BOOMERPDX COOKING TIPS

From Foodie To Finish, Cooking Tips for Boomers.

Everyone’s done this:

You sit down to eat and the plate looks so beautiful you take a picture and post it.

You want to share the perfection if not the calories.

None of pictures look the same, but they all look delicious.

That’s only part of the story.

The other part is what happens before the plate lands on your table and what happens afterward.

You may be a good cook, or not cook at all, but a food attitude needs a few things to make you a hero in your own kitchen.

The picture above shows a homemade from scratch Shepherd’s Pie. Also called a Signature Dish in the BoomerPdx kitchen.

What makes it, and other recipes, special?

It’s comfort food with a twist. Who doesn’t like comfort food? It’s comfortable.

Like the baseball diamond in Field of Dreams where ‘build it and they will come’ worked out, Shepherd’s Pie makes the same claim:

Cook it and they will come.

Saute carrots, onions, and celery in one pan. Cook ground turkey, beef, and sausage in another.

At the same time boil potatoes in another pot. It helps to have an industrial cook top.

If your kitchen island doesn’t include five gas burners with a broken pop up fan, a jenn air grill with a fan, and a disconnected electric oven with no fan, no problem.

You could do this on a camp stove.

Season the veggies with salt and pepper. Add a little Better Than Bouillon by boiling water and pouring it into a cup with a spoonful of BTB goo.

Use a huge metal casserole pan and spread the the vegetable layer in first.

Cook up all the barnyard animals and spread it on top of the veggies.

Take the boiled new potatoes out of the hot water and mash them. After they looked semi-mashed add a spoonful of mayonnaise and a cup of milk.

Break out the electric beater and whip the mix. You want it thinner so it spreads over the meat, but doesn’t soak in. Seal the edges to the pan.

Toss into the main oven at 400 degrees for half an hour. Take it out, sprinkle cheese on top, and let it set up.

Now the fun part.

So many people show the finished product on the table, but cleaning up afterwards is a big step.

If you’re the right kind of cook you clean as you go along. Either that or stack to the side.

Remember the pots and pans mentioned above? Here they are. It’s an impressive pile, don’t you think?

Instead of micro-waving frozen food in plastic containers, you’ve cooked a masterpiece in fancy cookware.

Keep in mind fancy cookware comes from many sources. I found a clad pan I saw for $200 in a store at a garage sale. $1.50, a buck and half, and it’s my favorite. And it’s heavy.

Kitchen snobs have matched sets of everything. They may not cook, but they could if they had too. I use whatever’s in the pan drawer. Check for mouse droppings.

The clean up doesn’t have to be drudgery. Cleaning pots and pans doesn’t make you a scullery maid. It makes you a kitchen asset.

On the left side of the next image you’ll find another kitchen asset.

It’s the beer, not the gold plated faucet I tried to replace with a normal one when I learned how much spare parts cost.

Don’t ever install a thousand dollar faucet. It’s just stupid, but when the house comes with it you’re sort of stuck.

After the pots and pans and cutting boards and colander take a turn in hot, soapy, water, turn to the sharp stuff.

You want to be careful here.

Cut yourself cooking is one thing; cut yourself cleaning up and you’re a bloody menace.

Why does it take so many utensils to cook? Because you’re cooking. Otherwise you’d be washing only a spoon after your microwave dinner.

If you’ve got things to use, why not use them. Just put them back where they belong.

The only thing better than a good wash is a good rinse.

Unless you want soap flavor in the next dish, run that water.

Keep your knives sharp. It’s the dull knife you push and saw with that’ll slip and slice you instead of the onion.

The beer: Hop Valley Alpha Centauri.

The glass: A Powell’s Pint.

Matching the right beer with the right glass during clean up is essential.

The wrong match feels generic. This one is pure Portland and Eugene at once.

For your next cooking adventure, don’t forget the clean up. Be a hero.

Tell us how it works out. We’re hungry for that news.