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radiant-silver-gal · 7 years

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how i cook

So, I certainly consider cooking a creative endeavor. And my roommate keeps mentioning me when people talk about going vegetarian, not to mention I occasionally see such inquiries myself. So I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and I suppose I feel this is the most appropriate place to put it all down. I was raised vegetarian by my parents and have never really cooked meat in my life. I spent a few years sometimes eating meat when at friends’ places or at restaurants, but I eventually decided I wasn’t that into it and became more invested in ethical/environmental concerns. So now I’m pretty eager to help people be vegetarian/vegan if they want, though I really hate feeling like I’m pressuring people.

Anyway, as far as cooking goes, I don’t really follow recipes closely (unless I’m, like, baking, obviously); it’s more like, I have certain habits for how to do things and it’s really easy to adapt pretty much anything made out of vegetables and stuff to them. So, sorry if this comes off as pretty vague, I hope it still maybe helps? You can skip to Part 3 if you just want to see me talk about specific things I make.

Part 1: A few things I use all the time and pretty much can’t live without

Pressure cooker: basically you could look at this as “only” letting you cook dried beans in about an hour without soaking first (though, aside from black beans from what I know, it still doesn’t hurt), but if you’re like me and not very good at planning far ahead that’s pretty huge. My mom will just throw a bunch of stuff in and blast the whole thing until it turns into soup, though this will make your vegetables super soft and requires a much larger pot. I have a small one (4 quarts maybe?) and just cook all my other stuff in parallel so I can pour the beans in at the end. There’s also Instant Pots, which...I’ve never used, so I have no real input on this, sorry. I know a lot of people who love them.

Other pans/pots: we have a couple small saucepans I usually cook rice and leftovers in (we don’t have a microwave or a rice cooker...there’s no space), plus there’s a big stock pot I use for soups (and cooking noodles) and a large skillet for stirfries and stuff.

Rice: I know lots of people don’t like brown rice and it’s one of those things I prefer because I was raised on it, but I really like the flavor and think it complements things well. Regardless it’s easy to cook and a pretty inexpensive staple; I think I buy bags for like $2.50 that last like 5-6 meals for two of us? I usually do about 1 cup per dinner, and will roll over leftovers. Since we usually get two dinners out of stuff I end up doing 2-2.5 cups with most full preparations. Rice cookers are very nice to have but I kinda accidentally made it a year without one.

I’m glad I have it now though.

Garlic and Onions: I don’t care what a recipe says, I pretty much always put both of these in everything. A garlic press is very handy to have, but like many things that haven’t always existed, not absolutely necessary. You can take a kinda big flattish knife and crush the garlic pieces with the side before cutting them up to still get great results.

Canned tomatoes: Super useful base for all kinds of soups and sauces, etc. I make spaghetti sauce all the time starting with canned tomatoes (though obviously fresh ones are really nice when they’re plentiful in the fall).

Stuff I use a lot but would probably consider not strictly necessary: broth (I like “Better than Boullion” brand pastes, both the vegetable broth and the one that imitates chicken stock; it mixes with water you’re already using so a ~$5 jar will go much further than cans/boxed broth too. I probably use too much and a jar still lasts me a few months), and soy sauce (my family basically just straight up uses San-J brand instead of salt in almost everything, even scrambled eggs. It’s not super cheap and may be hard to find but it’s just something I’ve gotten too used to to live without. I would not buy any kind that has sugar in it for primary use, though more than anything that’s because it weirds me out I guess)

“Meat substitutes” - I kind of hate this term since most of the stuff I actually use is not actually like meat in any real way. I guess it works for some people but since I never liked it too much in the first place I don’t need it. The main exception is the Field Roast brand sausages: the Chipotle one in particular is a great combination that’s amazingly delicious with eggs and useful any time you want some smoky spice and that kind of protein texture together. But even then I tend to stick with seitan (I think the texture is great, and apparently you can make it yourself cheaply and without too much trouble, but I haven’t tried myself. But it’s important to note that it’s also made of gluten.) and tofu (a Vietnamese grocery I like in Denver sells it cheap, fresh-made and pressed. I wish so badly I still lived near it, if you can find something like that where you live it’s unbeatable). I also like tempeh a lot, but it’s on the expensive side by weight and considerably weirder in appearance, texture and taste. Definitely worth a try if you’re curious or other options don’t work well for you, though.

Part 2. General methods

Pretty much everything I do starts with an appropriate pan and sauteing onions and garlic. There’s a bunch of reasons to do this, but basically it’s also easiest because you can mostly leave the onions alone for a few minutes while you keep working on the other vegetables without worrying about anything bad happening. For the most part a good approximation of what should cook longest is what’s hardest to cut, so roots like potatoes/sweet potatoes/carrots should probably go into whatever you’re making before things like zucchini or peppers. The big exception is eggplant, which you pretty much always want to cook as long as you possibly can. (There are other things you can do to make up for this, but again, I’m too lazy for them.)

Now, in the end, if you’re making soup or something you don’t have to stress too much about this since most things can just simmer for quite a while without getting messed up; you mostly want to watch out for certain green things like chard/kale/spinach leaves or broccoli florets which can definitely start to become less appealing if overcooked. With greens you should cut out most of the stem (unless they’re like baby greens where that part is already going to be soft) and cook it with the other vegetables, then put in the leaves when you’re almost done because they’ll wilt the way you want so quickly.

Most things I make have rice, pasta, or beans, so like I said I’ll usually cook those on the side and combine when everything is done individually. I don’t think there’s too much to be said about that. Overall this is stuff I don’t even think about much so if these explanations are too vague I’m sorry, maybe just ask me for more clarification?

Basically in general I estimate how much of an ingredient to get/use based on like...sort of arbitrary assessments of how big my pans are, how much I think we’ll eat, etc. Stuff like canned tomatoes come in fixed amounts obviously, so there’s less worrying about that. For my purposes I almost always use large ones (~30oz in america) because I cook a fair amount of food at once.

Part 3: These Aren’t Recipes Because I Just Do Whatever I Feel Like

Ok, so here’s some stuff I either do or used to cook often. Going to kind of break it down by vegetables, seasonings, and other stuff (like rice or beans that I cook on the side), which will hopefully make it easy to read? Like I said this is all very loose when I do it, so if you don’t have exactly everything, want to try other stuff, it’s obviously not a big deal. Again, unless otherwise mentioned I usually put onions, salt/soysauce and garlic in everything.

Quick/low effort:

Spaghetti sauce:

Side cooking: whatever kind of pasta you want, obviously. You can do up garlic bread too if you like. One 1lb package goes with one can of tomatoes, much like my mom always did with jars.

Main ingredients: tomatoes, mushrooms, bell pepper, roasted red pepper, zucchini

Seasonings: oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme. Sugar if it turns out too acidic or something.

Notes: obviously if you’ve bought spaghetti sauce before you know there are SO MANY different kinds, so I basically never even put in everything I listed here at once and you should definitely try stuff to see what you like. I tend to stick with safe/traditional picks but I’ll often throw in some capers and hot pepper to mix it up some. Also if you aren’t restricted on dairy, adding some cream will really make everything a lot richer, my family loves it when I do that.

Shakshuka: ok, there actually is a recipe here which was my original inspiration: https://smittenkitchen.com/2010/04/shakshuka/

Of course, I don’t follow it particularly closely at this point since I hate measuring stuff. Also, get some latex gloves or similar if you’re going to be seeding the peppers (I only do it for this, because in general I like everything really spicy), since it can take a couple days for the risk of accidentally burning yourself to wear off when you’re scraping out all the really hot parts. (If you just cut the peppers up, it’s still not a bad idea, but you’re in a lot less danger either way.)

Tabbouli: (to go with Mediterranean food like hummus, baba ganoush, pita, etc. Which you can mostly prepare yourself but obviously turns the whole meal into a lot more work.)

Side cooking: 2 cups of bulgur wheat. (This arguably makes quite a lot. But we eat a lot. My mom uses quinoa but I don’t like it for many reasons and it’s much more expensive.)

Main ingredients: onion, celery, fresh tomatoes, parsley, mint.

Seasonings: Olive oil, lemon juice.

Notes: the bulgur is the only thing you really cook, though it’s nice to put in the onions while it’s still hot so they soften up a bit. (You can dump the rest in too if you’re in a rush, but if you have a chance to wait a bit it’ll be a little fresher overall.)

Risi bisi: so I guess this is really supposed to be more of a risotto thing, but that’s what my mom calls this anyway. I learned to cook from her and she shortcuts even more than I do. This isn’t anything fancy, just one of her big fallbacks when she has like <45 minutes to make dinner because you really barely have to do anything if you have the ingredients ready to go. I do it occasionally, especially if I’m eating alone since I hate putting *any* effort in if no one else is gonna eat

Ingredients: you basically just pressure cook split peas and rice (similar amounts, with 3 cups of water per cup of split peas and 2 per cup of rice) for about 12 minutes with an onion. and maybe celery if you have some/want to. Right before serving you put frozen peas in, you don’t want them to get really cooked though.

Seasonings: Garlic. Optionally: broth, parmesan cheese, fresh parsley (add those last two at the end as well if you’re doing them)

Medium cooking time/prep effort:

Chili:

Side cooking: 2 cups beans. You can use whatever you want but I tend to focus on black beans, with maybe some kidney beans sometimes.

Main ingredients: Onion, tomatoes, bell pepper, corn (my roommate is allergic, so I usually use sweet potatoes instead. I think they’re also nice), seitan (I often don’t have this available since I can’t just get it on a whim though), zucchini (this is a great neutral vegetable for this)

Seasonings: Oregano, garlic, broth, cumin, and chipotle peppers in adobo sauce are things I basically always use.

Notes: This is way more “do whatever” than even the spaghetti sauce above. I pretty much try doing different things every time. Cinnamon and cloves are nice subtle flavors associated with Mexican food (but it’s easy to use too much and have them not be subtle anymore). Replacing some of the water with a nice beer gives a lot of interesting flavors. Tons of other seasonings are great in small amounts. You just really don’t want anything to be dominant, I think, the beans and tomatoes are already great on their own.

Stirfry:

Side cooking: Rice. or noodles.

Main ingredients: Onion, eggplant, tofu, broccoli, carrots, peppers, mushrooms (rehydrated shitake or button), asparagus, green beans, cabbage, spinach...whatever you like, honestly

Seasonings: so there’s a few different main ways I go with this. I pretty much always use garlic, ginger, and some chili sauce (maybe not much if you don’t like spicy foods). If I want to keep things basic I might throw on a bit of stuff like rice wine vinegar, miso, five spice, or vegetarian oyster sauce (we have a big bottle because it’s an ingredient in my roommate’s ramen recipe). My mom does a coconut curry thing that I also like sometimes, usually with yellow curry (but I keep meaning to try to make my own), thai basil, and coconut milk. It’s really great with noodles. You can also do a kind of peanut sauce thing with a lot of the same ingredients as above...it’s really open to messing with, which is obviously my style in the first place.

Potato leek soup:

Side cooking: none

Main ingredients: Onions/celery (sort of optional), potatoes, leeks, milk (or not, if you don’t do dairy. I think you could also use whatever substitute you like, but I haven’t ever myself. You can make it look and feel a little creamier by just blending a bit of it to mash up some of the potatoes as well.)

Seasonings: broth, black pepper, lemon juice.

Notes: ultimately pretty simple, potatoes just take a while to clean/cut/cook. Not really an entire meal on its own, nice to pair up with some other vegetables on the side (my family also likes doing meat substitutes with it, like the Apple Sage Field Roast sausages).

Hoppin’ John: this is another one my mom has a really lazy version of. I don’t do that though, I basically just go off of this recipe: http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2014/12/vegan-hoppin-john/

I like to put in some okra and kale when it’s available as well, and I’ll throw in a little basil because that’s what my mom does, but I follow that fairly closely (aside from not measuring stuff, haha).

Red beans and rice: pretty similar situation here, but I don’t have a main recipe in the same way. This (and the hoppin’ john) can be good targets for a slow cooker as well.

Side cooking: rice, and red beans (2 cups)

Main ingredients: onion, bell pepper, chipotle sausages (as above), celery

Seasoning: broth, garlic, oregano, vinegar, something smoky if the chipotle isn’t enough

Notes: this really doesn’t take very long aside from cooking the beans, so if you have some way around that part...

Ratatouille:

Side cooking: rice. or pasta, in which case this is basically spaghetti sauce with eggplant. eggplant still takes forever to cook.

Main ingredients: Onion, tomatoes, eggplant, bell pepper, zucchini

Seasonings: Garlic, oregano, garlic, basil, seriously tons of garlic, rosemary

Notes: I don’t know, this is also really straightforward. Also nice to let go in a slow cooker all day, you can leave the vegetable pieces bigger so they keep a bit more of their own flavor.

Feijoada: another one that my mom does a lot, I guess it’s based on Brazilian food. I love this a lot, basically the zenith of simple beans-and-rice-and-vegetable food that I’m pretty into. Anyway, this one’s a bit odd, because it’s three parts, but they’re each really easy individually and you only have to pay attention to one of them. I’m going to have to describe it differently than usual though. I usually want a big onion and can of tomatoes for this.

Beans: I cook a couple cups of black beans with a little less than half a (large) can of tomatoes, a little bit of onion, and some oregano/cumin. (Then salt them after they’re done, obviously). I put a bunch of smoked paprika in them last time, which i thought came out really delicious, but I’d still say that’s less important than the other two.

Rice: You can sautee some of the onion for this, but you don’t have to. Either way you’re basically putting in the rest of the tomatoes with some water to cook the rice in (add more or less the amount of water you need for the amount of rice you’re cooking). I don’t season this with much more than a bit more oregano (and salt, of course).

Chard (you can use other greens, but I think chard is the best by far since it’s just a little sweeter naturally): Basically, prepare the chard like I said above, sauteeing the stems with some onions, then cooking the leaves for just a few minutes to get them nice and soft. Once everything’s done you just pile it together on a bowl. We always eat this with oranges, which really complement the simple savory flavors.

More involved soups/stuff: basically things I don’t do too often since they involve a lot of cutting/prep followed by cooking time, but I really like. Much faster if you have more than one person working, and since most of the effort goes into preparing individual vegetables you can kind of just delegate with these, rather than coordinating some really complicated thing with a bunch of dishes.

Kima: basically a curry stew. We’ve always eaten this with pitas, I don’t really know what else you’d do.

Main ingredients: Onion, tomatoes, root vegetables (carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes; I’ll often go for other stuff like turnips, rutabaga, beets as well but not always. they’re all great here), celery, tofu or tempeh, peas

Seasoning: yellow curry powder, black pepper, maybe a bit of garam masala if you have it

Notes: pretty simple, you just cut everything up and let it simmer for a LONG time. Some stuff can take a really long time to get soft, but it does let the curry flavor really sink in. Again, peas go in at the end.

Minestrone soup:

Side cooking: ~1cup (or less) beans. I usually mix garbanzo and kidney beans, though there’s a bunch of good options

Main ingredients: Onion, small pasta, tomatoes, broccoli/cauliflower, carrots, celery, chard (or kale/spinach/other greens), bell peppers, zucchini, other squash, peas, green beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets with leaves, pretty much any mild-flavored vegetable you like, honestly...

Seasonings: broth, lots of garlic, basil/oregano/rosemary/thyme/parsley/black pepper

Notes: obviously I’ve never done all of those vegetables at once, and the seasoning is fairly open as well. Just get a good variety and go for it, it’s always good. You can cook pasta on the side but I honestly feel it makes the most sense to just stick it in about 10 minutes (or however long it will take to cook) before you’re ready to call it a wrap. (I guess if you’re a real stickler for presentation it’s best to cook it on the side and just put some in each bowl, but I’m way too lazy for that.) Peas and leaves go in after that, of course, they’ll help cool down a bit before serving.

Borscht: hearty Russian beet soup. My roommate wasn’t too fond of this but I do this with my parents pretty often. I always avoid wearing bright colors when cooking for obvious reasons, but it’s especially important here, because beets will bleed over everything (especially your hands! this is another good thing to have gloves for) if you let them.

Side cooking: not really anything

Main ingredients: Beets (cut off the leaves and then do them up like chard later), onions, carrots, celery, potatoes. That’s a short list compared to some of these, I know, but the beets take longer than everything else combined.

Seasonings: garlic, broth, dill.

Notes: again, pretty simple stuff where the prep is a lot of work and you really want to let it stew for a while. Plain yogurt is a popular accompaniment. Having some nice bread to go with it is just perfect, I think.

Part 4: Wrapping it up

So, I don’t know if this is going to be any use or not. Maybe it’s easier to just say “look up some recipes for stuff you want to make and think about how to use the ingredients in a way that suits your style” or something, since that’s a much simpler description of what I do. There are a lot more vegetarians and vegans out there than when I was young, and of course it’s easier to find information like that on the internet now. Odds are just about anything you can think of has dozens and dozens of adapted recipes at hand immediately, at least if you’re willing to play along with certain kinds of replacements or things that won’t ever quite be the same. In my case a lot of stuff takes way more work than I’m generally up for; I don’t really make desserts because it’s a ton of effort compared to the amount of food you’ll eat, for example, and I’ve only barely scratched the surface of stuff like bread baking. I’m not a professional chef or even a particularly dedicated hobbyist, just some girl who works all day and then has gotta fuckin’ eat after she gets home, you know? But I think there’s a lot of people out there like that, and so I’d really like everyone to be able to believe that cooking decent stuff for yourself really doesn’t have to be as difficult or as involved as, like, a cooking show or whatever.

#food #cooking

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