For the Cook in You

I'm going through a spell of not being able to decide what to write about on my blogs, but I don't want to stop posting. One thing that is of interest to a great many people is cooking. We have to feed our families and there are always social events that require a contribution from us. We don't want to serve the same things all the time.


It's easy enough to Google for recipes and cooking sites. In fact, I once wrote a post covering a number of the common ones with recipes of every type for every occasion. You may find several sites in that piece that would be of interest to you.


There are a couple of sites that I would like to link to here because they have lots of different kinds of recipes and cookbook reviews and are general very interesting. One is Simply Recipes and the other is 101 Cookbooks which features primarily vegetarian recipes. The variety and depth in these sites make them worth your time to see if you can find some things to add to your cooking repertoire.

Let's Talk About Food Today

Apparently I am hungry, so I am writing a post about food! It's always interesting to find websites or books with new recipes and new types of food to try. I have a website to share with you today called The World's Healthiest Foods. There's all sorts of information about food and cooking here. Do some exploring!

A page of the above site that I really like is the food list page. It has a list of common foods divided into categories such as Vegetables. Click on a food and you will get a page with nutrition information, health benefits, history, how to select and store, etc. Here's the onion page for an example. I really like that nutrient chart near the top. Very useful for finding foods to meet specific nutrition requirements. The history of the food is very interesting, too.

The site also has a recipe page that may give you some new ideas of foods to fix for you and your family. There are vegetarian and meatless dishes, as well as traditional types of recipes. And here's a page on healthy cooking. And another on essential nutrients. There is a lot of documentation at the bottom of the articles, too.

The site has a cooking demonstration page. There is a long list of food preparation items that you might want some help with, so just click on an item and it opens a box with photos and a written description. Very interesting.

There are lots more pages on this site. I've just listed a few to give you a sample of what you can find there.

Since we all have to prepare food for ourselves and our families, it's always fun to find new information to help with that task.

Random Ramblings

I am already tired of winter weather, although here in Oklahoma we have had some nice, mild days intermingled with the cold ones. Summer is too hot, winter is too cold, but spring and fall are just right, as far as I'm concerned.

There are some things about the internet that are just so much fun! Sometimes I will recall a food that my mom prepared when I was a child, but that I don't have a recipe for. (Maybe she didn't, either!) I can search online and find similar recipes which will lead me in the right direction. The most recent one was a chicken and rice soup which featured--besides chicken and rice--carrots and celery. Mom made it with cut-up chicken pieces (bone-in) rather than chopped up boneless chicken. It was really more of a stew or a stove-top casserole because it really wasn't very thinned down with liquid. I don't remember Mom's version having onions in it, but mine certainly will! I do think she used garlic (probably garlic salt). It was absolutely delicious and an excellent winter meal. Of course, we all know that no one cooks like Mom, but at least we can find similar recipes and have fun in the process!

I think cooking (and even just looking for recipes) can be good therapy when you need to rest your mind from everyday concerns. You can also find new and different foods to fix and healthier ways to fix them. You can find less expensive ways to fix meals, too. Having access to the millions of recipes on the internet is useful as well as fun.

I took a vacation day from work today. I've had some sort of respiratory ailment for the last 9 days and, while I am definitely better, I'm still weary and can't quite shake the cough and congestion. Maybe that's why I was thinking longingly of Mom and her chicken-rice soup! Getting older is definitely not for sissies, as the saying goes. It gets harder to recover from things.

My apartment needs cleaning. I hope to feel energetic enough tomorrow to do something about that.

Even my brain is not up to par. I've written posts for all three of my blogs today, but they aren't terribly inspiring.

Tomorrow will be better.

Fun with Cooking--Updated

For a change of pace, how about a post on food and cooking? I love to cook--I just am not all that crazy about the clean-up afterwards. That's part of it, though, so I muddle through.

Mostly what I am going to do is direct you to some websites that will give you all kinds of free resources to help you practice your culinary skills and learn a little history and science while you're at it.

First up, one of the most interesting websites I've ever seen is The Food Timeline. It starts at the beginning, far B.C., and lists foods, books, and recipes. You can click on any of the items and it will take you to a web page with details on that food--the history, the industry, or etc. It's fascinating and will keep you occupied forever!

Next up is Spice Advice, a site that has all kinds of resources for spicing up your meals. There is an encyclopedia, recipes, and history links. There's also a spice usage page. This is a great site for experimenting with different flavors to add to your dining experiences.

There are many sites posting recipes and you may be familiar with at least some of them, but here is an assortment for those times when you want something different to fix, or you are looking for an old favorite that you can't find your recipe for: Veggie Recipes, Recipe Hound, RecipeZaar, RecipeLand, RecipeSource Mix Recipes, RecipeSource's main page, and AllRecipes. At these types of sites, you can do searches, have your own recipe box, look for ethnic recipes or diet recipes--all kinds of things. There are many more sites, too, but these will get you started.

If you are a vegetarian or just interested in finding new ways to prepare fruits and vegetables, here are some sites to give you a hand: Vegetarian Resource Group, Vegetarian Times, Vegetarians in Paradise (they've got a great chart page for cooking beans, legumes, and grains here), International Vegetarian Union recipes, and Think Vegetables. Also, there's the Veggie Recipes site I linked above, but I don't know that it is a vegetarian site, in case that's of concern to you.

Let's see--what else do I have? Oh, yes. Medieval cooking. Try A Boke of Gode Cookery. There's lots of history and interesting information there, plus updated recipes for preparing in today's kitchens.

How about World Recipes for finding things to try from all over the world? Or you can try your hand at cheesemaking here. Oh, and here's a Gift & Mix Recipe Index. Here is Christy's Once a Month Cooking page and a powdered milk recipe page where you can try your hand at yogurt making. Robbie's Recipes has copycat recipes, mix recipes, making fancy napkin folds and lots more. Many food companies have websites with recipes or you can Google for something specific.

Your whole family can get involved in learning about food and nutrition and trying new recipes. I've seen recipes for kids to make at some of the megasites, too.

There! I've done my part to keep you all out of mischief and well-fed to boot!

Edited to add: Cook's Thesaurus (an encyclopedia of both food and equipment), Cheese Guide, Fine Cooking, The Worldwide Gourmet, Epicurious, Cooks.com, cooksrecipes, cookingvillage, Soyfoods, and Hillbilly Housewife.

My Thanksgiving Day

To start with, we had a beautiful day. It was 77 degrees, sunny, and there was a light southerly wind. This was a good thing for two reasons: 1) I had to drive two hours each way for dinner and 2) the kids and dogs could play outside.

Attending the dinner, besides the usual assortment of people, were a black lab named Lex, a fuzzy dog named Maui, a chihuahua named Snowball, and a Boston bull terrier whose name I didn't catch.

We had all the traditional Thanksgiving fare, plus potstickers, rice and veggies wrapped in seaweed, and a very spicy cabbage dish. I forget what those last two are called, but they are good--although the seaweed is a little fishy for my taste. My sister-in-law has two Korean sisters-in-law, so we usually get to enjoy a mix of food types at holidays. One year we had squid--I didn't try it, but my brother said it was good. Another year it was roasted sugared duck. It had a sort of carmelized glaze.

We talked and watched football and played outside. Then I drove home and started emailing friends. The traffic was fairly light today so the interstates weren't as nerve-racking as they can sometimes be.

All in all it was a most pleasant day. In addition, I won't have to eat for several days now.

I don't see my own cousins very often. My sister-in-law's family has become my family. They have taken me in and made me feel every bit as welcome as my brother. They were there for us through my mom's illness and death. I am very thankful for each one of them.

Hungry for Thanksgiving Already

If you are starting to think about turkey and all the trimmings, go over to our group blog, conversation, and read "Tis the Season..." and "The Recipe Post" for ideas and recipes. Mmmmm!

I would also recommend going over to Food Chronicles and take a look at her delicious posts. Chronicler is also part of the group at conversation.

There are recipes all over the web, of course, and you will be able to find things to make that are simple or intricate, as you please. Some places to look, on the off chance you aren't familiar with them, are All Recipes, Recipe-zaar, RecipeLand, mix recipes at RecipeSource, Epicurious, and Fine Cooking. There! That ought to fix you up!

Food seems to anchor gatherings, especially family holidays, and we all have memories of wonderful special occasion meals with our families. We remember not only the food, but the conversation, the decorations, the family members, the love and warmth. Very special memories.

The Medieval Kitchen

As I read medieval history and visit websites about medieval life, one thing that fascinates me greatly is the daily life of people. Learning how people spent their time in the various periods of history makes them come alive for me. It is also interesting that many of their pursuits are the same as ours in a general sense.

In the medieval era, much time was spent in providing food. Grain had to be sown, raised, and harvested. Animals had to be acquired and cared for. They, too, had to be fed. The kitchen was a center of activity as everything had to be prepared from scratch and cooked over the fireplace. A castle kitchen would have a huge fireplace--large enough to roast whole animals on spits, turned by hand to provide thorough and even cooking. Grain had to be ground before bread could be made. Fruit and vegetables were raised in gardens or gathered from the forest or the meadow. Herbs were used for flavoring and also for medicinal purposes.

Cooking was not as primitive as we might think. I have discovered a delightful website, A Boke of Gode Cookery, that is full of articles and recipes from Medieval and Renaissance times. There are some modern adaptations of these recipes and there are menus. The Society for Creative Anachronism recreates these types of feasts and you can, too! With information from this site, you could have a medieval-themed party or dinner and enjoy the flavor of that time. The site has all kinds of links as well--I feel sure you will enjoy it.

Back to kitchens and food, the poorer people did their own cooking, of course, and often had a hearth in the middle of the room. The smoke rose to the roof and went out through a hole, or there were high open windows opposite each other that blew out the smoke. They usually lived in one room. As they prospered and had larger homes, they might have separate bedrooms, but the kitchen was still the center of the home.

The wealthier people had kitchens separate from other rooms and sometimes even in a separate building. They had servants who did all the food preparation and cooking. Even then, though, the evening meal in particular often took a long time and was a time of gathering for the household plus any guests they might have. The most wealthy had elaborate feasts on special occasions, complete with entertainment between courses. Some of the food was quite decorative and was presented with great fanfare before being served. There were subtleties, which were elaborate sculptures out of a sugar concoction. There were roasted peacocks with their feathers put back on for the presentation.

There was more variety in the food than we might think. There were pies full of meats and spices and raisins and other fruit. There were vegetable dishes and egg dishes with sauces and seasonings. The food was actually quite flavorful and nutritious. It was fresh. Breads were various and sometimes decorative.

I would dearly love to visit the British Isles and visit a preserved castle just to see the kitchens, although the whole place would be fascinating to me.

Other pursuits were sewing and needlework, reading and writing (at least among the more privileged classes), and conversation. There were dances and festivals and plays. The church was a center for much activity also and there were various celebrations for Saints' days. In the villages, there were courts held to settle various problems that had arisen. Larger towns and cities had markets that gathered the people in to buy and sell and socialize.

I still have a lot to learn about Medieval history, but it is a pleasurable pursuit.