We'll All Be Eating In 15 Minutes . . . No Matter What

Don Rutberg

Description

Cooking on the fly? This book is for people who think they don't have time to cook or aren't sure where to begin when stocking a kitchen and planning meals. Don Rutberg has experience as a student, as a young professional living on his own, and as a newly wed. Now he enjoys entertaining and spending most of his time with his guests and not in the kitchen. We'll Be Eating in 15 Minutes . . . No Matter What describes his cooking strategy from meal planning and shopping to presentation and clean up.

Sujets

• Cuisine
• Cuisine par méthode
• Maison
• Maison
• Quick
• Cooking
• Cooking Methods
• Easy cook

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 14 juillet 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456617936
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

WE'LL ALL BE EATING IN 15 MINUTES …
NO MATTER WHAT
 
By Don Rutberg
Being downsized doesn't mean you have to eat scraps or spend a lot of time cooking
 
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We'll All Be Eating In 15 Minutes . . . No Matter What
by Don Rutberg
 
Copyright 2013 Don Rutberg
All rights reserved
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1793-6
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Downsized? Retired? Broken-hearted?
Moved out? Moved in? Moved on?
Graduated? Empty-nested? Expense account cancelled?
Newly wed? Suddenly single? Shot down hard?
I'm downsized, after teaching English at a local college for ten semesters. No classes were available, not for me, anyway, due to drastic reductions in students, financial aid and … there was a third thing they wanted me to believe.
Whether you've been downsized or just been awarded plenty of spare time by your boss, you've got to move on, be productive.
You've still got to eat, right? And so does my wife. She works until 5 pm Monday through Friday and since I'm out of work, I'm the logical choice to cook dinner. Maybe you are, too. Let's get to it.
My qualifications as a chef are eclectic. I won a wok on "The Dating Game" in 1978 and I've been cooking ever since. And if that's not good enough, I also won a truck load of soda for appearing on that episode.
Cooking is like playing poker. If you have good cards and have some clue about what you're doing, you should be a decent player. Adding a little passion helps, even if you're more passionate about saving money than cooking dinner.
My cooking skills developed in my young adult years, as a free-lance writer living on the L.A. beach. I was alone, far from home, writing, cooking and inviting young ladies I met on the beach over for dinner. I'd cook on a hibachi and a wok. I always had steaks and lobster tails in my freezer, buying them in bulk or on sale. I actually signed with my first literary agent after a hibachi-cooked, lobster tail dinner. If I had gotten famous, I would've sold a ton of those hibachi grills.
Whether you've been downsized, not gotten famous, been avoiding jealous telepaths in Pittsburgh (more on that later: see "Foods to Avoid") or just broken up, heartbreakingly, with your long-time favorite NFL team, like me, you've got to move on, be productive.
Maybe you've just graduated from college or moved in with your lover. You've still got to eat, right? Cooking is not hard to do. Anyone can become a competent chef. Go ahead, turn your house, apartment or trailer into your favorite restaurant and eat better than anyone you know and save money doing it.
No, it won't be fancy. You can't prepare Beef Wellington in 15 minutes. But you can broil a filet mignon and place it on a toasty croissant with your favorite sauce in 15 minutes.
Consider: Filet mignon, mushrooms, pizza sauce and provolone cheese on a toasted croissant. There, I just saved you $100 and loads of time, without a big drop-off in the quality of the ingredients.

Steak — filet & rib eye cooked
The rib eye, on the right, is larger but costs less per pound. My wife likes to eat around the edges of the rib eye while I eat the filet. We always have rib eye leftover for future meals; sometimes they're better than the original meals.

IS IT TIME TO START COOKING?
NO.
BEFORE WE START COOKING, WE HAVE TO SHOP.
My qualifications as a shopping guru are merely two-pronged: I've done it efficiently for decades and my sense of smell is normal. If you can push a cart, you'll be able to implement my system of shopping and cooking. You'll be eating good food in 15 minutes, and doing it for $5-$15 per person.
FIRST THING:
Go to a big-box store like Sam's Club. Grab a cart. Pay your membership fee and get a photo I.D. card. Show your card to the greeter without slowing down. Avoid ramming others who, for some reason, always stop right after they've entered the spacious store. It's like there's an invisible stop sign just after you pass the greeter that encourages customers to stop suddenly. Deftly put Sam's reusable shopping bags (you can buy them at Sam's) in your cart; you'll need them soon. Don't leave your cart unattended because other shoppers will steal your reusable bags. Oh yeah, they'll steal them and then say they thought the bags were free. When my bags were stolen from my cart, the manager at Sam's gave me a few insulated bags, a big step up from the stolen ones, for free, to be nice.
Wal-Mart gave me a free shirt once. Yes, the retail world's tightest titan said, "Take it, it's yours." It was a tee-shirt that read: "Not affiliated with anybody" on the back. Apparently, some thief came into the store wearing it and left wearing one of the nicest lumberjack shirts anyone ever saw.
The clear message is: don't steal bags or shirts. Whatever you do, don't remove bags from your own Sam's cart, then ask for nicer replacements and tell them, under pressure, I gave you the idea. It doesn't work that way. It has to come about naturally.
ROLL WITH ME DOWN THE AISLES
of Sam's Club or a similar big-box store. You don't need Advil, paper towels, shaving cream or shampoo (I still have some that I won on "The Dating Game"); just food and beverages. If you can't eat it or drink it, cruise on by it.
Now get ready; your first slow-down takes place in the bread aisle, more like the bread region. Take a big bag of some type of bread you like to eat everyday; croissants, bagels, wraps, wheat rolls. You can freeze them in a few days. You don't want wasted or stale bread.
I asked my French friend, Guy, "What do you call 'French Toast,' if not 'French Toast?'" He called it, "Old bread."
I knew for sure our cultures were in conflict. Americans like to vigorously blend eggs and milk, butter, cinnamon, cream cheese, brown sugar, jams, jellies and maple syrup to make an exotic-sounding "French Toast" and it has a cousin called a "Monte Cristo" sandwich, where we throw in the turkey and ham.
To Guy, however, I was simply describing old bread.
I told Guy, "Americans are passionate about food and have been for a very long time. Try to relate."
Reminder: buy eggs later so you can make "old bread." Almost all egg dishes, by the way, take less than 15 minutes to prepare.
See those 12-packs of muffins? Put your favorite, maybe blueberry or chocolate chip, in the cart with the bread. Now get some cheese, say 1.5 pounds of provolone or Swiss. You'll freeze some of that later.
START WITH A QUICK LUNCH
I wake up around noon every day so, yes, some folks start their day with lunch and you can, too. You'll need sliced turkey, ham (syrup, of course); roast beef and a whole salami that will last a month. Take a 12 pack of hummus and a giant broccoli salad. Once you grab tuna and yogurt, you'll be set for lunch for life, or at least three weeks.
Three meals a day, right? You've already knocked the midday meal off your shopping list. Let's focus on dinner.
BUYING DINNER ENTREES
Imagine this: you and I walk into a nice restaurant and we start scanning the menu. Let's turn to the nightly specials.
Filet mignon sounds pricey. But at a store like Sam's Club, when you buy a package of four, about two pounds, you pay about $24. That's $6 per filet. Even the large filets are under $10 each.