Shortcuts are Good, or The Thrifty Cook

"Shortcuts are good" and "who's got time for that?" These are common expressions adopted from a friend of my sister. She must be a practical, busy woman.  I use it to explain why, despite my cooking hobby, I do not make everything from scratch. I use commercial pasta sauce,  canned beans, bagged salad greens, frozen potato croquettes, bouillon blocks, jarred fond, and lots more convenience foods.

But I also make some of my own convenience foods, usually just trying to be less wasteful. Or I try to prepare things in the weekend ready for lunches and quick suppers in the rest of the week.

• The skin of every lemon that comes into my house is scrubbed and grated before it is squeezed for its juice. The lemon rind goes into a little jar in the freezer, and every time I need some, I just scrape out the amount I need.
• Extra lemon juice is saved in another little jar, or frozen into ice cubes containing a tablespoon each. They defrost in no time, ready for use in salads, sauces, or baking.
• Chicken, beef, and lamb bones are simmered in some water, maybe with some vegetables and parsley stems, before being discarded. I freeze the resulting broth in ice cube bags or small containers for use in soups, salads and sauces. This reduces the need for bouillon cubes.
• If I have a largish bunch of basil, I'll make pesto and freeze it into ice cubes, ready to be defrosted and used on crackers, pasta, or tomato salad.
• I clean and save handy-size glass jars so that I can save extra dressings, sauces, and odds and bobs of dried goods. My favourites are peanut butter jars (for broth and blanched vegetables), Bonne Maman jam jars (for nuts, seeds, rice, sugar, orzo), Conimex sambal jars (for dressings, lemon juice, and lemon zest), and AH fond jars (for everything).
• Canadian milk bags are also a great way to save foods. They are sturdy plastic, in a convenient size, perfect as lunch bags or freezer bags. I never buy plastic lunch or freezer bags. (Thanks Mom, for saving these for me!)

So what are some of your tips and tricks for shortcuts and thrift?

Kitchen Gadgets

You would think I have everything my little heart desires in the way of kitchen paraphernalia but I have found room for 2 new acquisitions that I have sort of been wanting—a mandolin and a small slow cooker.

I think the mandolin is my favourite of the two. Instead of being a full-fledged job with multiple blades and a box, and something to protect your fingers, and that costs almost a hundred euros (like the OXO deluxe mandolin), and which claims more space that I don't have in a kitchen cupboard, this is a simple hand-held plastic number with a ceramic blade that cost under 10 euros. And it just hangs on a rack when not in use. Since its acquisition I have been making thinly shaved salads almost everyday. My favourite is a fennel-cucumber salad.

As for the slow cooker, I have been sort of wanting one because they are great for cooking beans and stews unattended overnight or during the day while I am at work. The disadvantage seems to be that most of them are enormous. So when I recently saw a small one, I snapped it up. It was quite inexpensive, probably because it is missing the more sophisticated controls that you let set how many hours it should go for before going into keep-warm mode. Of course I only realized this when I got home. Nevertheless, I am finding it useful. In the photo, it has just finished cooking chickpeas (without soaking), which is pretty well my favourite legume.

Back to the fennel-cucumber salad, it's my own invention, inspired by Japanese sunomono salad. It is light and fresh, sweet and sour, and I eat for lunch several days a week. Anyone coming to dinner in the next couple of months is likely to be eating it. It may even win over people who don't like fennel!

Fennel-Cucumber Salad

• 1 small fennel
• 1/2 English (seedless) cucumber
• 2 teaspoons fresh dill, finely chopped
• 1-2 tablespoons fresh coriander, chopped
• 1-2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 cup apple vinegar

Thinly slice the fennel and cucumber. (I think having the vegetables thinly shaved, which is easiest to do with a mandolin, is really important in this salad.)
Toss together, add the herbs, sugar, and apple vinegar. (I am using a light apple vinegar, but apple cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar would also be suitable)

Chicken with Pomegranate

I recently acquired a new item for the kitchen—a lovely enameled cast-iron cocotte from Staub.

Of course, a new pot requires a new recipe, so I decided to break open a tome that has been sitting on my shelves for years and getting no use.

The Silver Spoon is supposedly the Italian bible of cooking, and it contains a huge number of recipes, but the layout and instructions are not inviting. The instructions are written in one long paragraph, which is a pain to follow when you're half way through and need to check something. Worse yet, instructions can be incomplete, unclear, and quantities imprecise. Even for someone who doesn't always follow instructions and quantities to the letter, this can be frustrating.

But it does seem such a waste to have it sitting there, not getting spattered by water, wine, and sauces. So I decided to make Gallina alla Melagrana. Well, actually, I adapted it. The recipe calls for roasting the chicken whole, but I decided to cut it into pieces and braise it in the oven. I also add the soaking water from the soaking the porcini mushrooms, which the recipe does not call for.

The pomegranate was an interesting feature. The seeds are both tart and sweet, and the resulting dish reminded me of having cranberry sauce as an integral part of the chicken. I liked it.

Chicken with Pomegranate

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 chicken, cut into pieces
2 small onions
20 grams dried porcini mushrooms
4 pomegranates
1 cup cream
4 leaves of sage (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Heat half the butter and oil in a casserole, Dutch oven or other dish that can go from stove-top to oven.
3. Fry the chicken pieces, turning them from time to time until browned.
4. Add one onion, whole, to the chicken, sprinkle a little bit of water on it, and roast in the oven for 50 minutes.
5. Put the dried porcini in a bowl and pour on boiling water to cover. Let it stand and soak for 15 to 30 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, cut the pomegranates into 6-8 segments and scrape the seeds into a pot or large bowl, using your fingers. 
7. Reserve some seeds for garnish and crush the rest with a potato ricer to extract the juice. (Since I don't have this, and my potato masher didn't do a great job, I ended by just squeezing the seeds with my hands and pressing them through a sieve. The seeds still retain a fair amount of flesh so they still look good when added to the dish at the end.)
8. After about 45 minutes, take the chicken out of the oven and add the pomegranate juice, pouring it through a sieve, and reserving the seeds. Return the chicken to the oven.
9. Chop the remaining onion, and sauté it in the remaining oil and butter for about 5 minutes.
10. Drain the mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid, and add them to the frying onions. Cook for another 10 minutes and then add them to the casserole.
11. After 50-60 minutes in the oven, the chicken should be tender, at which point you can remove it to a plate along with the whole onion. (I like chicken to be very well done and the leg meat to almost slip of the bone.)
12. Chop the onion, and return it to the casserole.
13. Put the casserole on medium heat on the stove, add the reserved mushroom soaking water, and reduce the liquid by about half.
14. Add the cream and sage and heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste. 
15. Pour the sauce over the chicken and garnish with reserved pomegranate seeds. 

My New Assistant

I been, 'n gone, 'n done it. I finally broke down and bought a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. It is a thing of beauty and I hope it will be a joy forever.

I've been resisting for years because I don't make cakes that often, and I like kneading bread by hand. And it takes up valuable counter space in a small kitchen. I read about all the nifty attachments that turn it into a grater, a grain grinder, a juicer, a vegetable purée-er,  an ice cream maker, a pasta maker. But I've never needed those things before, so why would I need them now? And the cost!

And yet, and yet. Think of all the things I could make that I've never bothered with before. Breads made with unusual flours that I can grind myself, home-made ice cream, pasta filled with vegetable purées.

So I caved, found an online supplier that sold it for way less than cooking stores, and now I'm in love. I love the design, the weight, the power, the sturdiness, the way it's made, and yes, the colour. So far, I've only used it for bread-making, but I really notice that it is giving more loft to the bread.

I've not bought any of the attachments yet, but I will eventually. First I need to bake some more.