Chicken and Spinach Lasagna, by PW

Chicken and Spinach Lasagna, by PW

One of the big complaints a lot of us have is that we’d really like to cook more often, but feel that we simply don’t have the time.  This is especially true for newbies in the kitchen — it all seems too complicated to master.   I’m here to give you hope:  I’m a klutz, yet I can cook, and the spouse usually likes it.  If I can do it, so can you.

A key thing is to get away from thinking that you always need to follow a recipe to cook.  Unless you’re working on something where precision is a factor, such as particular types of bread dough, you can often just chop things up and throw them together.  Really.

Another key thing is to think about the sort of things you like to eat.  Are you a fresh-veggie fiend?  Addicted to spices?  Into meats?  Fond of fish?  Pleased by cheese?   Think about the sorts of flavors you like, then try combining them.  If just combining things on the fly is a bit scary, or if you’re unsure as to how these things might go together, try Googling them together and see what you get.  You might be surprised!

A third key is to get a basic idea on how long certain types of foods need to be cooked.  That way, when you’re planning your meal, you know to start first on the thing that takes the longest time to cook, then the next-longest, and so on.  

Whole boneless cuts of beef steak cook up surprisingly fast, especially if you’re like me and believe that there’s no point in spending the big bucks for quality steaks if you’re going to cook ‘em past ‘rare’; they’re done in three minutes or less, so if you’re doing a steak dinner, make sure you start it last.   Ground meats and poultry need a bit more time, and you need to be sure they get up to at least 160° F. inside.  (What, you don’t have a meat thermometer?  Get one, pronto!)  Root veggies cooked whole, like carrots and potatoes, can take up to an hour depending on their size; slicing them or mashing them speeds up the cooking time.   Rice takes at least twenty minutes from boiling the water to the finished product: Basmati rices take twice as long, and the cheaper, paddy-grown version of wild rice (the kind where the grains look like slim little black bullets, as opposed to the lighter-colored, striated colors of naturally-grown wild rice) need to be soaked for at least two hours (preferably overnight) in warm water before cooking.  (The naturally-grown stuff takes about maybe five minutes more than plain old white rice.)

So tell us what’s on your plate for today!