"Politically incorrect" practices in your very own kitchen!

If frozen fried chicken didn't exist, we'd go hungry on Monday nights. If canned black beans didn't exist, we'd (usually, although I sometimes make them in the slow cooker) miss out on homemade Mexican. I say, make whatever you can. We all eat out enough and we all work or play hard. Life's too short to stir a risotto.

Hope is not dead, it rolls over and becomes practical once in a while.

Oh, that was not about your post, jespah.

Just that in living lives, perfect as an idea shifts in the details..

On risotto, I love it and used to do it often. But that almost has more to do with people in the kitchen talking as you stir, they nibbling apperitvi, sipping this and that, talking local politics, stir, stir, stir...
Risotto is a sort of theater, even if you are alone.

this worked out marvellously

when I got up - around 7 a.m. - I started the first load of laundry, and threw a package of sweet italian sausage and 4 chicken boneless, skinless chicken breasts on the grill

a couple of loads of laundry later, we took some of the italian sausage along as part of our Thanksgiving picnic breakfast at the beach

mid-afternoon, Set diced 3 onions and a large clump of celery. I sauteed the onions/celery/a pound of sliced mushrooms/some herbs/one diced-up italian sausage/a couple of handfuls of dried cranberries ... and prepared 2 packages of the stuffing mix with mushroom broth - then layered the veggies/stuffing in a casserole dish and baked the whole strata. Then I sliced the chicken breasts and the final italian sausage into a pot of hot turkey gravy (leftover from something), and let it simmer til it was time to eat.

Hot chicken sandwiches and veggie-overloaded-stuffing, some tomato juice. A perfect Thanksgiving-leftover meal, without having to cook a turkey. Worked for me.

I don't think I could cook without canned, actually boxed, stock. I also confess to using bottle salad dressing. I add my own flavoriings, but Paul Newman's ranch is the base for many of my salad dressings.

In the meantime, happy Thanksgiving, ehBeth...

One of these days I'll catch on to exactly when it is for you..

Thanks, OssoB!

It really is a harvest festival for us here, as we're just at the end of mmmm harvest season.

Tomorrow will be a fest of roasted veggies - cauliflower, broccoli, a coupla types of squash - with left-overs of the faux left-overs.

Well, can you ask Deb?

You CAN...but whether or not I will say anything is in the lap of the goddesses.

Can one live there?

Certainly!




I use packs of stock, I confess.....one up from the cubes, I suppose?


I do add my own chicken bones etc while I am cooking whatever I am cooking in the stock....


I also am one who uses bottled tomato sauces for pasta and for cooking meats and vegies in.


I begin to think I am nothing but a politically incorrect cook! Well, I do use free range chicken, and the occasional bit of pork, now that free range and organic is available in that, too.

May I suggest that politically incorrect practices in a kitchen are not always food related?

You may, Francis!

Would you like to enlarge on that?

Oh the horror !!!

This thread is a very cleansing experience, don't you think?
It is a great relief to dash anyone's misguided belief that one could possibly be a kitchen goddess!


OK!

Next confession: I use Gravox to make my gravy!

Yes, it's true!

Mind you, I only make gravy twice or so a year. (If that makes it slightly less disgraceful!)

I have very good reasons for using Gravox. Including being a vegetarian for over 15 years & never getting good at things meaty. (You should see what I do to my (approximately) once a month steak! )

And prior to becoming a vegetarian I hardly cooked at all. (I really can't remember what I actually ate them. It's a bit of a blank. Probably ate out a lot when my (then) husband wasn't cooking. :wink: )
Anyway, I figure I've never properly caught up on everything I should know, so Gravox is OK!

Aw, don't you start, too, G!

Francis has already chastised me for this, even though I explained & explained why it was quite acceptable!

Actually, I can't imagine you hovering over a big pot of polenta on the stove, stirring & stirring, patiently ......

So, tell us your dirty little culinary secrets! :wink:

I wouldn't say enlarge is the adequate word.


But sometimes I play scrabble in the kitchen

Come on, Francis!

You can do better than that! :wink:

That's your very worst kitchen crime? I don't believe it.

Funny thread!

I'm a bit of a purist in many ways but stock can't always be made from scratch and canned beans aren't ususally too bad (or chick peas for hummus).

I hardly ever eat pasta in a restaurant because I'm disappointed almost every time I do (unless it's a trusted location, or in Italy).

KP

Hmmm, I soppose my most wicked deed is making Jamblalaya and using Zatarans for my base. I do cook my own chicken, with added onions and peppers, then I commit another horrible deed with canned tomatoes. I just can't seem to get the spices any better than that pre-packaged version...lol

Well...shame on me, no one knows any different, and I never offer the sorted details. Its good...........