Posted byToday is Day 3 of Offbeat Home’s Cooking Challenge, wherein we see if Offbeat Bride’s Managing Editor Megan, a complete non-cook who lives off of cereal and frozen meals, can go an entire week preparing her own meals.
Each day, Megan will recount how yesterday’s cooking went, and we’ll share the next day’s recipes prepared by Cat Rocketship (who SWEARS you can afford better food!). Feel free to cook along with Megan, if you’d like!
Homies, I have to be honest here and say, I let y’all down, I let Cat down, I let myself down, I let The Empire down… I only cooked ONE meal on my own yesterday. But I did manage to stay away from all packaged foods! I made breakfast, then had a big home-made lunch with friends on their last day in the country, and then, by the time I returned from dropping them off at the airport, it was past 9pm and I was too exhausted to make dinner or even eat.
BUT! I do have reports from Day 1’s dinner and Day 2’s breakfast.
Dinner Day 1: Spaghetti with red sauce and parmesan-roasted broccoli
I’d heard that onions “make you cry,” BUT NO: they sting the very core of your eye ball sockets until your eyes submit to its stingy superiority and leak salty offerings to appease the onion god and make the pain stop.
My friend Alex (previously mentioned during my shopping expedition) told me to hold piece of bread on the roof of my mouth. It kind of helped, in that I stopped wanting to die and went on to be barely comfortable.
Seriously, fuck onions.
Offbeat Home’s Cooking Challenge, Day 2’s recipes: Quiche, quesadillas, and a spicy curry
On Day 2 of cooking challenge, I plan to load Megan up on cheese, strawberries, and dark chocolate. It's good-for-you food, but only if you... Read more
Anywhoo, the rest of spaghetti time was a success! I made my first NOT-from-a-can red sauce and it was delicious! I even liked the whole wheat spagetti that Cat made me purchase. When I first picked up the package I thought “Aw man, this is gonna taste like cardboard.” But no! Barilla’s whole wheat spagetti noodles are actually tasty.
And my husband, whose diet is even WORSE than mine, even liked it. I felt accomplished after last night.
The next morning was different story…
Breakfast Day 2: Breakfast quiche
I woke up feeling hungry and wanting so badly to just pop in a few pieces of toast and be done with it. But no, I had to make a quiche. I was even excited! I freaking LOVE quiche (quiches?), but not-so-much excited when I realized the first thing I had to do was tango with Mr Onion again. Seriously, fuck onions.
The rest of it went something like this:
After 40 minutes I opened to oven to find this:
I tweeted “Oh no! I don’t think it’s supposed to rise up out of the crust like that!” And immediately was assured that it was normal and it would settle down.
When it finally settles down and was cool enough for me to it… it was BAD! I was starving enough to originally think, “it’s got great, but it doesn’t suck.” Then two more bites into it I realized, nope, it sucks. Cat suggested maybe it wasn’t salty enough — that was true. I thought that it was because I used Swiss cheese, which I normally like, but I feel it didn’t taste right in a quiche. Looking back on it later today, I relized, I like fluffy light quiches and this one was DENSE. Anyone have any reason why that was? What I could do to make it fluffier? Less cheese perhaps? More half and half?
By the time I admitted defeat on my quiche from hell, it was time for lunch. Lunch today was a special date I made with my friends Lisa and Alex who made roast beef and yorkshire pudding with green beans and carrots. YUM! And I didn’t technically cheat as it wasn’t a pre-packaged meal! Still eating healthier here, people. And that’s the whole point (aside from Cat trying to mentally break me down).
I’m ready to kick ass on Day 3! Did anyone else cook along with me yesterday? Did anyone else have quiche troubles?
While Megan will do full posts each day, you can see photos and follow her Offbeat Home cooking challenge adventures real-time, too: @meganfinley #obhfood
I think the yuck factor was probably the Swiss cheese, like you said. Some cheeses just do NOT mix well with [a] cooking, and [b] onions or garlic. I personally only like Swiss when it’s cold.
I usually beat the eggs WITH the cream until bubbly and fluffy. I don’t know if that’s how you’re supposed to do it, but it works well for me.
Cooking is definitely one of those things that gets easier as you do it. Hang in there! And after this challenge week is over, you’ll probably discover that there’s a lot simpler stuff you can make and be satisfied with. My favorite breakfast is still eggs, bacon and toast 🙂
A word of warning, though: I’ve spent the last few years sloowly transitioning from frequently using prepackaged foods to practically all homemade stuff. Which is AWESOME except now I couldn’t go back even if I wanted to, because all that prepackaged stuff tastes hella nasty to me now!
You’re doing fine. Not everything we cook tastes great. I have had quiche disasters that went beyond poor taste… even had to throw away one once, it was beyond repair.
You might try a sharper knife, sometimes it helps with onions. And: You’ll get used to it.
By the way: Do you think you will keep this up after the week? Or at least part of it?
You know, I’m curious about that too. I think everyone’s getting down on Cat for “throwing me under a bus” by making this so difficult. They’re worried I might get FOREVER turned off my cooking. But I’m starting to think that I just might keep it up, because it’ll NEVER be THIS hard in normal life. I know the draw of a sticking a frozen pizza in the oven for 10 minutes and then eating will win out most nights, but I just might do this now and then… because I can!
I agree, you’re doing great. And, if you end up cooking four meals a week on your own, that’s four frozen pizzas you’re not eating. Slowly you can up the number of home-cooked meals and then YOU’LL be the friend that’s an awesome cook. 🙂
And we can all keep cooking together, because we’re going to have a ton of awesome “so easy even Megan can make it” recipes being submitted as guestposts from all y’all in the comments, right guys?
RIGHT, GUYS!?
You can also rinse the onion before you start chopping, that helps too. Cut it in half, rinse under cold water, commence chopping.
My method is to just almost never consume onions other than green onions. I’m just not a big enough fan to suffer through the chopping.
I sell Pampered Chef items. We have a food chopper that is a lot like the slap chop but ours doesn’t break! I’m terrible with cutting onions and this is the only thing that helps me!
As a general note in terms of cooking your own meals, it really does get easier over time. And no matter how good you get, you will always have an epic fail somewhere, someday. I still can’t talk about the brown rice quiche crust without getting a little misty eyed. The dog wouldn’t even eat it…seriously.
But honestly I’ve spent a lot of time just finding easy, quick and super healthy recipes that I like (along with some tough ones…like homemade bread, without the bread maker). But now that I’m a few years into it, its only getting easier (most of the time). Keep it up!! You will find what you like and enjoy and want to cook!
I was thinking yesterday that the quiche recipe she gave you was awfully complicated (and definitely not my kind of quiche – I like cheddar and bacon, and that’s about it)… My mom gave me her recipte for quiche, and it involved pre-shredded cheese (because, really, screw grating cheese), crumbling bacon, whisking eggs and cream together, and tossing everything in the pie crust. It’s pretty easy, and no pan-frying of the onions or any such nonsense. I feel your pain in that regard. I made this recipe just recently for the first time (and trust me, I am just like you when it comes to cooking, everything takes several hours more than it should), and I was able to do it quickly and it turned out really delicious! Yay mom’s recipe!
Oh, and I learned how to tell if a quiche is “done”: stick a toothpick in the center and if it comes out clear (no eggy residue at all) it’s done.
Onion tip- buy sweet onions
Seriously, they are less potent than other kinds and I don’t need any special tricks while cutting them.
In my opinion, on of the easiest meals is roast chicken. It’s not under 30 minutes, but it’s SO FRIGGIN’ EASY and GOOD!
This has a lot of steps because I’m probably over-explaining.
Decide when you want to eat. Start cooking 2 hours before (don’t worry – the last hour you don’t do anything but smell the chicken cook, and look at it every once in a while).
1. Buy or unthaw a whole chicken (you can also do chicken pieces, just shorten the cooking time to about 40 minutes).
2. Turn on your oven (make sure anything you’re storing in there is out) to 400ish degrees F.
3. Pull out a roasting pan, or if the chicken is small enough, a large oven-safe frying pan will do. Wipe out any dust, and drizzle some oil on the bottom.
4. Cut up some onions, carrots, celery, and (maybe) potatoes in chunks (we’re talking 1-2 inches across, heck 3 inches would be ok). Dump them in the bottom of the pan in one layer. Stir it up so the oil covers the veggies. Add more oil if you want.
5. Open the chicken package.
6. Take all that crap out of the inside of the chicken. Real cooks use that crap for broth. Whatevs.
7. Rub oil all over the chicken.
8. Grab some salt, some pepper, and/or (my personal favorite) chili powder. Sprinkle it all over the chicken. Sprinkle some on the inside too. If you’re feeling really good, sprinkle some under the skin – YEAH! You’re gonna probably use about a tablespoon or more of seasoning.
9. Grab a handful of those vegetables from the pan. Stuff them in the chicken. Stick a lemon up there if you want. Or garlic. Or a whole onion. Totally up to you.
10. Put the chicken on top of the vegetables in the pan breast side down (the butt should be sticking up, legs pointing down).
11. Stick the pan in your hot oven.
12. Walk away for 45 minutes. Go check Twitter or Facebook. Figure out a side dish. Or dessert. If you forget about the chicken, the smell will remind you.
13. Walk back and check the chicken. If you have a cooking thermometer, you want the chicken thigh to be 160 degrees F. If you don’t, grab a clean towel to protect your hand, and CAREFULLY move a chicken leg. If it’s stiff, close the oven and leave the chicken in there for another 15 minutes. Check every 15 minutes until the leg is loose and almost falls into your hand when you test it.
14. Carefully take the chicken out of the oven. If you’re done with it, turn the oven off. Let it sit on the stove top (or the counter, up to you) while you make a side dish or salad or both (the broccoli, the spinach, or really anything will work with this).
15. Serve everything up (if you wanna eat the veggies in the bottom of the pan, you can, but they might be greasy).
16. EAT!
An easy dessert recipe:
Fake Apple Pie A la Mode
You’ll need:
An apple or two
Sugar
Apple pie spice or cinnamon and nutmeg
Shortbread cookies (Lorna Doone are awesome)
Ice cream (amaretto is excellent)
1. Chop up an apple or two
2. Toss the apple in a saucepan with some water, a tablespoon or two of sugar, some apple pie spice, or some cinnamon and nutmeg. If you wanna get fancy, add some ginger and a touch of cardamon. Cook until apples are soft. Taste, add more sugar and/or spice if needed.
3. Crumble up some cookies in the bottom of a bowl (3 is good).
4. Dump a scoop of ice cream on top of the cookies.
5. Spoon some apple stuff on top of the ice cream
6. Crumble a cookie or two on top.
7. Grab a spoon
8. Eat that baby.
You guys, rather than waste your recipes here in the comments where relatively few people will see them, SUBMIT THEM! Fame and glory can be yours!
I could see warm swiss being a funky taste.
I love making homemade tomato sauce. I know what is in it (like…no gluten) and love the taste. My husband hates the chunks, so I put it in the food processor for a few seconds and that makes it have more of a ‘jar sauce’ texture.
Usually for me, 9 out of 10 onions don’t cause a reaction. #10 usually makes my eyes implode.
I’m laughing so hard at these posts. Poor Megan. I love that you’re trying to do this. And Cat, the recpies are yum!
I just realized I’ve never in my life had onion problems SINCE I STARTED WEARING CONTACT LENSES. They’re a plastic sheild over my retnas.
If you have contacts, put them in, chop 87 onions, and then freeze them for future cooking endeavors.
Some really important onion tips:
– That onion with the green growing out of it? If that was your onion, it will be way harder on your eyes – they get more acidy as they begin to grow.
– How are you cutting it? Make sure you are cutting in half and putting flat side down, to reduce the juices released into the air. Here’s a good video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwWRY_8KfxM
– White onions are harder on the eyes than yellow onions.
I have seriously bad reactions to cutting onions. What helps me , is refrigerating the onion and doing the initial cutting of the onion under cold running water(takes some of the fumes off). If I’m chopping a lot of onions I periodically stuff my head in the freezer, the chill helps the burn in my eyes. But I agree fuck onions, I wish they weren’t the base of so many yummy recipes.