000

I’m discovering that lots of people just don’t have enough cooking experience to do what you did (and what I do nearly every night). They don’t really know how to cook, and certainly not without a blueprint. All they can do is follow a recipe, which feels a bit complicated and fussy to them already. If they’re missing an ingredient, they have no idea how to make an appropriate substitution, and then if they don’t care for the finished product, they throw it out, get discouraged that they spent time and money fussing over something that was inedible, draw the conclusion that cooking is stupid and go back to eating reliable, predictable prepared foods. I’ve heard basically this same story from people time and time again.

I think throwing a few things into a skillet or a soup pot is a no-brainer, but I have good instincts, LOTS of practice, and I’ll eat just about anything. I don’t worry too much if something doesn’t turn out great, I just won’t make it that way again. I’d guess that most people aren’t like this. I think a lot of people prefer the safety of packaged foods – they know exactly what the outcome will be every time. Over the years, I’ve watched my husband make the transformation from packaged food to real food (when he cooks) – it’s been slow, with a lot of trial and error. I’m still often brought in to “consult” on the project.

By: cmf

cmf — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:37:50 +0000

Yeah, the food purists annoy me. If everyone just stopped eating processed food (especially pop — evil evil thing) then we’d all be better off. The Michael Pollan/Julia Child rules — eat real food, mostly plants, not too much. So lunch will be a nice minestrone — lots of veggies –

By: Meadowlark

Meadowlark — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:46:44 +0000

Eat well and enjoy.

I nearly spewed my coffee this morning when CNN had a piece on “NEW INFORMATION” – “It’s not WHAT you eat, it’s HOW MUCH. Take in fewer calories and you’ll lose weight”.

Um, gee, thank you Captain Obvious.
And WHO paid for the researchers to discover this?

We are sooooooooo screwed as a society. So go enjoy bacon and cream