Great Depression Cooking

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Originally Posted by WebDudette

I have a friend who can literally only make sweet pastries, she's almost incapable of making anything else, but cupcakes are her jam, not so much my thing. I've never actually prepared any beans, I've never even looked at lentils before.

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You take a pan, you put a big spoon of olive oil in it, you fry an onion for 2-3 minutes. Then you add one carrot (cut in small pieces), you let it fry again for 2-3 minutes. After that, you add 1 liter of water for about 500 g of lentils. You then let it cook very slowly with thyme and a leaf of laurel.

Now, what is really good : You find some smoked sausages a little bit like Morteau sausages and you cook them inside the lentils.

That is one of my favorite dishes and it's quite easy to do eventhough it takes time to cook.

Also, lentils are full of iron so it's good for you.

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Originally Posted by WebDudette

I have a friend who can literally only make sweet pastries, she's almost incapable of making anything else, but cupcakes are her jam, not so much my thing. I've never actually prepared any beans, I've never even looked at lentils before. I can make rice, it just never comes out the way I'd like, and I find steak pretty easy. It's basically just salt, pepper, and heat. I make killer chili and pulled pork, but the few times I've made chicken, it wasn't too great.

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Steak is easy in theory, but there's a reason that 90% of steak is super chewy and you have to fork over $50 to get a really well-prepared steak that's tender and juicy and how a steak should be. Every steak I've had for under $20 has either been over- or under-cooked (I like mine medium), and too chewy.

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I agree that at least some sort of basic cooking skills are important, and that some people are so helpless that it's baffling, but what you find essentials, obvious, or simple may have never even occured to someone else for countless reasons.

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Like I said, that's fair, but it doesn't stop me from being shocked ;)

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Originally Posted by Harleyquiiinn

You take a pan, you put a big spoon of olive oil in it, you fry an onion for 2-3 minutes. Then you add one carrot (cut in small pieces), you let it fry again for 2-3 minutes. After that, you add 1 liter of water for about 500 g of lentils. You then let it cook very slowly with thyme and a leaf of laurel.

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God, I love lentils. It's been far too long since I've bought them; might have to be my next grocery store purchase - maybe a box of lentils, and a box of couscous :)

PS: my most-frequented grocery store totally has diablo pasta (pasta made with chili peppers, tomatoes, and garlic - like, IN the pasta) and I'm probably gonna end up buying up their entire supply. I just boiled some diablo pasta, kidney beans, diced bell pepper, sliced onions, and corn together (I would've fried the veggies, but I'm out of sunflower seed oil and only have pumpkin seed oil on hand... which I don't want to waste on frying)... shredded up some emmentaler cheese on the top, added some sliced olives and tomato sauce, and topped it all off with a mix of thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, and basil. Was delicious :) Diablo pasta FTW!

Well, this is obviously directed at people who have just recently begun cooking in their own kitchen. I hardly ever had access to a kitchen all throughout college and the year after. And even when people do begin cooking on their own, the most accessible resource for cooking tips is the food network, which tends to feature hoity-toity recipes, so a lot of people tend to get started on the wrong foot. The most popular google search results for recipes are always terrible because they feature a bunch of brand-specific, low-fat alternatives, directed at people who still have a '90's mentality of dieting and actually think that shit like fat-free mayonnaise will do jack shit for your health. "OMG!! Using corn flakes for breading??? GENIUS!!!" (this will be the subject of a forthcoming thread/rant from me). I started cooking using my mom's old cookbooks when I was 22, and the stuff was way too fancy and had too many (and too expensive) ingredients for me to mess with too much. Sam the Cooking Guy helped me fix that a lot, plus buying bulk and making do with cheap ingredients per common sense. But I guess I'm just an irresponsible stupid American for taking so long to realize that.

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Originally Posted by XYlophonetreeZ

Well, this is obviously directed at people who have just recently begun cooking in their own kitchen. I hardly ever had access to a kitchen all throughout college and the year after. And even when people do begin cooking on their own, the most accessible resource for cooking tips is the food network, which tends to feature hoity-toity recipes, so a lot of people tend to get started on the wrong foot. The most popular google search results for recipes are always terrible because they feature a bunch of brand-specific, low-fat alternatives, directed at people who still have a '90's mentality of dieting and actually think that shit like fat-free mayonnaise will do jack shit for your health. "OMG!! Using corn flakes for breading??? GENIUS!!!" (this will be the subject of a forthcoming thread/rant from me). I started cooking using my mom's old cookbooks when I was 22, and the stuff was way too fancy and had too many (and too expensive) ingredients for me to mess with too much. Sam the Cooking Guy helped me fix that a lot, plus buying bulk and making do with cheap ingredients per common sense. But I guess I'm just an irresponsible stupid American for taking so long to realize that.

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Huh, I didn't know that. I've never bothered with most cookbooks because you're totally right about them. I'm unfamiliar with the food network, so I didn't know about that. I guess I didn't really know how to cook in college, either - maybe I should specify that once you're a couple years into living as an adult in a place where you have a kitchen... this is getting specific ;) You have a lot of good points I hadn't considered.

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Originally Posted by Llamas

I really don't understand, haha - how can anyone NOT know how to cook? That's like not knowing how to tie your shoes or ride a bike :P

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I can't ride a bike or tie my shoes, thanks for rubbing it in :(. Just kidding, of course.

I suppose everyone who lives on their own should be able to operate common kitchenware, but some people really aren't creative with their meals, and never even think of certain things. Sometimes a video is all that someone needs. I'm still uncertain as to what lentils are.

Because I'm not in a situation where I need to cook all my meals, my cooking knowledge is pretty limited. I can fry simple things on a stove (fried sandwiches and such), put frozen foods in the oven for 30 minutes, and roast something over a campfire. I know that internet cooking videos (no matter how simple and obvious to some) will be very valuable to me when I'm on my own.

I don't know why I'm going on about this. I've read your comments after this and progressively agree with you more and more.

I do see the errors in my initial reaction. However, this thread makes me say, People! Get your butts to the store and buy yourselves some damn lentils! Those things are awesome! Healthy, versatile, tasty, and easy to make!

I've been making rice based meals a lot lately. My husband didn't know how to make anything more than ramen when we met, because his family hardly cooks and when they did, they never offered to show him, but he is learning. I bake more than cook, but my go to easy, cheap foods are:

Burritos-can of corn, black beans, rice, some salsa and sometimes cheese- hat beans, corn and salsa in a pan, then pile on top of the rice on a tortilla. Can feed like 3 or 4 people forlike four dollars.

Fried rice - rice, frozen mixed veggies, eggs, soy sauce- while the rice is cooking, pan fry the veggies in soy sauce, add as many eggs as you want when the veggies are hot, then add the rice to the pan with a little more soy sauce until it matches your personal tastes. The eggs are for protein. I make four cups of rice (measure before cooking), one bag of veggies, and six eggs. Me, my husband and randman eat on it for two or three days and it only costs a few dollars to make that much.

we also add eggs, tuna and/or veggies to boxed pasta meals, like Mac n cheese, to make it more filling and a complete meal.

Oh! And oatmeal cookies! 1 cup sugar, two sticks butter or margarine, 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 cups quick oats (five min kind, not instant), pinch of salt, a little vanilla and cinnamon- mix ingredients together, roll into small, quarter sized balls, dip in cinnamon sugar and bake on 375 until they brown around the edges. Don't make the balls too big or they don't cook well.

I couldn't cook anything that didn't have a box and directions until I was 19 and I got my first cooking job. Most of the time my mom did the cooking at home, and on the nights she worked, I just stuck with things like frozen pizza, mac and cheese, mashed potato flakes, and other things that you can get really really cheap at any grocery store. I've recently started branching out a bit and trying different things, so this was a good video to me because it takes a very small amount of knowledge and stretches it out a little, instead of having either this really plain "heat water to boiling, put rice into pan, put butter in, sprinkle salt in, simmer, done" approach, or this super-complicated nine-course meal project.

A good comparison would be that this is similar to punk music when I first got into it -- simple, easy to learn, not always SUPER easy, but enough to where you can bullshit your way through it until you're good at it. And the ingredients are cheap and come in large quantities (like lentils), so you can afford to mess up a few times without bankrupting yourself.

For the record, I never knew how to cook lentils until I saw this video. lol

Side note: I'm just casually wondering:

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What surprises me is that you think that everyone who watches that video knows nothing about budget meals and is learning for the first time, heh heh. Half of the video is learning about what that brave woman went through and hearing the stories she tells. Shame you are too above that to appreciate it. That's so disrespectful of you. Then again, that's really no surprise...

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What the hell is your problem? I've see you using this rude-ass language with very little provocation several times recently.

I'm a pretty competent cook at this point - living away from "home" as a student really forces you to learn.

Though, i do think its a bit silly to reach adulthood (at least your early 20s) and not know how to do the basics, it is however, understandable in some ways due to several potential factors - ie If you lived at home (or continue to do so) for a long time you can become reliant on your parents cooking. Plus, the fact that you can by a variety of frozen foods + inexpensive fast food.

Its really not complicated and there's no trick to learning, its really just a trial and error process. Learn how to cook eggs, then pasta, and then finally how to grill meat and you'll be fine! Then you can start experimenting - i spent most of my undergrad days trying to make "gourmet mac and cheese" - which was fun and still fairly inexpensive.

I grew up fairly poor, but well looked-after, so I have some pretty good recipes from my parents. Most of them rely on stuff you can just walk outside and get without much trouble, like rabbit, fish, eels, crawfish, mushrooms, wild blackberries and whatever fruit trees hang over the neighbours fences, so it wouldn't work in a real depression, but I can bake the best and cheapest pie you're ever likely to see, and I'm fairly confident that I could clean and cook any animal without needing to google how, no matter how unfamiliar I am with it.