My Favorite Recipe Sources

I have a confession to make.  I don’t follow recipes.  Unless I’m baking, which requires a lot more precision.  But when I’m cooking, the same dish never really comes out the same twice.  And I hardly ever measure.  When coming up with dishes to blog, I have to make the dish, sometimes multiple times, measuring and tweaking to get it into written form.

I have two general methods for cooking.  First is completely winging it.  This works really well for me when I’m preparing dishes and working with flavors with which I’m really familiar.  My second method involves looking up recipes for the same dish in multiple sources, taking general mental notes, and then winging it.  This is how I cook dishes or use flavors that are new to me.

So despite not following recipes, I definitely do use recipes.  I thought I’d share my favorite sources so you can look for your own inspiration.

As far as cookbooks go, I have way more than any sane person should own.  I am currently working on weeding them out.  But there are two main ones that I think every home should have.  The first is The Joy of Cooking.  More like a cooking encyclopedia than a cookbook, it contains just about anything the average household cook might want to know.  This is my number one go-to book when looking for recipes.  It also includes conversion tables, menus, table etiquette, nutrition charts, substitutions, general information about ingredients, food storage, and how to select fresh groceries.

There are two editions of The Joy of Cooking.  My parents own the original edition.  It’s fun to browse because it has some very interesting information in it.  Need to know how to skin and prepare a squirrel?  Refer to the game section.  I have the new, updated edition.  Sadly, squirrel is no longer on the menu.

I also recommend that every kitchen have a general cookbook such as a Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook or Betty Crocker Cookbook.  I have the BHG one; I believe Kimiko has the Betty Crocker.  These cookbooks contain a lot of different types of recipes but aren’t as in depth.

In addition to cookbooks, I also reference a lot of recipes on the internet.  Sure, you can Google any recipe you want, but I find this a bit overwhelming and only do so after I’ve exhausted my other resources.

The first website I visit for recipes is foodnetwork.com.  I like finding recipes here because I know the cooking styles of many of the chefs behind the recipes.  I know which chefs I like and which ones I don’t.  My favorites are Alton Brown and Tyler Florence.

I also use allrecipes.com on occasion.  I don’t like this site as much because you never know what you are going to get.  It’s a site where anyone can post any recipes they want, and then other people can rate and review them.  I have found some great recipes there, but you have to learn to weed out the bad ones.

One major problem that I have with allrecipes is the way users tend to rate recipes.  Some people will give a recipe five stars but then say they made a bunch of alterations when they were making it.  They deviated from the original recipe so who knows if it deserved the five stars.  On the other end of the spectrum, Kimiko once saw someone give a recipe one star and then admit that they forgot to add the baking soda.  If you are going to use allrecipe or other user-contribution sites, be sure to read the comments of others who have reviewed it and discern whether or not it deserved the rating it received.

On both foodnetwork.com and allrecipes.com, you can create a recipe box to save your favorite recipes.  This is a great way to keep track of them without having to print them out and have papers to clutter your cookbook shelf.

And of course, there’s always neartonothing.com.  Yes, I go to my own blog to get recipes.  If I want something to turn out the same way it did before, I follow what I did when I blogged it.  That’s also how I get Kimiko’s recipes so I don’t have to bother her to e-mail them to me.  And who knows.  Maybe there will be a Near to Nothing cookbook in the future.  Anyone interested?

Baby Food: The Cost of Convenience

For the past four months I have taken you on our baby food journey with April.  Now that she is basically eating everything, I’ve run out of material to post.  Except for a few additions to her diet that will come later (cow milk, honey, peanut butter, ribs, etc.), there pretty much isn’t anything she can’t or doesn’t eat.  But before I put this series aside until we introduce those foods, I’d like to take two more weeks to look solely at the financial savings of making your own baby food.

I started April on cereals first.  I made rice, wheat, oats, and grits.  I didn’t get to barley before she moved on to veggies, but she does eat it in soups now.  Rather than buying baby cereals, I went to the grain section of the WinCo bulk bins.  You can find all of these grains in the beans and rice section or the hot cereal section.  The average price I pay for any of these grains is $0.50-$0.60 per pound (remember, a pound is 16 ounces).  Keep in mind that this is per dry pound.  One pound of dry grain yields a couple to a few pounds of cooked grain.

Now let’s take a look at packaged baby cereals.

Gerber rice cereal:  8 oz. for $1.88

Gerber oatmeal:  16 oz. for $3.19

"Mixed grain" must be special because 8 oz.
costs $2.15.  Mixing grains at home is easy
and doesn't cost an extra $0.56 per pound.

Beech Nut oatmeal:  8 oz. for $1.69

Cheapest baby cereal?  Gerber oatmeal at $3.19 per pound!

Cardboard boxes taste good too.

Next we moved on to vegetables.  I made peas, corn, green beans, yams, butternut squash, acorn squash, and potatoes.  I generally pay $0.88 per pound for frozen vegetables and never pay more than $1.00 per pound for fresh.

Let's see what Gerber and Beech Nut have to offer.

Gerber peas:  7 oz. for $1.16

Gerber sweet potatoes and corn:  7 oz. for $1.16

Beech Nut corn and sweet potatoes:  4 oz. for $0.55

Beech Nut butternut squash:  2.5 oz. for $0.48

Cheapest baby vegetables?  Beech Nut corn and sweet potatoes at $2.20 per pound.

After vegetables we tackled applesauce and bananas.  First, I cannot believe people pay for baby food bananas...that's just bananas to me!  Second, I also mentioned that I do buy pre-made applesauce.  For me that is the most cost-effective way.  If you have an apple tree or can get them really inexpensively, it may be cheaper for you to make your own.

Let's see what I found at the store.

Gerber bananas:  5 oz. for $0.98

Beech Nut bananas:  2.5 oz. for $0.48

Beech Nut applesauce:  2.5 oz. for $0.48

Tree Top applesauce:  25 oz. for $2.19 (sale price)

Gerber blended fruits with oatmeal:  7 oz. for $1.16
Once again, I can mix things together at home pretty easily.

Cheapest baby fruit (without grain)?  Beech Nut bananas and applesauce at $3.07 per pound.

I can't possibly calculate how much money I have saved over April's solid-food-eating life.  But most of these pre-packaged baby foods cost 2-3 times more than my homemade baby food.  Plus my food was fresh!

My Plate

Last week the USDA introduced My Plate.  This new nutrition education program replaces the My Pyramid program, which was rolled out in 2005 to replace the Food Guide Pyramid, which debuted in 1992.  My Plate is so new that, as of today, they haven’t even updated all the online resources.

One criticism of My Pyramid was that it tried to
convey too much information.

This simplified version was often used
instead of the full graphic above.  This
one doesn't give enough information.

I can honestly say I am thrilled to see the pyramid go!  As long as I have been old enough and mature enough to think seriously about diet, I never understood why the bread, cereal, rice, and pasta group was so large.  Yes, your body needs these carbohydrates for energy.  And yes, these foods, as long as they are whole grains, do provide the body with very valuable nutrients.  But fruits and vegetables are more nutrient dense and offer a wider variety of nutrients.  So I was very happy to see fruits and vegetables as 50% of the plate.

That's way too many grains and not enough fruits and veggies.
And having fats, oils, and sweets as a category almost
makes me feel like I should include them in my diet.

Unfortunately, the plate just says, “Grains.”  I would prefer to see it say, “Whole Grains.”  In the text that goes along with the diagram, the USDA recommends that you “make at least half your grains whole grains.”  I know…refined grain products just taste so good!  But they should be considered an exception.  My goal every day is to feed my family only or mostly whole grains—not half whole grains.  Refined grains provide a lot less nutrients than whole grains for the same amount of calories.  (I think I will have to do a grain post in the near future.)

Another issue I have with My Plate is that they still consider 1 cup of 100% fruit juice equivalent to a 1-cup serving of fruit.  I have so many problems with this that it too will have to be another post.

On a positive note, they did get rid of the words “meat and beans” and simply labeled it “protein.”  Meat is not the only way to get good protein and beans themselves don’t offer a complete protein.  Faithful readers will know that I like to serve grains and legumes together to make a complete protein that costs a lot less than meat.  The plates in our house often do not have any meat or have very little.

So what do we do with My Plate?

• Recognize that it is a simplified educational tool.
• Recognize that each person has individual dietary needs.
• Eat real food:  fresh/frozen fruits and veggies, dried whole grains and legumes, fresh meat and seafood, fresh dairy.
• Increase your intake of fruits and vegetables and eat all different colors.
• Watch portion size—a typical bagel counts as four servings.
• Make wise food choices—your plate can match the My Plate servings and still be unhealthy (e.g. hamburger [protein and grain], fries [vegetable], canned fruit [fruit], and chocolate milk [dairy]).