Self-Aggrandizement: Cooking Archives

Let the Flames Begin
Filed March 12, 2008 3:49 PM.

As previously mentioned, I'm dangerously susceptible to television. Turn one on while I'm in the room, and I'll watch it, no matter what's playing. Commercials, re-runs of Full House; it doesn't really matter.

But, at the same time, there's relatively little I'd be too upset to give up. No more American Idol? I'm pretty sure my life would go on.

There is, though, one exception: Bravo's Top Chef, which starts a new season this evening.

Prior to discovering the show, I already considered myself a bit of a foodie, having eaten my way through much of New York, taken an array of cooking classes, and stocked up on key kitchen gadgetry. But over the course of even my first month of Top Chef episodes, I found myself appreciating cooking, really appreciating cooking, in a way I'd never before.

It was Top Chef that led me to read Heat, The Making of a Chef and Kitchen Confidential, that got me subscribed to Cook's Illustrated, that got me taking wildly over-long and over-expensive culinary school professional development courses (thank you, thank you, Jess!).

And, more than anything else, it was Top Chef that led me to an ever-deeper exploration of the principles of cooking, rather than simply cooking recipes rote. This weekend, for example, when testing out a new red wine and mushroom pan sauce for the flank steak I pan-roasted, I could puzzle through how much stock to use to balance out the wine pre-reduction, knew to toss in shallots, mustard, and balsamic vinegar to balance tastes, could explain why I chose to 'monte au beurre' as a final step.

In other words, I've now moved past 'foodie' and into 'total asshole'. And I have Top Chef entirely to thank.

Tonight at 9:00 on Bravo. Bon appetit.

If I Knew You Were Coming
Filed March 11, 2008 11:44 PM.

Yesterday, midway through a late-night supermarket run, Jess and I found ourselves standing, transfixed, in the cake mix aisle.

Apparently, a box of Duncan Hines yellow mix and a tub of Pillsbury Funfetti frosting is all it takes to make our week.

Out of the Frying Pan
Filed August 7, 2007 6:20 PM.

I lived. My fingers survived. As did my sense of fast-improving cooking prowess. In fact, the teacher - a former professor at Le Cordon Bleu - even pulled me aside with a couple of the other attendees, to assign more advanced homework for the week:

First, find a wine we buy frequently, and create a dish to complement it. Second, roam the Union Square Greenmarket in search of a vegetable we'd never before tasted, then use that as the basis of a second dish to pair with the first.

While reports on both should follow, tonight, according to Jess' and my Tuesday tradition, we're taking advantage of the freshest fish day of the week, and heading out for sushi. Not to Mizu (our usual stop, and some of the best bang for the sushi buck in the city), but to Matsuri.

The sushi there is a step down in quality, and a step up in price, but it's also far closer to the Highline Ballroom, a concert venue where we'll be catching Julian Velard and the Groove Collective later in the evening.

Tomorrow evening, I'm teaching at CrossFit NYC, my parents come into town, and one of Cyan's investors is passing through. And the week gets busier from there.

Which makes me, as ever, wonder why - unlike most of Europe - we don't get to take of the entire month of August. Or, in my case, even part of it. Because I could sure as shit use a break.

Well Done
Filed August 6, 2007 5:26 PM.

I've loved cooking for most of my life. For my fifteenth birthday, much to my parents concern, I requested a hand-cranked pasta press. But, in the last year or so, I've gotten serious.

I've read my way through a slew of cookbooks and books on cooking (most recently Bill Buford's Heat and Tom Colicchio's How to Think Like a Chef). I've started working my way through Jacques Pepin's seminal La Technique - not as a book, but as an apprenticeship, cooking up a sub-chapter at a time. And I've taken to watching Top Chef - to which I also subject poor Jess, who consequently refers to me as Hung when I get too many dishes going at once and start acting a bit manic in the kitchen.

But, like in most spheres of life, I also realize there's no substitute for live cooking instruction. So, I'd been coveting the Techniques of Fine Cooking course at the Institute of Culinary Education - five five-hour sessions which run the gamut of broad fundamental skills.

The course was way too expensive for me to justify. So I was thrilled and shocked when Jess bought my way in as a birthday gift. In the abstract, that might seems a selfish gift - she being a benefactor of the improved cooking - but I suspect, in truth, it's a further sacrifice. I already (without meaning to! I swear!) brutally critique everything down to her vegetable peeling skills, and I imagine I'll be even less tolerable, will functionally drive her from the kitchen, once I make it through the course.

We'll find out soon enough, though, because the first class is this evening. From 6:00-11:00pm, I'll be dicing, grilling, channeling Child and Bocuse. Or, at least, trying not to chop off any of my fingers. Bon appetite.

Far Flung Foodie
Filed April 16, 2007 3:28 PM.

A month or two back, walking with Jess through Central Park, we passed through Time Warner Center on our way back home. And as we needed to buy a few ingredients for dinner, we headed downstairs to Whole Foods.

A mere eight blocks from our apartment, that Whole Foods had still, previously, seemed needlessly far to go for groceries. But, perusing produce and inspecting butchery, it became clear that Whole Foods' foods were indeed wholly better, quite possibly worth the trip.

So, since then, we've been buying food there. But not all our food, and not our non-food items. Because, for many basics, the price difference for the same thing at any of our more local supermarkets seems too offensively large for me to stomach. And also because, for countless other items, such as plastic cups or Coke, the only available Whole Foods versions appear to be made entirely of hemp.

Of course, as soon as you diverge from the American supermarket model, from the idea that the best way to buy food is to have it all collected in one central place, you instead begin sliding down the slippery slope of preferring quality, and of consequently convincing yourself that shopping three different places for a meal isn't any crazier than two, which isn't so much saner than four, then five, etc.

Pretty soon, aided and abetted by the (aside from this weekend) warming weather and your central location, you find yourself, Sunday afternoon, not only at Whole Foods but also the Food Emporium and Amish Market and Duane Reade and that place with the good cookies on Ninth Avenue and the mochi ice cream you can pick up the next afternoon at the place near your office and also don't forget to stop at the Stiles Farmer's Market while it's open because they have such great local produce for so cheap.

And the worst part is, it self-reinforces. Because, after all that walking around, you're so completely starved that the foods you've assembled from across the City taste like - whether or not they really, actually are - the best you've ever eaten.

Pancake Suit
Filed December 15, 2006 5:02 PM.

The first night of Chanukah upon us, I'm once again returning to my now yearly tradition of making latkes.

Also per tradition, I've picked up a few excellent Chanukah gifts for myself (a surefire way to make sure you end the holiday happy with what you've received), and will therefore be using the kitchen opportunity to simultaneously test out my brand spanking new chef's jacket.

I'm hoping that, beyond a debonaire air of officiality, the jacket may also lend an additional measure of cooking skill. As, in years past, I've inadvertently ended up with latkes more akin to hash browns or hockey pucks, I could use all I can get.

Bookin'
Filed April 24, 2006 8:52 AM.

While I've long loved to cook - having, for example, requested a hand-cranked pasta press for my fifteenth birthday - I've also never been a big fan of cookbooks. Most, it seems to me, are focused solely on specifics - one recipe at a time. A bit like collections of individual mathematical equations without any discussion of the underlying theories.

Still, for some time, I've been on the lookout for culinary education that transcends the what's and when's, reaching through to the how's and why's. A few years back, for example, I was lucky enough to discover a 'knife skills' class at the Institute for Culinary Education. Though just hours long, it permanently changed the way I wield a kitchen blade. And, as nearly all cooking involves some cutting, that one class has therefore affected nearly all of my kitchen adventures since.

Last week, I discovered two cooking books with similarly broad-reaching potential: Wayne Gisslen's Professional Cooking, and Linda Carucci's Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks. While the first is a wheelbarrow-worthy textbook and the second just a significantly oversized trade paperback, both are packed through with detail and insight across an astounding array of cooking topics:

From the importance of mise en place or the technique for perfect dicing, through the chemistry of caramelization and how that drives the choice of any of the twelve primary wet or dry cooking methods, to odds and ends like why you should dab off marinades but never directly rinse scallops or mushrooms. And, of course, recipes. Lots and lots and lots of exceedingly intriguing recipes, the first of which seem to be field-testing well in my Manhattan apartment kitchen.

Whether you can't tell the difference between a saucepan and a Dutch oven, or whether they know you by first name at your local Sur La Table, your cooking is bound to improve with either or both of these books. Pick up copies today, and, once you've read your way through, invite me over for a home-cooked dinner by way of thanks.

Velocious Gourmet
Filed April 14, 2005 10:21 PM.

While I've long intended to eat more salmon, I never managed to work the pink filets into my regular rotation. Too protracted in baking, too prone to disintegration on the trusty Foreman, and stinking up my small apartment with a pungent fishy smell either way, salmon simply seemed too effortful to push me past my inherent laziness in pursuit of Omega 3 -laden benefits.

A week or so back, however, Abigail came over and cooked up a great Japanese-style salmon - in the microwave. Apparently, place a salmon steak in a glass dish, toss in some marinade, nuke it on high for four or five minutes, and the fish comes out baked to flaky perfection, with nearly zero prep, baking time or cleanup.

Always quick to steal good ideas from people smarter than I, in the past week I've replicated her high-speed technique, cooking up two separate nuclear-powered batches. Give it a try yourself.

Or, even better, find a hot blonde to come over and cook it for you. I can't recommend that second option highly enough.

carve
Filed November 26, 2004 5:55 PM.

There are a number of basic guy skills - driving stick, holding liquor, hailing cabs, etc. - that any competent male need develop at some point in his life. Granted, some of those skills tend to atrophy a bit over years of disuse (as the clutch of my brother's car attests after each of my visits). But, like electro-shock therapy, all fall more or less into the 'get it once, get it for life' category.

Each, I would contend, is crucial. Which is why, at Thanksgivings past, I've always been painfully aware of one such talent I never had the chance to develop: carving a turkey.

In large part, the lack is due to celebrating Thanksgiving, year in and year out, at my parents home in California. There, my father, turkey-carver extraordinare, takes great joy holding the bird-slicing helm. And, to be fair, it's a well deserved post, a place where years of practice come together with his surgical profession and an outsized collection of carving accouterment: from carving knives and forks of all makes and sizes, to a professional chef's jacket donned solely for the occasion. Certainly, watching him work has given me a vague sense of the movements required to beautifully de-bone, but, as in so much of life, I'd long suspected that watching and doing were worlds apart.

Over the years, as the number of turkey-day attendees grew steadily, my parents would cook up successively larger and larger birds. This year, however, the combination of an all-time eater high, and the Jewish cultural 'let's cook at least three or four times as much as we could possibly eat' tradition, forced them to divide and conquer. This year, we roasted twin turkeys.

My father, recognizing the double-birding as a chance to pass along Newman carving finesse as the start of a grand culinary tradition, had me carve the second. In a play-by-play master class, he stood across the kitchen counter, directing me from drumstick de-jointing and dark meat chunking through breast slicing and wishbone removal. And, while I wouldn't claim to be ready for cooking channel prime time, years of observing and his live instruction allowed me to make fairly fine work of our de-feathered friend.

Now, placed bird-side, Wusthof in hand, I'm sure I could carve a turkey - at least as well as I could change a car tire or avoid asking for directions when lost on a long road trip. Another guy competency conquered with sense of manhood unscathed. Someone get me a beer.

price check
Filed June 18, 2004 8:18 AM.

Sitting on the stoop yesterday with Colin and Yoav, we got to discussing FreshDirect. While Colin and I had both used the service heavily when it started out, both of us had fallen off it. Colin, who had just ordered from them again for the first time in months, was unhappy to see that they tacked on a $4.95 delivery charge - something they'd done from the start, though about which he had forgotten. Making matters worse, he wasn't even sure that FreshDirect was any cheaper than our local supermarkets.

And, in fact, neither was I, which is why I stopped using the service. But, to be honest, I didn't really have a clue - it just seemed like it might have been more expensive. So, in a bout of curiosity, I decided to investigate. I present the results here, in what Colin has kindly describe Manual Froogle:

Food	Fresh Direct	Food Emp.	Grist.	Amish Market	Stiles Market
Cheerios (15oz)	4.19	4.99	5.19	5.69
Milk (1/2 Gallon)	1.99	2.27	2.39	2.39
Jumbo Eggs (Dozen)	1.69	2.59	1.69	2.49	1.29
Salmon (per lb)	5.99	9.99	6.99	8.99
Rib Eye, Choice (per lb)	9.99	14.59	15.99	11.99
Chicken Breast (per lb)	4.39	6.59	4.99	5.49
Strawberries (16oz)	2.99	4.99	3.99	2.49	1.50
Bananas (per lb)	0.49	0.99	0.59	0.59	0.29
Navel Oranges (each)	0.49	0.74	0.99	0.69
Vine Tomatoes (per lb)	2.49	2.99	2.29	1.49	1.5
Haas Avocado (each)	1.99	2.50	1.99	1.79
Thom.' English Muffins (6 ct)	2.69	2.89	2.89	2.89
Tropicana OJ (64oz)	2.59	3.89	3.99	3.49
Progresso Chx Soup (19oz)	2.39	2.69	2.59	3.19
De Cecco Spaghetti (16oz)	1.19	2.19	1.5	1.98
Delivery Fee	4.95
Total	50.50	64.89	58.06	55.64

% Overpay		28%	15%	10%

As you can see, almost every item was cheaper at FreshDirect, except for two items on sale at Gristedes, and the few items I could pick up at the local farmers market.

Food Emporium, where I'm embarrassed to admit that, due to proximity, I'd been doing much of my shopping, came out by far the worst. And the Amish Market, which I'd always reserved for special occasion shopping, due to a belief that it was somewhat overpriced, actually came in second best.

Further, this seems to be a clear case of not getting what you pay for, as the steaks I've previously purchased from FreshDirect or the Amish Market (the cheapest two) were by far the best of the bunch.

So, there you have it. I will, undoubtedly, be returning to using FreshDirect regularly, as, even with the $4.95 delivery fee tacked on, it's the cost-effective choice, and, from my experience, delivers the best quality of the bunch.

Plus, I don't even have to get off my ass to do my shopping. That's what I call a win-win situation.

pasta perfetto
Filed February 18, 2004 1:29 AM.

While I really enjoy cooking, I must admit I rarely get around to it. When business meals don't have me dining out, I'm likely to piece together haphazard dinners consumed while standing - a handful of deli turkey; a tomato eaten whole, like an apple; a chunk of cheese; perhaps some mushrooms and zucchini grilled up on the Foreman.

Every so often, however, I manage to block out time and really cook. Odd as it may sound, I love it for the same reason I start companies or make photographs: creating something from nothing, even on a dinner-plate scale, makes me profoundly happy and wildly excited.

In particular, I've fallen in love with making pasta from scratch. I don't completely recall what drove me to it the first time, but I remember the details of the attempt: fifteen years old, passing the rolling pin again and again over the round lump of dough, slowly flattening it into a sheet thin enough to slice, line by line, into broad, uneven fettuccine.

After the arm-exhausting rolling effort of doing it once or twice more, I requested a hand-cranked pasta press as a birthday present. Admittedly, an odd gift choice for a teenage guy, and one that got me no end of ribbing from my younger brother. But after my first cranked batch, I was even further hooked. The joy of making something from nothing, compounded by my inner child's love of the Playdough press: the sheet of dough magically thinning and lengthening with each successive pass, then cranked through the slicing wheel, the broad sheet emerging as perfect narrow strips.

Late last week, I realized it had been nearly six months since I'd whipped out the press. So I blocked in some time yesterday evening, invited a friend, and linguined away. Feeling adventurous, I decided to try making pesto sauce, which in fact turns out be remarkably simple: 2 large bunches of basil, 6 cloves of garlic, 2 ounces of pine nuts, a cup of grated Parmesan and 3/4 a cup of olive oil. Tossed in a food processor for a couple of spins, those five basic ingredients emerge emulsified and emerald green, a perfect pesto.

As an antipasto, I had bought tomatoes and mozzarella, which I sliced and topped with a bit of leftover basil and olive oil - a classic caprese salad. Paired with a bottle of wine and capped with a few store-bought cupcakes for dessert, the perfect evening.

wining
Filed February 12, 2004 4:52 PM.

Earlier today, Geese Aplenty's Greg was kind enough to suggest a list of erudite-sounding wine descriptors he uses to cover the fact that, when it comes to wine, he doesn't really know what he's talking about.

Which, on the one hand, I very much appreciated, as I rarely know what I'm talking about, on pretty much any subject at all. But, on the other, I also recently discovered that, when it comes to wine in particular, not knowing what you're talking about doesn't seem to matter.

Just a few weeks back, I was lucky enough to attend the in-house wine tasting of a high-end liquor distributor. Convening a panel of exceedingly educated palettes (plus a few idiots like me, dragged along for the ride), the tasting was used by the distributor to decide how much of various vintages to order, and where to set prices.

I can say, without a doubt, the evening was the most unintentionally funny of my life. I knew it was starting well when one elderly taster (memorable otherwise mainly for an exceedingly intimidating set of bushy eyebrows) described the first sample, a merlot, as "certainly, a slutty little wine." While the evening only improved from there, it peaked when another gentleman described one particular shiraz as "a bit like opening an umbrella on the streets of London on a summer's day, just as the fog begins rolling in."

As I stifled laughter, the distributor smiled broadly and scribbled copious notes. One can only assume an open-umbrella-in-the-mists-of-London shiraz is bound to be a big seller.

how to cut things
Filed January 29, 2004 2:18 PM.

Open your knife drawer. Take out the contents. Place them in the garbage. Then head off to a kitchen goods store to buy some real knives.

The good news is, you don’t need many. Four high quality blades will do you worlds more good than a whole drawer full of crappy ones. I’d recommend Wusthoff Tridents, classics used by chefs around the world. But really, any knife hot-forged from a single piece of metal, whose blade runs the length of its handle (riveted in) should work. High carbon stainless steel is the best choice, with plain carbon blades a close second – standard stainless steel should be avoided, as it can’t easily be sharpened. Also steer clear of any blade advertised as never needing sharpening; you similarly wouldn’t buy a car that claimed to never need servicing. Most importantly, the blades should be heavy – the more weight they carry, the less work you’ll have to do to cut with them.

The four knives you need:

A chef’s knife (also called a cook’s knife), in either 8” or 10”. The longer, being heavier, makes cutting easier. If you’re willing to splurge, move up to the 10” wide, whose slightly thicker, heavier blade yields – you guessed it – even less work. If you’ve not used one before, you’ll likely look at this blade for the first time and think, “holy shit, that’s one big knife. I don’t need a knife that big.” Wrong. This knife is your new best friend; you’ll be using it for nearly all your slicing, dicing, shredding and mincing, with occasional light chopping thrown in as well. Once you cut with this thing, you’ll never go back. Thusly, if you buy only one new knife, this should be it. One more note: if you have big hands, make sure the blade is wide enough at the heel (the point closest to the handle) that your knuckles don’t scrape the cutting board as you push forward.
A 3-1/2” paring knife (all these measurements, by the way, are the length of the blade, not the entire knife), your workhorse for detail tasks (like - surprise, surprise - paring).
A 4-1/2” utility knife, which can double as a peeler, disjoint chickens, and dice small things that don’t warrant the full chef’s knife treatment. You can replace this with a slightly longer knife if you’d prefer – Wusthoff makes a great 6” sandwich knife (which, as it isn’t serrated, I can’t imagine anyone actually uses for sandwiches).
A big serrated knife, to use on the sandwiches you aren’t cutting with the sandwich knife. It also works on anything else with a skin, crust or rind (tomatoes, breads, citrus fruits, cheeses, etc.) where a bit of bite helps. You can’t go wrong with a classic 8” bread knife, though as long as the knife is well made, you have a fair amount of flexibility in terms of length and design.

That’s it. If you’re looking to carve birds, filet fish, or slice up meat in general, you may eventually want to buy a specialty blade or two for that purpose. Otherwise, you’re set.

How to Hone a Knife

While you’re discarding things from your knife drawer, toss any sort of automatic sharpener – it will grind too much away, and quickly ruin your knives. Instead, pick up a sharpening steel – one of those long metal rods you see chefs bandying about on cooking shows. To be correct, these don’t actually sharpen your blades – that involves scraping enough metal off to dull the knife, then carefully reshaping the curve of the edge (which you should have done at a cutlers once every year or two). Instead, your knives cut because they have tiny microscopic teeth along the edge of the blade; each time you cut, those teeth get pushed out of alignment. Honing, then, simply lines the teeth back up, allowing the knife to cut much more easily. Since a sharp knife is both safer and more efficient, it’s worth honing your knives each time you take one out – it only takes a few seconds.

To do it, hold the sharpening steel vertically, tip down on a towel on a non-skid surface (like a cutting board). Pick up the knife by the handle, and put the heel of the blade on the steel, top of the blade leaning out at a 20 degree angle. Then draw the knife back in a downwards arc until you reach the tip of the blade (see diagram). Repeat once or twice or each side and you’re ready to work.

Using a Chef’s Knife

First, how to hold the knife, which is probably radically different from what you do know (likely either wrapping all four fingers around the handle, or perhaps laying your index finger along the top of the blade – either way causes you to tense up you wrist and arm, which makes cutting excessively tiring). Instead, place your thumb and forefinger on either side of the blade, just in front of the bolster (that thick section at the heel). Wrap your remaining three fingers lightly around the handle – as your first two fingers provide all the hold you need, these mainly provide stabilization.

Now on to the cutting. Here’s the big change: don’t press down. I repeat: don’t press down. Pressing tenses up your arm, requires lots and lots of work, and goes contrary to the design and purpose of your knife. Your knife is meant to cut down by being pushed forward. (For golfers, this is a bit like how swinging through the ball – rather than trying to lift it – takes advantage of the lofted design of the clubface and makes your swing much easier.) Initiate the cut at the tip, then push the knife forward across the food until you reach the heel. Again, don’t press down. You’ll be amazed to discover how well this sucker cuts through things on its own, so long as you push forward and follow through. If you reach the heel before you finish the cut, don’t try and keep cutting as you pull back. Your knife isn’t made to work that way – like a saw, it’s meant to cut only on the forward stroke. So simply pull straight back, and repeat the smooth forward push.

For big items, start with the tip of the blade on the object:

For smaller ones, start with the tip of the blade on the cutting board:

In either case, push forward not down. It's definitely worth testing out the technique on a few stalks of celery. See how little downward pressure you can use if you concentrate on a smooth forward push and follow through. You’ll be shocked, both at how easy it is, and how evenly you can cut things.

Though celery practice will likely make you fall in love with your new chef's knife, sadly, that one blade probably can't be used on everything you cut, which means sooner in later you’ll need to use:

The Smaller Knives

These little suckers come in handy on all kinds of tasks – any, essentially, which either require increased dexterity, or where the fact that you (rather than the weight of the knife) are doing all the work won’t tire you out. You can use them to dice small onions and shallots, disjoint chickens, pare apples and tomato, or peel vegetables.

Unlike the chef’s knife, which has only one grip and one main technique (with the tip-up and tip-on-the-board variations), the smaller knives are held and wielded in a large variety of ways. To learn them all (as well as a number of other skills – such as perfect julienning, cubing, and dicing), sign up for a short knife skills class at your local culinary academy. It’s a fun evening very well spent. While I’m tempted to try describing a few basics here, I suspect my poorly written descriptions might cost a reader or two their fingers. Speaking of which:

How to Keep Your Fingers

Sharpen your knives. Dull blades make you push harder, which leads to slippage.
Never use a big knife to cut something you’re holding in your hand (i.e. a bagel). To cut that bagel, place it horizontally on a cutting board, hold it in place with your open palm, and cut through horizontally with several strokes.
Keep knives sheathed (to protect the blades) and in locked cabinets if you have children (to protect your kids)
Point the tip down, whether carrying the knife or leaving it in your dishwasher or drying rack.
Don’t carry a cutting board with a knife on it, and – if you do – for god’s sake don’t try to catch the knife when it inevitably falls off.
Don’t leave knives in the sink – when you’re done with them, wash them, dry them, and put them away, as water stains carbon blades
And, basically, don’t do anything with a knife that would cause your mother to shake her head reproachfully at your idiocy. Trust me. I know that shake all too well.

cookin'
Filed August 28, 2003 3:43 PM.

This past weekend, stopping in at Rite Aid to pick up shaving cream and shampoo, I noticed a small table of kitchen appliances on clearance sale, among which sat a $12 crock pot. Having recently read that perhaps slow cooking was healthier cooking, and with a $20 bill burning a hole in my pocket, I decided to go for the impulse buy.

Several days later, I can definitively say it was the right choice. I've churned out a couple of excellent slow-cooked meals that were tasty, healthful, easy to prepare, and conducive to leftovers (key for someone who eats as frequently as I do). Despite skimming the booklet supplied with the crock, I in the end jettisoned prescribed recipes in favor of a fast-and-loose instinctive cooking approach. The two resultant winners:

Ridiculously Easy Pot Roast

6 medium potatoes
1 large onion
10 carrots
3lb lean beef bottom round
1/2 cup water
salt, pepper

Slice the onion, peel the carrots, and toss everything in the crock pot on low heat for 10 hours. Voila.

Even Easier Chicken Casserole

3 large chicken breasts
Bear Creek Chicken Noodle Soup Mix (or similar)
3 cups water

Toss everything in the crock pot (nota bene: remove soup mix from package first) on low heat for five hours. Voila again.

Honestly, I think I just might be the next Fannie Farmer.

Let the Flames Begin Filed March 12, 2008 3:49 PM.

If I Knew You Were Coming Filed March 11, 2008 11:44 PM.

Out of the Frying Pan Filed August 7, 2007 6:20 PM.

Well Done Filed August 6, 2007 5:26 PM.

Far Flung Foodie Filed April 16, 2007 3:28 PM.

Pancake Suit Filed December 15, 2006 5:02 PM.

Bookin' Filed April 24, 2006 8:52 AM.

Velocious Gourmet Filed April 14, 2005 10:21 PM.

carve Filed November 26, 2004 5:55 PM.

price check Filed June 18, 2004 8:18 AM.

pasta perfetto Filed February 18, 2004 1:29 AM.

wining Filed February 12, 2004 4:52 PM.

how to cut things Filed January 29, 2004 2:18 PM.

cookin' Filed August 28, 2003 3:43 PM.