Use restaurant purchased foods to enhance your home cooking such as getting chips and salsa from a Mexican restaurant when you make fajitas, enchiladas, or tacos. Pick up breads to enhance a meal.
Don’t let real butter scare you. It is more natural than margarine, the exact same amount of points on Weight Watchers, and let’s face it…it tastes so much better than margarine…and looks better, too.
Try to use recipes that don’t require you to open a can of anything. After living in Denmark where canned chicken/beef broth isn’t even an option, I learned to substitute with much satisfaction, Knorr chicken/beef bouillon. It’s super easy to store and there’s much less waste. I avoid what I fondly call the “three creams” or I sometimes refer to as the “Axis of Evil”: cream of mushroom, cream of chicken or cream of celery soups. I have heard of women going to great lengths to get their hands on these soups, particularly women who have foreign assignments that don’t allow them to run to the corner grocery and grab these soups. Life will go on without the “three creams” in your pantry and your palate and arteries will thank you.
Avoid using Miracle Whip, if you possibly can! It isn’t mayonnaise and should never be substituted for mayo. Hellman’s is the best mayonnaise on the market that I have found and you can’t go wrong if you use it in all of your recipes calling for mayo. You know that Martha Stewart makes her own mayo!!!
Properly outfit your kitchen with good quality tools. Always have plenty of spatulas of all sizes (rubber and otherwise), a good 1 oz. ice cream scoop, a sturdy ice cream scoop for the hard stuff, long and short handled tongs, pastry brushes for pastry and some for garlicky or savory stuff, a good kitchen scale with pounds and grams, parchment, heavy aluminum foil, wooden spoons, cork screw, several different sizes of whiskers, garlic press that works without peeling the garlic (Zylis or Rosli, etc.), stainless steel meat pounder, cutting boards of all sizes and materials, large roasting pan, good quality jelly roll pans, lemon zester or two, cheese graters (hand held and box), good heavy duty mixer and hand mixer, prep bowls from tiny to extra large, rolling pins (large and mini), mesh strainer, big strainers, pastry scraper, pastry cutter, basic set of circular cookie cutters (assorted sizes), offset spatula spreader in large and small, ladles (small and large), quality potato peelers, a small (1-2 cup) handy chopper processor and a large one that is about 7 cups, an immersion blender, pie plates, an electric knife, assorted knives, a butcher knife, and big spoons.
Have a few really good heavy pans in your collection. Buying a set of pans can be cheaper, but not always the pans that you will get the most use out of. My favorite pans come from many different pan companies. I use the old black Calphalon dutch oven for my beef roast and I use my stainless steel All-Clad for my caramel sauce. I like my Le Crueset for soups and my Teflon covered Eva Trio frying pan for bacon, scrambled eggs, and steaks on the stove. I have a 12 inch Calphalon Teflon just dedicated to fish dishes. As much as I love everything matching, it just doesn’t pay when you are talking about pots and pans.
The Alessi pot…one of my faves!
Cookie Sheets must never be dark in color. The best ones are the heavy stainless steel jelly roll pans from Sam’s or from a nice kitchen supply like Williams-Sonoma. Using parchment paper is desirable and aides in the clean up. I order parchment that is pre cut to fit my baking sheets. There is a kitchen supply in Logan, Utah that is the best I have ever seen. They will mail anything you need right to your door. It is called Kitchen Kneads.
When using cheeses, avoid ones that are pre-shredded or the green shaker can of parmesan. I do own the green shaker can and occasionally throw some in my spaghetti sauce, so it has its place. Use fresh Reggiano parmesan that is imported and aged to perfection to make an obvious difference in your cooking. It keeps for a long time and is well worth the extra money.
Unless your name is Hank Hill, get rid of Cool Whip forever. Whipping your own real cream is always the answer.
Consider the colors of the food on your table. Try to always include something green and avoid too many yellow foods together. If the colors are pleasing, your guests will feel more like eating and so will you! My Papa Gallini always kept a thriving patch of parsley right outside of his kitchen door so he could grab fresh parsley every day. We always ate it, but lots of people only consider it a garnish. It certainly is a pretty little green plant…use it to make your dishes look more alive!
Papa always grew his own mint, too…it smells and looks so wonderful! Papa had a green thumb, so maybe it wasn’t as easy as it looked to have parsley and mint growing like crazy without a lot of effort.
Never underestimate the power of fresh ground pepper in your cooking. Its flavor is so much fresher and fuller than already ground pepper. Get a good quality pepper grinder and grind away! And always….use fresh ground nutmeg….like you grate it yourself!
During my brother’s six week visit in the summer of 2007, the word, “streamlining” was tossed around a lot. It seems that my brother enjoys many of my recipes, but finds them a little tiresome and detailed. He is always looking to “streamline” any recipe he can. I understand that in the world we live in today, there is little time to shop for and pull together a healthy, tasty, beautiful meal. Many nights I find myself just wanting to run to Chic fil a or Chipolte, but I must try with all my might to resist this urge, and so must you! The time will fly as you master some of these scrumptious recipes and you will become as averse as I am to the horrible word, “streamlining”. Relax and enjoy the process!
My friend, Ann-Mari, is a fan of the distant cousin of streamlining…”not measuring”. Ann-Mari is a willy nilly cook..throwing in “this and that” in varying quantities, rarely pulling out a measuring cup or spoon and I would venture to say that she’s never even weighed anything! I could go into Ann-Mari’s aura and how everything she does turns out perfect, but I won’t…I will just say it works for her. Everything she cooks turns out great. I love to eat at her house and will even go so far as to say that I would love to eat her leftovers, and in fact have on several occasions. She’s just that good. I can’t explain the phenomenon, because it’s one of my worst nightmares being without the proper measuring tools.
LaChoy is NOT soy sauce. I am as uncertain about what it is as I am about what “Spam” is. I know it can’t be worth even thinking about. In Japan I learned that Kikkoman is great. Use it with pride, knowing that actual Asians are enjoying it too. Please don’t let a Japanese person see you store it in the fridge. For some reason, this is frowned upon. There’s much more to say about soy sauce and I don’t claim to be as sophisticated as I should be on this topic. Just DON’T USE LaCHOY!!!!
People I can thank for my enthusiasm for cooking: Mama Gallini because of her skill with southern cooking, candies and baked goods, Papa Gallini because of his love for inventing in the kitchen and his constant presence in the “woman’s place in the house”. (I doubt that saying applies to Italian men!) my mother who thoroughly enjoys most things that I prepare and who has cooked many a wonderful dish in her day including, but not limited to: pumpkin chiffon pie, tender, flavorful roasts, pork roast with sweet potatoes, sweet pickles, tuna salad, and surely many things I can’t think of now. My brother, Mike, is also a big inspiration. I don’t know many men who will venture into the kitchen after a long day at work to pull together fresh, “from scratch” meals for his family. His chicken wings will not soon be forgotten, nor his skills with various components of the Thanksgiving feast. There is nothing he won’t brine! I will never forget when I received a call from him while he was learning Dutch out in Monterey California. He was preparing a pie for Thanksgiving and was struggling. He said, “I feel like I have gone a few rounds with Hulk Hogan”. I could just envision him fighting with the pie crust with flour strewn everywhere! My friends in Denmark have validated the importance of the family meal time that I believe in wholeheartedly. To gather the family around a candlelit table with a home cooked meal each night is unifying and fun. Ann-mari and Kiran both cook fabulous meals and also do cool things like their chocolate covered marzipan at Christmas and luscious breads of all kind. While Americans move away from home-cooked meals and onto the fast food, I prefer to be more Danish and eat at home for most of my meals.
Dylan, Abby, Dane and Morning making Chinese Chicken Salad
Dallas Summer 2010
There were so many great times with my Papa Gallini in the kitchen, but one of my all-time favorites was when my Granny Greer (my father’s mother) asked Papa how to make a certain dish requiring spaghetti sauce. Papa began explaining how to make a nice homemade spaghetti sauce when Granny interrupted him and asked, “Can’t I just use Ragu?” Papa was speechless and appalled! He politely replied with, “Well, I guess you could use Ragu..” Of course, we all knew that he was gagging at the thought of it. I have had many people over the years ask me for ways to make my cooking “semi-homemade” and I always reply with…”Only make it just like my recipe says if you want it to taste just like mine”.
My travels have inspired me because with each new place brings another part of a new culture, with food being an important part of culture. Going to China to enjoy Chinese Food and realizing that it isn’t anything close to the General Tsao’s we eat here and learning that “sushi” doesn’t mean raw fish, experiencing the most delightful fresh flavors of Italy and the richness of a Parisian bakery item, trying most everything wherever I go, short of red fish eye soup in Japan, liverwurst in Denmark, chicken feet in China and horribly smelly cheese throughout the world.
Eating in Poland!
My favorite food memories? Eating fresh Italian gelato during my trip through Italy with Morning. Our favorite flavor, hands down, was the coffee gelato with a light sprinkling of fresh coffee beans. Morning made friends with the gelato man in Venice, who would slip a few extra coffee beans in her hand. The pizza and rocket salad in Florence was soooo delightful! We could’ve eaten it every day…and we did! Greek food is hard to rival. The freshness of the vegetables took me away to the day when my grandfather Gallini would take fresh produce off of his pal’s farms to bring home for supper. My grandfather is likely the only man on earth who talked about a salad like he would his best girl…a salad never looked tasty or delicious…a salad to Papa could only be described as “pretty”. Nobu in Tokyo, NYC favs…too many to mention, but a few: Roxy Deli in Times Square, the cheese and salami platter at the Plaza Food Hall, Devil’s Food cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery, a Shack Burger and crinkle fries at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, and frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity 3, lobster in Kinebunkport, Maine, Legal’s clam chowder in Boston, salt water taffy, Café Rio and the Chicken Coconut Korma served by Amrik in Provo, Utah, Mussels and unrivaled waffles in Belgium, Mexican food…California style or Tex-mex style, my daily low-fat blueberry bran muffin and diet Dr. Pepper with vanilla from J.D.’s Chippery in Snider Plaza, huge calzones from the tiny pizzeria in Alaska, fresh churned ice cream in Lexington/Concord, piping hot glazed-dripped donuts in Littlefield, TX, expensive mushrooms in Genoa, Italy, Caramel apples from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Durango, Hard Rock Cafe nachos in Shanghai, authentic Indian food including goat curry at Deepak’s house, raclette at Dagmar and Mike’s in Switzerland, fresh weinerschnitzel at Oma and Opa Wierberny’s, Danish cold table at Marion’s, Chinese food with Lolita when I was a teen, fish and chips with mushy peas with Morning, Andi and Todd in Sherlock Holme’s Pub in London, sweet potatoes sold by the singing potato truck man in Tokyo, teriyaki chicken and fried zucchini from Harrigan’s – Lubbock, seafood at Zider Zee, shrimp salad from the Seafood Shop on 34th, Gingerbread houses with Stacy and assorted friends, my grandmother Gallini’s big Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners, complete with official “kid” table, any meal involving Gallini’s…always wonderful, seldom calm and agreeable…these are just a few of my favorite food experiences!
Morning and Me in Florence 2007
The Sherlock Holmes Pub, London
Fish and Chips with Mushy Peas
Danish Cold Table at the Anderson’s
You might notice that some of my recipes call for wine or other alcoholic beverages and I am not one who drinks alcohol at all. I love the flavors that a good quality wine or liquor offers in certain recipes. If you were to receive the recipe for many of the fine restaurants out there, worldwide, you would find wine in many of the dishes and even some with liquor. If cooking with wine, don’t substitute “cooking wine”, use the real thing…it doesn’t have to be the expensive stuff, but it can’t come out of a box either! At our ranch in Rotan, I recently discovered that one of my neighbors has his own still…maybe this will be my next culinary adventure!!!
Favorite food quote: Mark says to my sister, Robin…”Christi never makes any good stuff like Shake and Bake and Hamburger Helper”…poor Mark!!
Nana with Grandkids and a Luscious Butter Pecan Ice Cream Pie, Flower Mound 2002
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