Re: Cooking redefined

Dave Smith wrote:

On 2025-04-12 5:06 p.m., ItsJoanNotJoAnn wrote:

On Sat, 12 Apr 2025 20:40:34 +0000, Ed P wrote:

 

Whether it's frozen or not, I still consider it cooking.
It's not going to hop in the oven or a skillet unless I
put it there and 95% of the time that's going to involve
some seasoning.  It also involves some sort of side
vegetable as well and that vegetable might be canned or
it could be frozen.  Whichever, I've got to prepare it
and season it as well.
 
Earlier this week I made homemade tomato soup and a
grilled cheese sandwich.  I consider the grilled
cheese sandwich cooking as well as I had to prepare
it with butter to go into the toaster oven and turn
it to reach the desired golden hue.

 
I have three brothers and we can all cook. I can confess to being the
best and they will agree. They have all acknowledged that.  While
they can cook complete meals they need a recipe to follow. I have
recipes in my head or I can fake things.  My younger brother can put
on a meal himself, but it is going to be part of his very limited
repertoire, probably something like canneloni  where he will mix an
egg, some ricotta and gated parm and stuff it into pasta tubes use a
jar of sauce.   My older brother taught me how to make pies but that
is about the extent of his baking.

I'm pretty freelance with some things but I might glance at a recipe or
so for ideas.

Today was one of those.

Pork Stew

This is one of several variations that I could see, but this is my
first time I made a pork stew.  Added complexity was I haven't shopped
for 2 weeks so the larder was fairly bare of fresh veggies except
carrots and Don and I both were 'carroted out' after me being silly and
getting too many due to a 2lb bag in the 'markdown shelf'.  I won't do
that again!

It was really good.

12oz stew (or stir fry) cut boneless pork loin, fatty bits removed
1/2 can leftover peas
1/2 can leftover flat italian green beans
1 can white corn
1 can black beans
4 small white potatoes cut to rounds then 1/2 moons
8 oz seafood mushrooms (giant enoki)
1 can fire roasted tomatoes
14oz home made vegetable broth
1 pork bullion cube (low salt)
1/2 TB olive oil
2 tsp black pepper
5 minced garlic cloves (big pot folks, long slow cook so mild)
1 rounded 1/2 TB measure of dry basil
1 rounded tsp thyme
1 chopped onion chopped (a 3/4 cup probably)
1 tsp peruvian chili lime powder

Toss all in and simmer, add more broth if needed but the cans were not
drained so at the end I just needed to add 1/3 cup veggie broth made at
home to replace what was lost over a 2 hour low simmer.


There's huge variation in pork stews.  This particular one makes 8-10
cups (I didn't measure) and is heart healthy yet tastes rich.