Cooking 101

It's holiday season, and in my house, that means FOOD. It is a long standing tradition in my family to gather and feast together for any and every holiday. Oh, is it Flag Day? Fire up the grill, all of the cousins are coming over! Birthday party? Lets make 1000 tamales! My GaGa, most especially, never thought there was enough food on the table.

 "Do you want me to make some green beans for you honey?"

"GaGa, we have corn, peas, potatoes, a salad and lima beans. I think we're good."

I get it honest, that's for sure. 

Since I was up at 5:00am this morning getting some desserts started for tomorrow and I broke my food processor, it got me to thinking: what tips would I give to those just starting out in the kitchen? If you're a well-seasoned cook (HA!) then these tips probably don't apply to you. I have lots of friends and family who are amazing cooks and I'm always asking them for tips and recipes. But if you are new to the kitchen and want to feel more comfortable there, here are my basics.

1. Read your recipe all the way through TWICE before you do anything else.

Seriously, do it. More than once I have found myself halfway through a recipe for dinner that night and then discovered *oops* this meat was supposed to rest overnight before moving on to the next step. Or *oops* I don't have a springform pan. Damn, that sucks. Remember those trick tests in school where your teacher told you to read ALL the instructions before you began, but you didn't, and after 30 mins of stupid hard questions you got to the end and all you were supposed to do was write your name at the top and hand it in? Yeah, recipes are like that. Read the damn thing so you don't have any surprises.

2. Gather all of your ingredients.

Seems like common sense, but so many beginning cooks don't do this. In fancy kitchens it is called a "mise en place" which means "put in place", and it makes things 100% easier. Pre-measure all of your ingredients and have them ready to go so that when it is time to add, 6 egg whites you are prepared. Trust me, it makes a world of difference. 

3. Buy more than you need.

My husband taught me this one. I would send him to the store to get things and he would (and still always does) buy extra. What if I only have 3 eggs and I break one? What if it calls for unsalted butter and I only have salted? Having extra takes a lot of pressure off.

4. Have a backup plan.

So as I mentioned earlier, I broke my food processor this morning. To be honest, I HATED that thing. I always struggled getting the stupid lid lined up properly and it won't work if you don't and I usually would get Russell to do it for me. Today I was making a graham cracker crust, which is literally the easiest crust in the world to make, and I needed to crush the crackers in the food processor. Nope. I broke it. So instead of crushing them with a meat mallet in a ziploc bag (yes I have done that many times) I just threw them into my super duper high powered blender and bam, cracker dust. DONE. Which brings me to my next tip...

5. Always allow more time than you think you'll need.

 Always. Every time. No matter how experienced a cook you are, things get screwed up. Life happens. Kids start fighting, an important call comes in, you break your food processor, you forgot to preheat the oven, etc.

Give yourself extra time to allow for life.

Ok, so these tips aren't actually about "cooking" anything. But trust me, they are important and they will help make the kitchen less scary. Go in there like a boss bitch and handle it!!