Kitchen Confessions
I don't know if I would categorize myself as a great cook, but as the primary meal prepper for our family for 15 years I feel reasonably confident in my abilities. But there are some corners I cut. So here are my kitchen confessions.
I often use regular vegetable oil instead of olive oil.
I use paper towels for pretty much everything, including plates sometimes.
I haven't purchased ground beef in... 8 or 9 years? We exclusively use ground turkey. It started as a cost-savings thing, but now we just like it and I feel it's healthier.
My chicken parmesan recipe is super simple. I just bread it with a mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan. I don't even pound the chicken flat.
I use Prego spaghetti sauce, but I add shredded cheddar and ground turkey. And parmesan, of course. It's really good.
One of my favorite lunches is just plain spaghetti noodles with butter and parmesan.
That's three parmesan items in a row. But can you ever really have enough parmesan?
Steamable veggie bags are the best. Five minutes for a side dish I don't have to feel guilty about. They're also great for simple stir fry. I used to buy fresh veggies and take forever cutting and cooking them.
I think I'm the only person in the world who still makes casseroles. But I love my tuna casserole, and ham & cheese too.
For the most part I think if you are using more than 5 ingredients you're overdoing it, likely masking the flavor of whatever the main ingredient is supposed to be.
I don't generally bake. I will occasionally do cinnamon crunch banana muffins, or some random thing like soft pretzels, but I leave the baking to Katie. She likes it, and I'm afraid that if I did it well it would bother her.
Rhodes Warm and Serve Rolls.
A couple of times I have mixed up corn starch and baking powder. I realized it quickly, at least.
As I posted elsewhere, the Instant Pot is good for various tasks, particularly meat dishes that would otherwise take too long to prepare. For example, I cooked baby back ribs in about 30 minutes. But they're still probably slightly overhyped. One-pot meals are kind of a headache if you have foods that require different cooking times.
What are your kitchen confessions?
I often use regular vegetable oil instead of olive oil.
I use paper towels for pretty much everything, including plates sometimes.
I haven't purchased ground beef in... 8 or 9 years? We exclusively use ground turkey. It started as a cost-savings thing, but now we just like it and I feel it's healthier.
My chicken parmesan recipe is super simple. I just bread it with a mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan. I don't even pound the chicken flat.
I use Prego spaghetti sauce, but I add shredded cheddar and ground turkey. And parmesan, of course. It's really good.
One of my favorite lunches is just plain spaghetti noodles with butter and parmesan.
That's three parmesan items in a row. But can you ever really have enough parmesan?
Steamable veggie bags are the best. Five minutes for a side dish I don't have to feel guilty about. They're also great for simple stir fry. I used to buy fresh veggies and take forever cutting and cooking them.
I think I'm the only person in the world who still makes casseroles. But I love my tuna casserole, and ham & cheese too.
For the most part I think if you are using more than 5 ingredients you're overdoing it, likely masking the flavor of whatever the main ingredient is supposed to be.
I don't generally bake. I will occasionally do cinnamon crunch banana muffins, or some random thing like soft pretzels, but I leave the baking to Katie. She likes it, and I'm afraid that if I did it well it would bother her.
Rhodes Warm and Serve Rolls.
A couple of times I have mixed up corn starch and baking powder. I realized it quickly, at least.
As I posted elsewhere, the Instant Pot is good for various tasks, particularly meat dishes that would otherwise take too long to prepare. For example, I cooked baby back ribs in about 30 minutes. But they're still probably slightly overhyped. One-pot meals are kind of a headache if you have foods that require different cooking times.
What are your kitchen confessions?
Comments
- YUP re: paper towels. I have just about completely eliminated the use of disposable straws in my house and I even bought a set of utensils to use instead of plastic forks and spoons but I CANNOT QUIT PAPER TOWELS. Oh, I just thought of a weird thing to confess:
1. I hate dirtying my cutting board. It's gross, I feel like it gets porous quickly so it retains food bits from everything i cut and I can taste everything and it's just so gross to me. There's nothing in the world worse than an apple you just cut for yourself tasting like an onion. So I started cutting everything on a paper towel on the cutting board. {covering eyes in shame} It's overdoing it, I know. But I love a clean cutting board. And everything I cut tastes like itself. Maybe I should just buy new/better cutting boards. But yeah, paper towels 4+ever.
2. I like casseroles too! i never make them but if I'm to make dinner, it's either going to be a crock pot dish or a casserole. Basically something I can toss together and bake. The other day I found a delicious-looking recipe for an eggs benedict bake. You cut up english muffin, mix in eggs and ham and make a real hollandaise and i was like, mmm tasty, I want to do this. I showed Sean and then we were silent and then I was like, "of course.. if I do this, I might as well just make eggs benedict." Sean: Yeah, that.
But especially breakfast casseroles, I love. And yeah, you can't go wrong with the tuna.
3. I thought of another confession (not really kitchen): i like grocery store sushi. I found one I like. It's at a gourmet grocery store near us and it's made on site by a real human I can see so I tell myself it's ok. But I totally like it. And I eat it with kiddie chopsticks that are stuck together at the end (with a dinosaur) and it's the highlight of my day/week.