Posts Tagged cheese

Anatomy of My Cooking Mind

In this post, I shall discuss how I made: Instant Mashed Potatoes.

Not that this is some magical story, or the potatoes were amazing, or that I don’t have anything else to write about. But, as I was in the process of making these, I realized how it really summed up my typical cooking experience. So, enjoy :)

On the train home, I was hungry. I did the typically “Do I want to order out? No, I’m trying to save money. I have chicken at home that I can defrost and throw with pasta.”

I get home. Decide that defrosting chicken in water (because I have no microwave) is too much. I look in the freezer and I have corn. Mmm, corn and mashed potatoes, a starchy favorite.

I briefly read the back of the corn, and then just throw about half the box in with some water. I also found peas in the freezer, and threw them in as well. There was enough water to cover them, so I let them boil.

I realized that I threw away the packaging for the instant mashed potatoes, so I started an internet search for it. I found the PDF file from the government about Dehydrated Potatoes, which called for 2 cups of water, 3/4 cup of milk, and 2 cups of potatoes. I didn’t want 3 cups of potatoes, so I cut the recipe in half. Which involved interesting fractions in my head.

I also did not have milk, so I had to figure out how to get 8 oz of milk from my quart of dry milk powder packet. The outside box had no instructions, but the inside package said 5 heaping tablespoons would make 8oz of milk. Which works out to slightly less than 1/3rd of a cup.

Corn and peas are boiling and hot, so I drain them (using a pasta spork thing), and I place them in a boil with butter. I add garlic salt and pepper to the vegetables. Realize that I over salted the vegetables, and vow not to salt the potatoes until after mixing.

I put slightly less than two cups of water back into the same pot, and bring to a boil with a little bit of salt. I also grate about about 1/4 of cheese for the dish.

Water is boiling. I turn off the water, add the dry milk powder and stir, then add about a cup of instant mashed potatoes. And stir until it is not lumpy, and let it sit. Decide after two minutes that it is not thick enough, and add more potatoes, and stir.

Realize I have a huge pile of stuff, I decide to mix everything together and divide into two portions. Everything gets mixed, and the salt ratio events out nicely. Half the mixture goes into the fridge for tomorrow, the other half gets topped with cheese.

And, yum :)

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Lasagna Background

Today’s attempt will be lasagna.

Yeah, though, I have already made lasagna in the past.  And, its turned out pretty good.  Meat, tomato sauce, pasta, and cheese, it can be hard to mess up.

Though, I have messed it up in the past.  Typically, I make lasagna to freeze.  I used no boil noodles, which do not handle freezing and reheating well.  After eating crunchy noodle lasagna once, I always cook my noodles.

I think my best attempt was using marinated mozzarella as the middle layer.  It was excellent, and I must do that again sometime.

My secret is using Italian Sausage in my meat sauce.  I tend to use turkey Italian sausage, as it seems more healthy than pork sausage.  Then again, I used pork sausage once to make Italian Sausage soup, which was the time that I found out about my gallstones, so I might be biased against it.

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