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I have been meaning to write about how I go about preparing food. I do
not really use recipies, at least not for some decades, as I pretty
much just improvise everything by combining ingredients and applying a
few techniques.
One of the key things I realized is the minimal tools needed for the
vast majority of tasks...
That is the essential core tools, really. Much more is generally just
more work to clean up afterwards.
Most of my meals amount to chopping up vegetables and putting them in
a heated and lightly oiled cast-iron skillet. For a bit of crispiness,
maybe crank the heat up briefly or periodically.
I control the cooking speeds of various things in mainly two ways,
timing by putting some things in early or later, or cutting things to
different sizes, as not everything cooks at the same rate.
Experimenting with different sizes and shapes or lightly cooked
ingredients can add variety even if using the same ingredients.
In hot weather I tend to mostly use an outdoor kitchen...
I only infrequently use the rice cooker to cook rice; I find the
steamer baskets of primary importance, as each layer may have a
different type of ingredient. Maybe sweet potato in one layer, steamed
grains (e.g. quinoa, amaranth or wild rice) in another... beans,
lentils, eggs, tamales, tempeh, greens, vegetables ... so many
options!
The built-in timer of the rice-cooker can also allow for
prepare-and-forget meals, maybe even literally forgetting about it for
a while until getting hungry.
I use the trays in the steamer baskets for grains, pouring a small
amount of hot water, and then letting the steam keep cooking it.
I have been steaming eggs nicely by placing them on a tray in the
steamer basket. Takes a bit longer than hard-boiling, but I find it
easier. Maybe 20 minutes if starting with hot water.
A few additional tools add some flexibility without too much extra
complication...
A mixing bowl is unsurprisingly useful for... mixing larger batches of
ingredients together, mostly for various broadly defined salads.
The vegetable peeler is really just a specialized knife that can cut
very thin slices, not just peels! I have only recently started
appreciating the vegetable peeler as a simple tool!
Once everything is appropriately chopped, cooked or otherwise
prepared, the best part...
I prefer a bowl that nicely fits in the palm of my hand, adding
portions of various parts of the meal into the bowl, or picking
various courses in sequence.