Flavors of Kentucky

Cooking School emphasizes freshly made meals

Trend predictors across the country are saying that 2009 will bring families back to the dinner table.
When you’re trying to save money, one cost-cutting method is to eat more meals at home. “Dining at home is less costly than dining out,” said registered dietitian Tami Ross of Lexington. “Just one fast-food value meal costs more than an entire day’s worth of healthy meals prepared at home.”
Ross, who has a 13-year-old son, works part-time for Internal Medicine Associates and is a diabetes and nutrition consultant to several food and pharmaceutical companies. She understands the “temptation to ‘drive through’ for a quick meal on the go when you have children who are involved in sports and extracurricular activities,” she said.
Ross sees cooking at home as an opportunity for parents to plan healthy meals. “Planning five dinner meals truly only takes about five minutes,” she said.
Studies show that consumers who shop without a list spend twice as much and are likely to make more impulse buys, which are often low-nutrient foods, Ross said.
Ross, who is co-author with Patti Geil of Diabetes Meals on $7 a Day - or Less!, created recipes, cost-wise menus and money-saving grocery tips for an article that is to appear in USA Today on Monday. Their tips will work for anyone who is trying to eat healthy in a cost-effective fashion.
For the first time in decades, more families are cooking together and eating at home, and if people are going to spend more time in the kitchen, then it should be an enjoyable experience.
Sure, you can take the easy way out and open boxes of instant this and that, but freshly prepared foods will be better for the family all the way around.

The menu we’ve selected for my “Sharon’s Cooking School” series includes an Italian romaine salad with lemon vinaigrette; a simple stir-fry dish with fresh vegetables, served over pasta; garlic bread with fresh roasted garlic; and apple crisp.
Once you’ve learned a few simple techniques, you can take any recipe to the next level. If you know how to stir-fry or saute chicken pieces, then next time, stir-fry slices of beef or pork. Change around the vegetables, and you’ve got another tasty meal. Instead of pasta, serve the dish with rice. Fresh-roasted garlic can add tremendous flavor to a variety of dishes, so it’s nice to have that in the refrigerator. And once you learn to make a crisp for dessert, you can vary the fruit and instantly change the menu.

Great cookbooks

One of the best ways to learn to cook, we think, is to watch Mom or Grandma. But since that’s not possible for many people, a good book or Web site will work.
Here are some suggestions:

• Betty Crocker Cooking Basics: Recipes and Tips to Cook With Confidence (Betty Crocker, $25.95) offers how-to photos, ingredients and cooking terms glossaries, illustrated preparation techniques, advice on selecting knives, and understanding cooking thermometers.
• How to Boil Water: Life Beyond Takeout ($24.95) from the Food Network Kitchens includes what to look for in ingredients and how to store them at home; substitutions that work, and how to embellish a recipe once you’ve mastered it.
• The New Kitchen Science: A Guide to Know the Hows and Whys for Fun and Success in the Kitchen by Howard Hillman (Mariner Books, $15) answers such questions as: How can I save an oversalted soup? Why does overcooking toughen meat? Why does cheese sometimes refuse to melt in a sauce? When and why must you scald milk to use in a recipe?
• How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman (Wiley, $35), in its 10th edition, tackles the fundamentals of cooking ingredients, equipment and techniques - in depth.
• CooksIllustrated.com. No matter what you’re looking for, America’s Test Kitchen has probably tested or tasted it.

Talk to us

If you’re interested in learning to cook or become an accomplished cook, we’d like to hear from you.
Tell us why you want to learn to cook and how we can help. E-mail suggestions to swthompson@herald-leader.com or write to Sharon Thompson, Lexington Herald-Leader, 100 Midland Avenue, Lexington, Ky. 40508.

How to prep the kitchen

Before getting started, you must do prep work.
“You can’t cook chopped mushrooms until you’ve chopped them,” says Elaine Corn, author of Now You’re Cooking and Now You’re Cooking for Company.
Here are some basic prep rules:

• Read the entire recipe.
• Get the ingredients ready to use in the recipe.
• Arrange your prepared ingredients in an orderly way. You can place them in small prep bowls, or in piles on a dinner plate. When you’re ready to use them, simply push them off the plate into the pan or bowl with a knife or spoon.
• Combine chores. If you are making more than one recipe and both call for chopped onion, chop them all in one step. Chopped onion will keep in the refrigerator as long as three days. Garlic can be prepared the same way and can be stored with a little olive oil in the refrigerator for a week.

Follow these tips for food safety

Before heading to the kitchen to begin your cooking lesson, there are two cardinal rules of safe food preparation: Keep everything clean, and keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold.
Here’s a reminder of the safety guidelines from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

• Wash hands with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds before starting to prepare a meal and after handling raw meat or poultry.
• Keep the work area clean and uncluttered. Wash counter tops with a solution of 1 teaspoon of chlorine bleach to 1 quart of water. Also, be sure to keep dish cloths clean because, when wet, they can harbor bacteria and can promote their growth.
• Sanitize the kitchen sink drain periodically by pouring down the sink a solution of 1 teaspoon of bleach to 1 quart of water. Food particles get trapped in the drain and disposal and, along with the moistness, create an ideal environment for bacterial growth.
• Use smooth cutting boards made of hard maple or a non-porous material such as plastic, and make sure it is free of cracks. Avoid boards made of soft, porous materials. Wash cutting boards with hot water and soap, using a scrub brush, then wash them in an automatic dishwasher or rinse in a solution of 1 teaspoon of chlorine bleach to 1 quart of water.
• Always wash and sanitize cutting boards after using them for raw foods, such as seafood or chicken, and before using them for ready-to-eat foods. Consider using one cutting board only for foods that will be cooked, such as raw fish, and another only for ready-to-eat foods, such as bread, fresh fruit, and cooked fish.
• Always use clean utensils, and wash them between cutting different foods.
• Wash the lids of canned foods before opening to keep dirt from getting into the food. Also, clean the blade of the can opener after each use. Take apart and clean food processors and meat grinders as soon as possible after use.
• Do not put cooked meat on an unwashed plate or platter that has held raw meat.
• Wash fresh fruits and vegetables thoroughly, rinsing under running water. Don’t use soap or other detergent. If necessary and appropriate, use a small scrub brush to remove surface dirt.
• Use a digital or dial food thermometer to ensure that meats are completely cooked. Insert the thermometer into the center of the food and wait 30 seconds to ensure an accurate measurement. Beef, lamb, and veal should be cooked to at least 145 degrees; pork and ground beef to 160 degrees; ground chicken or turkey to 165 degrees; poultry breasts to 170 degrees; and whole poultry and thighs to 180 degrees.
• Cook eggs until the white and yolk are firm. Avoid foods containing raw eggs, such as homemade ice cream, mayonnaise, eggnog, cookie dough and cake batter, because they carry the risk of salmonella. Cooking the egg-containing product to an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees will kill the bacteria. Commercial foods usually don’t carry salmonella because they are made with pasteurized eggs.
• Seafood should be thoroughly cooked to an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees. Fish that’s ground or flaked, such as a fish cake, should be cooked to at least 155 degrees, and stuffed fish to at least 165 degrees.
• Protect food from cross-contamination after cooking, and eat it promptly.
• Don’t leave cooked food on the table or kitchen counter for more than two hours. Disease-causing bacteria grow in temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees. Cooked foods that have been in this temperature range for more than two hours should not be eaten.
• If a dish is to be served hot, get it from the stove to the table as quickly as possible. Reheated foods should be brought to a temperature of at least 165 degrees. Keep cold foods in the refrigerator or on a bed of ice until serving. This rule is particularly important to remember in the summer months.
• Refrigerate leftovers as soon as possible. Cut meats in slices of three inches or less, and store all foods in shallow containers to hasten cooling. Use leftovers within three days.
• Don’t thaw meat and other frozen foods at room temperature. Instead, move them from the freezer to the refrigerator for a day or two, or defrost them submerged in cold water. You also can defrost in the microwave oven or during the cooking process. If you defrost foods in the microwave or in cold water, cook them immediately.