Cooking Mag Mommy

This is the second month that I have made every recipe in Gourmet magazine and I am still learning from this experience. So what did I learn this month? ... One of the things I noticed this month is that I am getting much better at the planning part of cooking. I can better gauge how long a recipe will take me to make and how to make several recipes at once without frantically spinning around the kitchen. I don't often invite guests to my house for dinner because I worry that they will arrive with me nowhere near finished cooking and the kitchen piled high with dishes. I often try to do too much and end up not doing each component of the meal well because I wasn't able to focus. The St. Patrick's Day dinner I made this month went off so well that I am feeling more confident about inviting people over. My grandmother was a great hostess and her meals always appeared to come together effortlessly. I would love to master that effect. I am also getting better at my knif...

Today I ran a half-marathon. That's 13.1 miles to be exact. Richard ran the full marathon so I thought I could get away with using that in the title of this post since it worked better. But today I also finished the second month of my Gourmet project. I have made every recipe in March's Gourmet magazine and you know, I'm equally proud of myself for both accomplishments. They seem a bit paradoxical, one involves eating, the other exercising but in some ways, they are a perfect match. If you are active, you don't have to worry about what you eat being a hinderance to your health. I've told you in previous posts that some of the recipes in this month's Gourmet were no where near lowfat but I can also proudly tell you that I have not gained a pound in the 2 months my diet has consisted mainly of Gourmet recipes. For my final 2 recipes, I made quick recipes that took little effort, important after running 13+ miles in a day. I made the Ancho and Cocoa Carne Asada on...

For this project, I have now made over 100 recipes and reviewed them on this blog but you will notice that 99.9% of the recipes I make are for dinner. Some of that is due to the fact that most recipes in Gourmet, and for that matter, most cooking magazines, focus on food for the evening meal. Here in the States, dinner is the main meal of the day. We eat the most variety of food at that time of day and usually the most calories too. This is not true all over the world, however. I remember my mom telling me about living in Japan and eating fish and rice for breakfast. In much of the Mediterranean, a mid-day meal is the largest one of the day. I lived in Spain for 2 summers and we ate our largest meal at around 2 and then had a break (siesta) until 4. However, this schedule doesn't work with the average American work day. Most people work too far from their homes to go home for a meal in the middle of the day and with most adults working, no one would be around during the day to pre...

I am realizing I am a real novice when it comes to figuring out if a cut of meat is the correct one. I need to take a class on basic butchery. I rely on the label and that is obviously not enough information. The recipe for Black-Pepper Ribs on page 17 of this month's Gourmet called for beef back ribs. The label on the meat I bought said just that but I think what you see to your left are actually beef back short ribs. It wasn't a huge deal as far as flavor but as far as cook time and amount of meat, I think it was not what the test cooks had in mind. The ribs were done but not tender. The meat was very dry and difficult to get off the bone. Some of this may have been the way the ribs were cut but I also think that a sauce of some kind would have helped. The dry rub was good but more salty than I like. The pepper overpowered the sweet. A heavy meaty main like the ribs was a great compliment to the Cocktail of the Month. The recipe for The Old Fashioned used the bourbon tha...

When I began the project of making all the recipes in each month's Gourmet magazine, there was one thing I'm glad I didn't think about or I may never have done this. Doing the dishes! The average "quick" meal uses only one pot, maybe a bowl, but no more. The recipes in Gourmet often use several pots and if I am making more than one recipe, these pots and bowls can add up quickly. The picture at right is the remains of one of these dinner's dishes. After I made the Korean menu several weeks ago, it took me two days to get all the dishes through the dishwasher. I must admit, I am getting very sick of doing lots of dishes every night but some nights I get a break. Thankfully, tonight was one of those nights so I had the patience to write about doing dishes objectively. I made two recipes from this month's Gourmet. The first recipe was the recipe for Provencal Chicken and Tomato Roast on page 51. This recipe was quite simple to make. There was minimal choppi...

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. This is tonight's recipe in a leftover dish. But don't blame me for forgetting to take a picture. I was still a little rattled from the small kitchen fire. Yep! I put my steak on the little indoor grill that we got as a wedding gift in '01 and it promply burst into flames. Actually, the oil and grease in the grill pan caught on fire so I immediately unplugged the grill, made sure the fire stopped, and Eyrleigh and I got out of the kitchen. Unfortunately, the smoke alarm went off. I had to put Eyrleigh down to get on a chair to pull out the battery and she really freaked out between the noise and smoke. Everything turned out fine and I even used the same grill pan, outside, to finish grilling the steak and peppers. I did throw the grill pan out though. The piece that holds the element up had broken a long time ago and the element sat on the grease pan. That's probably what caused the grease to flame up so quickly. Tonight, I eventua...

One of the best things about being a parent is seeing your child take joy in the little things. Today I went shopping at the our local Asian grocery store, Super H Mart. I love taking Eyrleigh into the seafood section. There are several large tanks of live fish and eels swimming around and even blue crabs climbing over each other in a basin. Today, she squatted in front of the talapia tank until I had to take her away. She was just fascinated by the fish all swimming together. Later tonight, after dinner, we walked as a family at the park. Eyrleigh refused to be picked up and kept walking off the trail to pick up pine cones . She was in love with the world around her and it was wonderful. Tonight's dinner was the Roasted Pacific Cod with Spring Vegetables and Mint on page 52 of this month's Gourmet. I've mentioned before that Eyrleigh has not always been enthusiastic about fish but she did very well tonight with it. She ate the fish and zucchini with relish. I enjoyed ...

Little secret. I am not a morning person. I frequently forget to put grounds in the coffee maker before turning it on. I often reach in the fridge to get the milk for cereal and take out the applesauce. But for today's recipe, I had to make breakfast, not just pour cereal, but make breakfast! The recipe for Bridge Creek Heavenly Hots on page 26 of this month's Gourmet did not instill confidence in my morning cooking abilities. The batter for these silver dollar pancakes was the consistency of cream and ran thinly over the griddle. Richard was sure I had done something wrong in mixing the batter but after reading the ingredients, he agreed that the recipe was too runny. As you can see from my picture, my pancakes look like mini-crepes, not like the pillowy pancakes in the picture supplied in the magazine. Later, we added a bit more flour and got the fluffy pancakes most people are used to. I don't know if the recipe was wrong but with 4 eggs and 2 cups of sour cream and le...

Last night I wrote a post about a meal of healthy Moroccan food. Tonight, I think every recipe I made from this month's Gourmet was trying to find a way to make something healthy less so. I added heavy cream to broccoli, cooked carrots in over a cup of olive oil, and smothered bananas in pudding and cake. Yikes! The article "Easy Does It" that these recipes came from didn't really have a theme aside from homey dishes. Sadly, homey usually meant lots of extra fat. My favorite dish of this menu, Glazed Chicken with Porcini and Crisp Potatoes, was a earthy roast chicken with a mushroom "stuffing" that was mixed after roasting with skillet potatoes. This is the second roast chicken recipe in this issue and I like this recipe best. The chicken itself tasted much the same but in this recipe, the skin was crispy and flavorful because of the last minute glazing. The potatoes weren't as crispy as I would have liked. I think leaving them uncovered for the entir...

All of us have heard of the South Beach diet, the Scarsdale diet, and the Atkins diet but have you heard of the Moroccan diet? Nope. Well, after making tonight's meal, I think the idea has promise. I made a Moroccan themed meal to go with the recipe for Oasis Carrot Salad found on page 17 in this month's Gourmet. I've been adding components to this blog this week and wanted to add an approximate number of calories per serving for the recipes I'm making. Some cooking magazines are designed to help the reader eat healthier. Gourmet addresses the need for healthy, low-calorie meals but it is not the main focus of the magazine. I have never seen nutritional information after a recipe in Gourmet. I am very fortunate in that I don't have to calorie count in an effort to lose weight. I'm active and have good internal portion control so I don't worry about what I eat. This is not true of many Americans and I think it would be interesting to see how Gourmet's re...

When I wrote out my menu at the beginning of March, I had no idea how perfect tonight's dish would be. It rained on Sunday and my tennis match was cancelled and rescheduled for tonight at 5:30. Richard gets home around 5:00 so that gave us a really small window for dinner. The Monte Cubano on page 51 was a perfect fit. Basically a sandwich with some additions, it took no time at all to make. The garlic mayonnaise and pickles were great additions to the sandwich and the frying in egg batter made it a melty , crusty dinner time sandwich for a busy family, exactly what we were tonight. Monte Cubano: Flavor Grade A- Approximate Total Cost: $4.00

After tonight's meal, I started a blog post about traditional St. Patrick's Day dishes but quickly realized that I had nothing new to add to that discussion. So in the spirit of the day of green, I will introduce the next component that I want to add to this blog. How much green am I spending to make these dishes? Both Richard and I assumed our grocery bill for the month would go up while I was making all the recipes from each month's Gourmet magazine. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Gourmet usually has a number of recipes that use obscure and often expensive ingredients. This month, however, that has not been the case. Although the Korean meal I made last Friday did have a number of non-traditional items, surprisingly, nothing I purchased was very expensive. The biggest cost is usually for meats or seafood and that menu used only short ribs and shrimp. Neither are very expensive. So instead of just assuming I am spending more, I want to come up with an approximate cost...

I feel a bit guilty admitting there is a recipe I don't like without giving a good reason but it's true. I just don't like Brussels sprouts. I never have. Two things I read last night while reading my Bon Appetit magazine, the sister magazine to Gourmet, make me feel a little less guilty though. The first was a response to a question asked of the BA Foodlist . A reader stated that they hated cilantro, a thought I don't share but I know of others who do. The BA Foodlist guy responded that there is scientific evidence that some people actually have a negative genetic reaction to cilantro. It's in their genes, they can't help hating it. Now I don't think I have a genetic predisposition to hate Brussels sprouts but it raises the possibility that we could have certain foods we are less likely to enjoy because of our genes. The second thing I read in Bon Appetit was the article "Sweet Memories" where the author, Molly Wizenberg , reminisces abou...

I'm going to add a component to my fledgling blog. I mentioned in an earlier post that I put a grade for each dish I make from a cooking magazine next to that recipe's listing in the recipe index. I've graded recipes for years and use the grade as a quick way to see if a recipe I've made is worth making again. The rating is as follows; A means Excellent, B is Very Good, C is Average, and D is not worth the time. I don't even have an F because anything worse than average ... well, isn't worth making. The grading system is a bit basic, the teacher in me, I suppose. But using it helps me differentiate between that good dish and the outstanding one. I debated adding a grade for both flavor and ease of preparation but the truly outstanding dishes are worth the preparation. So I will only grade on flavor. Tonight's dish actually used two recipes. One was the Leftover-Roast-Chicken Stock recipe on page 99 in this month's Gourmet that used the carcasses of the c...

I've never kept track of how many recipes I've made in one day but today may have been a record. The Korean menu in this month's Gourmet magazine has 14 recipes and I made every one. I guess I technically made 3 of the recipes last night but that's still a lot of dishes for one meal. For that many dishes I was pretty impressed with how easy the menu was to put together. Several of the recipes were for banchan, or small dishes that are served alongside the main course. Pickled ingredients are a common banchan so I made the Cucumber Apple Pickle and the Soy-Pickled Jalapenos the night before so they could sit in the pickling mixture for 24 hours. For the Cucumber Apple Pickle, all that was necessary was some slicing and combining of ingredients. These pickles were Richard's favorite dish. The vinegar taste was light and did not overpower the sweet of the apple and the freshness of cucumber. The jalapenos were appropriately hot but still flavorful with a hint of sweet...

Ok , now is the time for honesty. How many of you have been at a restaurant, wanted to order something but hesitated because you didn't want the servers all laughing at you in the back about how badly you butchered the name of your wine or dish? I live in the South and people order " Gy -rows" at the Great Wraps. In fact, I just looked it up on the Merriam Online Dictionary and that is exactly what they said. I always thought the word was "he-rows" and have ordered them like that for years. Now imagine that with " Tsatsiki "? I tried to look that word up on the online dictionary and you know what is suggested instead? Testicles. Yep, could entertain a few servers for years with that one! Can you picture it? "That lady ordered Chicken Gyros with Cucumber Salsa and Testicles!" Ok , seriously, how do you say " Tsatsiki "? Do you just drop the t, like sat- siki ? Or does the ts make some other sound that is not common in English? But l...

I got the idea to write a blog about my experiences with cooking magazines from Richard who writes a detailed blog about his training for triathlons and marathons. I'd never read a cooking blog before this evening. The Epi Log, the blog for epicurious .com, had a post about being thrifty at restaurants and waiter's reactions. There was also a list of blogs that epicurious .com likes. I looked through them and found a couple I liked too. My three favorite blogs were Chubby Hubby, The Food Section, and The Amateur Gourmet. Most of the blogs were by big names in food writing and had lots of advertising on them. I don't see this blog going that way. I think I'd need more than 6 readers. Last night I roasted two chickens as the recipe recommended so I had a roast chicken left over to shred for dinner tonight and tomorrow. I made the Cheesy Chicken and Mushroom Lasagna on page 98 of this month's Gourmet, the second recipe in the "Birds in Hand" article. This wa...

Every family has their classic dishes, the dishes they have regularly that everyone in the family loves. I've already mentioned that my mother was a rather unconventional cook but some of our classics were pretty traditional. We had spaghetti at least once a week. Mom had learned how to make pizza dough from an old Italian neighbor and pizza was another favorite. My mom grew up outside of Atlanta and also has a great pork barbeque recipe. When I asked Richard about his classic dishes growing up, he asked me if Hamburger Helper counted. Joking aside, he had some classics too. His mom made Sunday roasts and meatloaf. Tonight's recipe is one I'd like to make a family classic. The Roast Chicken with Pan Gravy recipe on page 98 was not that different from many roast chicken recipes but the caption above the recipe was correct. It's a great idea to have a reliable roast chicken recipe. I was impressed with this one and it was easy. My picture looks a bit dark because I used m...

Living in Georgia has its perks. Spring arrives here a little sooner than most of the country. Last Monday, the kids in our area had a day off from school because of snow. (An inch and a half is a lot here and there are no plows and road salters so we wait until it melts!) Today, just a week later, the high was 81 degrees! I have mentioned before that one of the things I love about cooking magazines is the seasonal nature of the recipes. Since March is still winter in much of the United States, my Gourmet is not yet rolling out the asparagus recipes and bringing on the peas. But tonight's recipe did incorporate pasta and veggies. I made the Linguine with Rustic "Meatballs" on page 48 of this month's magazine. I must confess I'm usually a bit stodgy when it comes to pasta. Marinara sauce, Alfredo sauce, or pesto are my standbys and I rarely deviate from those when making pasta. That needs to change. There are so many wonderful combinations of pasta and this rec...

Some of my favorite issues from cooking magazines have issue-wide themes. For a number of years, the March issues of Gourmet focused on a theme of famous food cities throughout the world. They covered New York, London, Montreal, and Rome, just to name a few. I love experiencing a city through its food. This year, the March Gourmet did not have a city theme. There is a menu of Korean dishes, an article about the Extremadura region of Spain with only one recipe, an article that extends 2 roast chickens into a week of meals, and 5 recipes with Key Limes as a main component. I think I understand why the editors moved away from the city issue. Right now, the economic recession is on everyone's minds. Travel is low on many people's priority list and saving money is high. But I would welcome the excuse to "travel" to another city through its food. Gourmet, don't try too hard to compete with other cooking magazines that are giving us recipes on the cheap! Let us escape t...

In January of 1995, I traveled to India with a group of students from my college. It was a month-long tour of Bombay (now Mumbai ), Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, and Goa. We were ostensibly studying the history of the country but mostly we visited the sites and ate Indian food. I loved all of it but mostly the food. I had had Indian food before but not every day. Some might wonder if you could get tired of Indian food day after day for a month. As Americans, we are used to a large variety of foods. You can easily eat Italian one night and the next night, go out for Vietnamese. I love that about our country but I loved focusing on one cuisine as well. Indian food has such great variety of flavors and styles. Everthing from curries to chutneys, from cooking styles like Tandoori and Tikka , define Indian cuisine. Tonight's recipe, Chicken Key Lime Curry on page 110, used the popular Indian spice and is one of the 5 recipes in this issue that incorporates key limes. The onion-ginger paste mi...

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm not a fan of hush puppies and white gravy, two very traditional Southern foods. But I don't want it to appear that I don't like all Southern foods. In college, one of my roomates was from Hilton Head, South Carolina. When we visited, her dad always made a Low Country Boil, a wonderful one-pot meal of potatoes, sausage, shrimp, and corn. Tonight's meal was inspired by the "low country". The Garlicky Black-Pepper Shrimp and Black-Eyed Peas on page 50 was easy to make and one of the best recipes I've made from a cooking magazine ever. I've never been a fan of black-eyed peas but they were excellent in this recipe. The wine and chicken broth made a juicy mixture that brought flavor to the vegetables and the shrimp. For desert, I made the Cardamom Vanilla Pound Cake on page 27. Pound cake is another very traditional Southern food. This pound cake was like most pound cakes in texture but the cardamom and vanilla bean...