My Way

     I love cooking and I love cooking shows. I have a few tips I learned either from TV or from practise. One I love is to soak chicken in a brine before cooking. The brine is cold water, with a cup of Kosher salt or half a cup of table salt, and a half cup of brown sugar. Soak the chicken for at least an hour. Before cooking, rinse very well, and then pat dry. It's surprising how juicy it makes chicken, or even pork. The newest craze it seems is beer can chicken. That's when you put a rub on a whole chicken. Open a can of beer and drink or pour out half of it. Then you place the chicken over the top of the beer can. You grill it that way. Beer is great with ham, too. I've been told to add 1/2 a can of seltzer water, soda water, ginger ale or even 7-Up to the pot in which a ham is cooking. I add beer instead. Mostly I cook large pieces of meat like a ham or roast in a Dutch oven on top of the stove. That's when I use beer.

     My other big deal is shopping. My husband and I go around and around on the subject. He can't understand why I would buy more than I need. I can't understand why when something is on sale one wouldn't buy extra. I keep telling him, this stuff won't go to waste. If Miracle Whip is on sale 2 for $3, you better believe I'll buy 2 or four. Why pay full price if you don't have to? If chicken is on sale, I'll buy extra and freeze it. Same with hamburger or round steak. I usually pick up hot dogs 4 packs for $5 or less. I rarely pay full price for much.

    Extra credit: You're ten and allowed to cook a meal. What do you cook?

     My kids were in Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. All three groups have badges or credit towards badges for cooking. Before the age of ten, I had them cooking full meals. Of course I was right there with them. Still, I wanted them to know how to take care of themselves, and to do it carefully, especially around an open flame. By age 10, they and I were comfortable enough to allow them make canned soup, eggs, grilled cheese, frozen pizza etc.

     And I'm happy to say I had only one mishap. Of course I'd be happier if I hadn't had any. Anyway, I was shopping and the boys were packing for camp. Jon had to be about 12 or 13. He decided he wanted to cook himself some eggs. He heated oil in a frying pan, and made the pan too hot. He then decided that he'd cool it off quickly. He took the pot by the handle and turned on the cold water. He found out very quickly why one never pours cold water in hot oil. (I also took a moment to explain to him that eggs taste much better cooked in butter than they do in oil.) I'm only thankful he didn't have a shirt on. He had horrible blisters. With a shirt on, I heard later, any synthetic material would have melted and created worse burns. Believe it or not, I knew the instant he did it. I was in line at the grocery store waiting to cash out, and I knew I needed to get home immediately. I got him to the hospital quickly. He was allowed to go to camp, but to his everlasting disappointment, he wasn't allowed to swim for a few days. He stills reminds me of how much harder it was not to swim.

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• #1 Comment from pixiedustnme 
  6/18/07 9:55 AM | Permalink

  hmm, the only problem with soaking the chicken would be that I would have to plan ahead....you know I'm no good at that! :-)