Cooking When You're Type A

Last year I dedicated a lot of time to figure out how to cook. Not that I don't seriously mess up now or anything, but I finally determined how to meal plan and cook in a way that makes sense to me. I'm NOT the type of person who can look at what food we have and just whip something together. Or "eyeball" things, or understand the term, "until it looks right". That ability BLOWS me away. It used to make me sad that I can't do that but that sadness kept me from cooking so now I just have come to accept it and move on.

I don't think I'm the only one who isn't capable of kitchen sorcery so I write this in hopes of helping my fellow no-mag's. Consider this the Quickspell Guide for the kitchen.

If you're starting from literal ground zero, like me, then I highly recommend watching the show Good Eats with Alton Brown. It's on Netflix. Alton is like a combination of Bill Nye meets Mythbusters meets Julia Child. What we've loved about his show is that he goes into the science of why we cook things in a certain way but in a way that laymen (hi, that's me) can understand. I don't leave a show knowing how to make just one dish; I leave knowing how to make steak in all different types of applications. Alton is also super practical. He doesn't feel the need to use top of the line ingredients or equipment and has a special hatred for what he calls "uni-taskers". As someone with a small kitchen, I super appreciate this. Who really needs a crepe pan or grapefruit spoon??? I also recommend getting some America's Test Kitchen cookbooks. I've found these in checkout stands in grocery stores. They teach you techniques and applications instead of just "how to make a dish".

Armed with both Good Eats and ATK cookbooks wasn't enough. All last year we cultivated our kitchen to have basics. Once we figured those out, cooking at home became a cinch. Below is a list of the basics we utilize, then I go over my actual planning & shopping process.

What are "kitchen basics"? - I'm going to divide this up into 2 sections: kitchen gear and food

1. Kitchen gear:
• 12 inch frying pan - highly recommend this one
• Dutch oven - I drool over these, but these ones work perfectly. These are perfect for recipes you start on the stove top, then transfer to the oven
• Knife set - there's a lot of argument over knives but the most important thing is that they need to be and stay sharp!! I have this one and it works great. Surprisingly, Ikea has some really great ones for cheap
• Cutting boards - your preference, but I'd steer clear from the acrylic kind cuz it really dulls your knives
• Pasta pot - I couldn't even begin to tell you where mine is from, but it's just a generic pot I can boil water in
• Wooden slotted spoon, spatula, ladle, etc. - your preference again but make sure it's on hand
• Coffee grinder - just trust me on this one
• Meat thermometer - got ours at Ikea
• Most people probably have a lot more than these items in the kitchen (thank you, wedding gifts!) but these are the ones we use most commonly
2. Food - These are items I've found I use in nearly every recipe. The first list are the items I've found that are actually worth buying in bulk from Costco. The other list are random staple items to have on hand (and yeah, a lot could also be bought at Costco).
• Costco:
• onions
• chicken stock - in liquid form
• chicken, beef, and vegetable boullion
• diced tomatoes
• tomato paste
• milk
• eggs
• chicken breasts
• bread
• white beans
• black beans
• rotisserie chicken - one chicken gives me meat for two dinners, plus three, 32 oz containers of stock when I take the time to make it!
• pasta
• garlic; both the whole bulb and pre-minced
• butter
• olive oil
• parmesan
• sour cream
• Random staples:
• flour
• sugar
• rice
• soy sauce
• rice wine vinegar
• diced green chilies
• panko
• baking soda
• baking powder
• cornstarch
• kosher salt
• dijon mustard

These are my very favorite cookbooks

1. Planning:
• There's really not many shortcuts for this but I've found a few helpful things to make the process smoother:
1. When I get a new cookbook, I immediately sit down and bookmark all the recipes that speak to me.
2. On our fridge I have a "to buy" list where I write down everything we're out of as soon as I notice it.
3. About once every 10 days I take an hour in the morning and make my list. My grocery list is on a OneNote notebook so I can use my phone as my list while I'm in the store.
4. I browse through all the marked pages in my cookbooks and my Pinterest board for anything that sounds good. I'm still very much in the exploration stage of our family meals, so I don't really have any "top 10" meals I make quite yet. I do however follow this general guide: 
• 1 soup/sandwich/salad dinner
• 2 chicken dishes
• 2 beef dishes
• 1 pork
• 2 vegetarian
• This gives me about 7-9 dinners total, which lasts 10ish days. We have a leftover night once a week, and eat out once a week, so occasionally I can make this stretch over a two week period
2. WRITE IT DOWN:

• Nothing kills a grocery budget like not having a list. And going shopping hungry. Don't do either of those things.
• To make my list, I first write down all of the items I've written on our fridge list. Usually these are random ingredients (ie: peanut butter, oatmeal, rice wine vinegar). Then I write down the produce items I typically use for breakfasts and lunches and veggies for dinner side dishes.
• I go through each dinner recipe and write on my OneNote any ingredients for dishes I don't have. Typically this is mostly produce, herbs, and the occasional "special ingredient" (mostly some type of cheese if I'm being honest). This gets much easier the more familiar you become with your pantry and fridge.
• In a second column I make sure to write down the meal I plan to make and where I found the recipe (ie: Six Sisters - pg. 12). 
• I write down all the planned meals on a whiteboard that's in my kitchen. I used to assign the meal to the day of the week, but that was a little TOO restrictive for me. It's nice to look at the whiteboard in the morning and decide, "hey, chicken sounds good today" and know I have a chicken dinner option to choose from. I just made a habit of figuring out dinner by lunchtime so if anything needs defrosting, it has time to do that.
• I print off any Pinterest recipes I'm going to try, or any recipes I have paper copies of, and hang them up on the fridge.
• Utah locals - if you haven't been to Harmon's before, I highly recommend it! They're a bit more expensive than WalMart or Macey's, but I've found the produce to be MUCH higher quality and it lasts longer (eg: I've never bought a bad avocado from there!)
• The last thing I do before actually going into the store is organize my list by my typical route through the store. I've been going enough times through Harmons that I know the layout, and doing this last step has helped me a lot, even if it's borderline OCD haha.
3. Side dishes:
• I'm a HUGEEEE veggie lover and always have at least one veggie side at dinner. I've found that to make it more enjoyable, you can't always eat steamed veggies on the side, so I've really delved into making the veggie dish standout more. One of my favorites was shredding brussels sprouts and frying them in pan with garlic and butter, or roasted cauliflower with bacon fat and a little paprika. Just cuz you grew up hating it doesn't mean you hate all forms of it ;)
• We're working on incorporating more fruit into our diets. It's still a little odd for me to have fruit at dinner (idk why), but it's easy enough to slice an apple or peel an orange.
• Salads - when in doubt, have a salad. Having simple greens is better than not having any!
4. Helpful Tips:
• One of the hardest things for me in the beginning was figuring out the terminology. I had no idea what a roux was or a mirepoix, let alone why either was important. Watching Good Eats helped a LOT with that! I'm still working on learning different cutting techniques and terms
• One of the quickest and cheapest ways to get a LOT of flavor in your meals is to GRIND YOUR OWN SPICES. Hence why I mentioned a coffee grinder as a kitchen gear basic. We primarily use ours for cumin (I'll never get pre-ground cumin again!), cinnamon, and occasionally nutmeg. It makes a WORLD of difference with very little effort. Additionally, it's worth every penny getting a pepper grinder instead of a pepper shaker for the same reasons.
• Fresh herbs always amp up your dinner as well. I planted 3 basil plants and 2 parsley plants in my garden this summer, and while that was maybe too much, it definitely got the job done! I almost always have to get cilantro, parsley, basil, and chives during the winter months when my garden is dead.
• Remember your personal preferences for things. I don't personally love eating raw peppers however I don't mind them in things, so when a recipe calls for red bell peppers, I just make sure I chop them small enough that I'll have to have other things on my fork.
• Follow the recipe precisely until you know what you're doing. When you start customizing it to your family's taste, write down those changes or ideas cuz I guarantee you'll forget the next time you go to make it!
• It is MUCH easier to add salt than to take salt away. Save seasoning for the last step.
• USE YOUTUBE AND GOOGLE. I bought a whole salmon at Costco over the summer. Head, tail, scales, bones and all because it was $4/lb. I had no idea how to skin & debone a fish, but I YouTubed about 10 videos on the subject beforehand, then setup my laptop on the counter while I did it. It wasn't a pretty job, but I feel pretty good about it! If you don't know what translucent onions look like, YouTube it. If you aren't sure how to tie a specific knot around your meat, YouTube it. If you don't know how to chop an onion, YouTube it. Need a substitute for a spice? Google it. Don't know how long you should reduce alcohol down? Google it. You get the idea.
• Remember!! The whole process gets much easier with practice. For example, we've realized we really love asian foods and in the beginning we had to keep buying a lot of ingredients for the various recipes. Now that my fridge is stocked with oyster, fish, and hoisin sauce, most of those recipes only require me to buy 2 or 3 things
5. Budget:
• I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention a grocery budget at some point in this post. For our family of 4.5 (I eat a ton while pregnant and Kyle does too, especially when he's consistently working out), we spend on average about $450/month. About $300 of that is at Costco and the remaining is at Harmons.
• There is definitely room here for cutting back when needed; we occasionally splurge on steaks from Costco, or get a nice new olive oil to try out. We like to experiment with foods and our budget gives us the room to do that, thankfully. Harmons does have a loyalty program card that I use every time. It gives me discounts and I earn points that go towards monthly events they host. I know a lot of grocery stores do something like this, so check into that option if you can!
• One budget saving option is to look into buying meats at butcher shops or Zaycon foods. Over the summer we bought 50 lbs of chicken for $67. Zaycon carries really high quality meats, so while it's not necessarily the cheapest of cheap places to get it, for the quality and price, it really can't be beat. Same with buying from your local butcher, it may be slightly more expensive than the cheapest option, but the quality is unmatched.

I don't personally mind going to the store and buying the food. It's kinda therapeutic for me in some way, but only if I have a plan of action and a list. If I'm stuck wandering around or frantically trying to remember something we need, then it's not fun for anyone.

Anyway, I'm sure there are thousands of other tips and tricks other people have and can share, but I've found that this method has been really helpful for me as I slowly delve into this world!