The Perfect Loaf
Jan 2nd, 2006 by Tana
Doesn’t that bread look yummy? It’s so soft and nice – see how the slices bend rather than falling like stiff boards? If you think it looks nice, you should taste it. I made it using one of the recipes in my new cookbook:
I love cooking, but it has kind of faded as a hobby. I’d tried all the recipes I was interested in from my Betty Crocker cookbook. While I could always depend on Betty Crocker recipes to come out nice, so many of them call for prepared foods sold at the grocery store. I have a friend who cooks like that – she makes cherry pie using the canned cherry pie filling but she “doctors it up” like those types of recipes tell you to do. But in my opinion, the doctoring doesn’t really help much, and I always want to at least know how to make things from scratch so I can if I want to.
Well, this new cookbook is fabulous. Not only are the recipes for normal food (one of the things I always liked about Betty Crocker), they also tell you how to make things from scratch if you wish. Yeah, things like chicken broth and homemade pasta. They also review store brands – both food and equipment – and tell you what they think is the best. So if you want to buy pasta or chicken broth, they have their favorites that they recommend.
They tell you not just how to skillet-fry meat, but how to make different sauces with the bits left in the pan after you take the meat out. That was one of the things that really frustrated me with my Christmas dinner – I wanted to serve roasted chicken, but I wanted something beyond the usual gravy to serve with it. I hunted high and low but to no avail. Steve always thinks that skillet-fried steaks are no good. Well, I followed the recipe from this cookbook the other night and they were the best steak I have ever had. That’s right – better than restaurant steak.
I made homemade pizza the other night. I usually buy the crust and the sauce and just add the toppings. Steve always complains if there is too much pizza sauce, whether we’re at home or at a restaurant. He’s happy as long as he doesn’t know it’s there. I tried their pizza sauce, which made 3 1/2 cups to be used on three 12-inch pizzas. I was sure I would have tons leftover, but I used all of it and it was the best pizza sauce we have ever had. Made from scratch…very easy.
Let’s just say I’m spending a lot of time in the kitchen again. For New Year’s Eve, I made Spicy Wings, Baked Potatoe Skins, and Chef’s Salad. Steve walked through the kitchen while I was preparing the food and said, “It smells like a restaurant in here.” That would be the ultimate compliment! We don’t eat out much, but I think we’ll be eating out even less. I mean, why pay twice as much for food when you have things that taste twice as good at home?
So how did you find out about this cookbook? Or did you just find it when you were browsing in the bookstore? It sounds like a good one. I bought one that had a lot of information like that in it when I was about your age. Unfortunately, it did not lend itself to being used as much as I would have like so I never really made much use of it. I just got it out and it does tell a lot of information about what various things are, how they are used, etc. If you have a name of a sauce, this book will tell you what it is, how it is made, and tips to doing it right. For instance, it tells about all the various types of vegetables, how they should be prepared, how to season them, etc. Guess I will have to start looking at it and see what I can learn.