Hey Hey!
Jenn and I (Matte) are humble home-cooks. We both have day jobs that eat most of 9-5s, and a wonderful daughter that we are grateful to share our time with after work. Cooking, baking, and all things eatable focus the rest of our time. Jenn and I have a love for pasta, fish, pork, and beef. The one thing that we can always count on is a heated stove, a warm pan, a strong appetite.
There are very few things that we have cooked that we dislike.
Cook, live and learn. Its food — its your job to do it right. Why would you eat something unless you loved it? That said, we’ve all had our ‘bad’ meals, our quick meals, just to get food into ya. There’s nothing wrong with that. Our aim here is to show the light side – -what can be done with little food, little space, and a lot of worthy effort. Hopefully our recipes are easy, but who cares — if it tastes good, that’s all that matters.
Below you’ll see a summary of the gear we’re using. Nothing fancy, nothing extravagant (well, one item is). We have nothing that shouldn’t be in everyone’s kitchen.
The Basics — Tools:
From Left to Right:
- Spatula (For scraping, and general non-stick mixing)
- Whisk (Eggs, light batters, eggs etc.)
- Brush (spreading egg wash, brushing sauce on your meat)
- Wire/Clear Spatula (to lift oily food, or otherwise wet food out of another liquid)
- Super Sharp Knife (You need a good sharp knife for chopping, dicing, and otherwise managing your food).
- Super Sharp Paring Knife (for the delicate work when dealing with meat, vegetables)
Once you have the tools, you can move on to the ingredients. These are what we use the most, and just about every day.
From Left to Right:
- Roasted Garlic Olive Oil (A good base for just about any cooking, sauces & marinades)
- Olive Oil YOU NEED THIS IN THE LARGEST QUANTITY YOU CAN AFFORD. (This is more useful than a knife, a fork, or the pan you’re cooking in. You don’t need the most expensive, but you need a quality oil for your day to day cooking).
- Canola/Other Vegetable Oil (For frying, sizzling, etc. Great for battered fish and fried potatoes. Will allow food to crisp, compared to the olive oil’s tendency to tenderize).
- Balsamic Vinaigrette (Another staple of sauces and marinades)
- Ketchup/Catsup (Yet another good thickener/volumizer for sauces and marinades)
- Mustard (we prefer the thick deli or dijon style mustards for strong flavour and colour)
- ‘Rooster Sauce’ (Spicy chili & garlic, sweet sauce. Best added to sauces, marinades and other mixtures to give a little kick)
- Soy Sauce (added for salt and colour to anything asian)
- White Wine/Red Wine (Used to colour/enhance marinades, sauces etc with vibrant flavour. Boil the alcohol off, and be left with rich flavour)
- Worcestershire Sauce (Rich flavour, and colour for marinades, sauces and general meat tenderizing)
Once you have the basic sauces/liquids, you can worry about the elements of flavour — Salt, Pepper and their ilk.
Salt Pepper and their Ilk
- Bay Leaves (Rich flavour with stewed meat. The longer stewed the better!)
- Paprika, Thyme, Basil, Oregano (Basic spices – build colour in your dishes with these basics! Add basil last, as over cooking can destroy your dish!)
- Pepper/Salt (Freshly ground pepper toasted in a pan adds an awesome colour to your dish) are the basis of all cooking. MY opinion is that dishes prepared properly should only need the addition of salt/pepper appropriate for the dinner.
- Lemon Pepper (Mix of Lemon Zest + Black Pepper — fantastic for fish!)
And of course – we all have fancy toys that aren’t necessarily NEEDED by make things easier/better…
Stand Mixer (For Dough, batter, loaves [not fishes], and general ease of mixing)- Food Processor (chopping, dicing, mixing, mincing)
- Pasta Machine (make your own pasta!)
- Mortar/Pestle (infuse herbs into butter, mash garlic/ginger into a pulp – allowing integration to other foods)
We aren’t pros by any stretch — but we have our ingredients and tools. We love the food we make and continue to cook. Take this not only as a suggestion, but as a starting point for creative cooking.
–Matte
Cookin' In The Galley 