Granma’s apron

A friend recently sent me an email about ‘Granma’s Apron’.

Remember making an apron in Home Ec? I don't think our kids know what an apron is.

"The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids..

And when the weather was cold Grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow,

bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables.

After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

REMEMBER:

Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

But I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love... “

I think the apron has fallen out of use because people generally have become very lazy cooks. Who shells peas anymore – don’t they come in cans or frozen in a bag?

Minimize the mess

Nothing beats a home cooked meal. It’s freshly prepared with care and consideration for family health and personal preferences.

Some people say they hate to cook, but I think what they really hate is the clean-up required afterwards. I’m not a great fan, myself, but I’ve found the best way to handle the clean-up operation is to tackle it as I go along.

I usually head out to the kitchen at about 17:45 – of course, a lot earlier, I had already taken out of the deep freeze anything that needed to thaw. Placemats, serviettes, cutlery and condiments go on the table. I fill the sink with hot water. I wash my hands and wipe down all the counters. Then, recipe in hand (or brain), I get out the other ingredients I need.

I peel, clean and chop any vegetables and fresh herbs I’m going to need, and the rest goes back in the fridge. I measure out spices and herbs, rice, couscous, pasta – either directly into a pot, or into small dishes – and then put any remainders away. All I have on the counter now are the ingredients I am actually going to cook, lined up in the order I’m going to use them. Organization like this takes very little effort, and means that the onions don’t burn while I’m looking for the curry paste.

Now the actual cooking begins, and when I have some free time – while everything is simmering away nicely – I warm the dinner plates and rinse off any little dishes, kitchen knives and chopping boards I’ve used and stack them in the dishwasher or drainer. I wipe up any spills and splashes as they happen.

Cooking healthy portion sizes means that once I’ve dished up there are no leftovers, so I can immediately fill any saucepans I’ve used with cold water. Cold water helps release the starch and makes the pots much easier to clean.

Time for dinner, with some pleasant conversation and a glass of wine.

I rinse off the dinner plates and cutlery and stack in the dishwasher. I always wash my pots by hand – they take up too much space in the dishwasher – but this is quick and easy to do since they have been soaking in cold water. I wipe down the surfaces again, and it’s time to relax. Total time spent on preparation, cooking, eating and clean-up – 60 minutes, maximum.

It takes at least that long to order a take-away, wait for the delivery guy, eat and clear up; a take-away is less healthy and more expensive. And I bet you didn’t do anything important while you were waiting!

13 reasons to eat at home

I’m sure I must drive my poor, long suffering husband crazy! He often invites me out for dinner, and my answer is almost invariably no, thank you. Eating in is just so much easier.

1. I plan my meals, so I know how much I can eat come dinner time. I don’t want to pay for an expensive meal – in money and kilojoules – if I need to only eat a light dinner.
2. I know what and how I’m cooking, so no kilojoules / calories are ‘wasted’ or ‘hidden’. Those restaurant sauces are made with cream and butter, and the veg are also likely to be buttered and sweetened.
3. If we eat at home I don’t have to get ‘dressed up’ to go out. Going out involves at least a change of shoes, jacket, handbag etc, plus I’d have to do my hair.
4. We eat healthy sized portions. Restaurant protein portions, as I’ve mentioned before, are more than double what your body needs.
5. We get our recommended fruit and veg intake for the day. Last time we ate out I ordered a steak with vegetables. The vegetables consisted of one very small rocket leaf and chips! And the (lady’s) steak weighed 200gms
6. My meals are freshly prepared. My veg have not been precooked and left sitting in a bain marie for hours.
7. I get to eat dinner before 7:00PM. Much kinder to the digestion and the waist line. Going to bed on a full stomach is likely to cause discomfort and heartburn.
8. We don’t have to wait ages for a waiter to take our order. Admittedly, I’ve chosen our meal beforehand and my husband doesn’t have much of a say… but I gave up asking him what he would like to eat when he kept answering ‘food, please’.
9. Then wait another age while the kitchen prepares the food. There is still a wait while I cook, but I am only cooking one meal and not tending a dozen different orders.
10. I don’t see other plates being delivered that look more interesting than mine. I think all menus should show photographs, so you know what to expect. I have ordered ‘fancy’ – i.e. expensive - salads at several different restaurants and been very disappointed with the actual content, some of them didn’t even contain the ingredients listed on the menu.
11. There is no bill to pay – the food has already been paid for.
12. The wine at home is less than half the restaurant price for the same bottle.
13. There are no parking problems.

 

So I will continue to happily devise new recipes and eat at home.

 

 

Equipment essentials (electrical)

I think the first piece of electrical kitchen equipment everyone buys is a kettle. There are so many designs and colours available these days, we are spoiled for choice, but they vary so much in price. Some years ago I went on a bit of a spending spree and bought a beautiful brushed stainless steel kettle – I only noticed the price when I got home, it cost me nearly R1,000! Did it last any longer than its predecessor? I don’t think so, or not sufficiently to justify the price. The replacement I bought cost less than a third!

The second purchase is probably a pop-up toaster. Again they vary in price enormously. They also vary in size (2 slice or 4), finish (stainless steel, lacquer) and functionality (toast, warm, thaw, loose crumb tray). This is something else I replaced recently, though for aesthetic reasons only. My new one is a 4 by extra thick slice, with all the functions mentioned above. It makes toast, and that’s all I’m interested in – though the thicker slice does allow me to toast English muffins and crumpets without having to dig them out with a knife when they’re done. I do like the loose crumb tray, it’s a neat feature.

Microwave ovens have gained in popularity. I like the microwave/convection variety. I use the convection function for baking, grilling and browning – it’s a far smaller area to heat up than a conventional oven, so more cost effective. And, of course, the microwave function is fantastic for re-heating and steaming vegetables, or thawing something in a hurry. I wish they would invent a ‘reverse-microwave’ for rapid cooling!

The last essential on my list is a ‘blitz stick’. I use mine to part-puree soups and baby food and to make smoothies, but the box says it can make breadcrumbs, chop nuts and crush ice too.

I have a large cupboard in my kitchen, known by the family as the ‘electrical grave yard’; I can barely close the door. It contains all the stuff I have enthusiastically bought over the years, used once or twice and shelved for various reasons – they don’t do what they are supposed to do, or they are a pain to clean or I have found a quicker, cheaper, easier way to perform the task.

What is your favourite, couldn’t-live-without electrical gadget?

Equipment essentials (non- electrical)

Have you ever stayed in a self-catering holiday flat or cottage? They don’t supply an awful lot in the kitchen, and it’s amazing how little equipment you can manage with. The extra fancy electrical stuff is nice to have and use but you can actually make do with far less and still cook healthy meals.

I couldn’t live without my wonderful knives, though I could probably dispense with quite a few of them. Mainly, I use a large butcher’s knife – even for de-hulling and cutting strawberries and filleting fish. And I like a small serrated blade for slicing tomatoes. If your knives have plastic or wooden handles attached, make sure to give the joint a good scrub when you wash them. Never put your kitchen knives in the dishwasher, it blunts them very quickly.

I have quite a collection of wooden spoons, but I seldom use them – stainless steel spoons are best for cooking. Wooden spoons are porous, so they absorb colour and flavour and never come entirely clean. And you have to remember which one to use for curry and which is safe for custard. A metal spoon is best because it washes completely clean and doesn’t get contaminated. Don’t leave it standing in the saucepan, though, or you will burn your fingers. I use my slotted spoon, large ladle, masher and fish slice all the time. And my steel whisk.

I don’t think you need more than three saucepans – preferably stainless steel, and ‘waterless’ if your budget can stretch to them; one small, one medium and one large. They are nice and easy to clean. Aluminium pans are not a healthy option. Then of course you need a large frying pan, with a lid. Mine is a non-stick, coated variety, but I trade it in about every eighteen months or so, because the coating does wear.

Wooden chopping boards are scary! Like wooden spoons, they retain smells and flavours – and if you have cut raw meat on them, then they will be full of bacteria too. No amount of scrubbing is going to get them properly clean. I use glass boards, or those inexpensive thin plastic bendy boards. The plastic boards need replacing quite often because they get scratched and cut allowing bacteria to build up.

Next week, I’ll be talking about essential electrical equipment. What do you really need?

Talking recipes

I often think, while I’m typing up a recipe, that I should discuss ‘recipes’ as a construct. No recipe is cast in stone – baking may be an exception here, because you have to get the sugar to fat to flour balance just right – but you can do pretty much anything with a savoury dish.

If you are fairly new to cooking, or you’re trying to improve the quality of the food you prepare for yourself and your family, then it is probably best to follow a recipe fairly precisely. But if you have been cooking for years and you’re just looking to find healthy alternatives to your usual repertoire, you can afford to experiment a bit.

You can do a couple of things to ‘clean up’ family favourites.

• Leave out any added fats and oils – use a non-stick cooking spray instead.
• Buy the leanest meats you can find, and trim off any visible fat.
• Stretch your mince dishes with lentils (or soy mince).
• Always add beans, lentils and/or barley to a pot of soup.
• Only buy low-fat, fat-free or fat reduced products.
• Use a salt substitute.
• Limit animal protein quantities.
• Control portion sizes.
• Fill up on fresh salads and vegetables.

If a recipe contains something you don’t like or can’t get, don’t reject it out-of-hand. Substitute.
My recipes usually call for a lot of vegetables, but if one that I use is your all-time pet hate then leave it out, or substitute with a vegetable of the same colour that you do like. I never used to like aubergines, because more often than not, recipes want you to pfaff around with them an awful lot, which really isn’t necessary. I have them growing in my garden, so I use them quite a bit these days. Peel them, cut them in chunks and they are wonderful for giving body to soups and stews – and I bet you won’t even notice them!

If you want to change the quantities in a recipe – say you’re cooking for 2 or 6, not the 4 stipulated – be careful with the quantity of herbs and spices; e.g. if you’re doubling the recipe DON’T double the spices unless you’re absolutely sure. You can end up with something that is unpalatable if you’re not careful. Rather under than over spice.

 

Whatever you do, don’t get stuck in a rut preparing and eating the same old recipes the same old way week after week. Even if they are healthy!

Potatoes

Wikipedia tells me that potatoes are the world’s fourth largest food crop, after rice, wheat and maize; and that nearly a third of the world’s potatoes are harvested in China and India! The average global citizen, over the last decade, will have consumed 33kg of potatoes per year.

I remember, with delight, that as a child I went to firework displays and stood round the bonfire burning my fingers and mouth on baked potatoes, but I have never baked a potato in foil, in the oven, in all my (many) years of cooking. I usually do them in the microwave in a little water, but they are just not the same cooked like that. From the oven they come out fluffy and the skin goes a bit crispy. What is the secret? Maybe it’s best that I never find out, otherwise I would be cooking them every day!

A few years ago the potatoes in this country were packaged and labeled as ‘suitable for’, so I could buy potatoes specifically for baking or mashing or chips or boiling. That labeling seems to have fallen away and our supermarkets now stock potatoes graded only by size. I like to buy the ‘medium’ size (about the size of a tennis ball), they usually weigh about 120gms each which is a handy portion for one person. If you mash them, of course, they shrink before your eyes and it looks like you should’ve cooked two per person instead of one.

I’ve recently been experimenting with mashed potatoes and found that they bulk up very nicely and look and taste more interesting if you combine them with something else. By adding white beans you can retain the texture and colour while adding to the flavour. Peas and mint, broad beans or soya beans change the texture and colour, and keep the kilocalories/kilojoules down. Spinach is very good too, but then you should ‘crush’ rather than mash. Try leaving the skins on, too (anything to save peeling!)

If you want creaminess in your mash, reach for natural fat free yoghurt or smooth cottage cheese, or a little bit of low fat mayo. Add some spices – nutmeg is very good and wholegrain mustard makes an interesting addition. And a teaspoon of baking powder in your mash is supposed to make it light and fluffy.

You know how left over mash picks up a funny taste in the fridge? Mash in some sweet potato and that taste won’t appear.