Saturday, July 19, 2008

The Big Cook


I come from a family of cooks.

My Dad is a Chef and has taught professional cooking for the past 20 years. He makes Gordon Ramsey look like Carrot Top, but he is a great cook. He has temporarily vacated the cookingarena in favour of browner pastures...he currently lives in Qatar and teaches marketing comm.

My Mum is an amazing cook and just has a knack for knowing what flavours go together and how much of something a person needs to make a dish taste just right.

I grew up making deviled eggs, piping chox pastry and washing A LOT of dishes...

One slight problem, however, is that I never learned to cook small...I just cook big. I think that's why the concept of "The Big Cook" appeals to me. Cook all your meals for a month in one day.

So this week I prepared for a big cook of my own. I purchased about $400 worth of groceries, a new stock pot and came up with my own recipes (ok, so I rarely use a recipe more than once when I am cooking).

Last night I made 100 Swedish Meatballs, cooked and frozen.

Today is Beef & Barley Soup, Split Pea & Ham Soup and A HUGE pot of Chili.

Tomorrow will be Turkey and Wild Rice Soup and one of my personal faves "Happy Go Leeky" soup from the "Crazy Plates" cookbook.

Of course, to get the beef for the beef/barley soup, I needed to cook a sirloin tip roast...so we'll be having THAT for dinner tonight...and a Turkey dinner tomorrow!

From the look of things today, I could write my own cookbook and call it "The Bigger Cook"...I think by the time we are finished, we will have approx. 2-3 months worth of meals in our deep freeze. Add a salad, or veggies, biscuits or buns and Voila...meals in minutes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When you said you were doing the Big Cook, I thought that you were going to use the cookbook so I suggested recipes. Sounds like you know what you are doing without it. I always cook with a cookbook. I wish that I could do it without.

Mama J. said...

I got the idea from the cookbook...but I was worried my family wouldn't eat the recipes if they weren't used to them...it went well, however, and I want to do it again!!