My Week As a Food Orphan

I found myself in the fairly unusual position of being a food orphan last week. Close friends with whom I often eat meals were out of town on vacation, and it was not convenient to stop on my way in to the office to pick up meals. Cooking is a passion of mine, so my course was clear.

I decided to make a list of some of my favorite meals and then see if I could devise a strategy to prepare them without having to cook a new meal every day. My exercise, which was a success, reminded me of a few rules that make cooking easy.

Incidentally my list was: Burns Family hot dog sauce, braised short ribs, spaghetti sauce with meat balls and Italian sausage, and roast chicken.

Rule One - Make a list of ingredients you will need. Take a quick inventory of items you already have on hand and create a shopping list for those you need. Shop at least a full day before you intend to cook. Shopping and cooking on the same day is tiring and can be dispiriting, particularly if you must go to more than one store.

Rule Two - Devise a "battle" plan. Decide the most time-efficient order for preparing the chosen dishes. Steps for more than one recipe can be done on one day. Such an exercise will shorten the time you must expend considerably. Remember to calculate the availability of such things as stove burners and oven space. While writing the plan down may seem unnecessary, it is a valuable tool, particularly the first few times you do it.

Rule Three - Read over the recipes you are using several times. I know this seems almost insultingly obvious, but you'd be surprised to know how few people bother to do it. It is really frustrating to come to an ingredient you forgot to get ready to add.

Rule Four - Mise en place. This is a natural companion to Rule Three. It's the fancy French phase for preparing and setting out all of your ingredients and cooking equipment before you begin to cook. Some things--measuring, peeling, chopping and shredding-- are obvious, but don't forget things that have to be warmed or cooled, melted or greased, or brought to room temperature. The creative rewards of cooking are greatly enhanced by advance preparation.

In my recent exercise I shopped on Wednesday and Thursday, and prepared the hot dog sauce on Friday.

On Saturday afternoon I made the brine for the short ribs and put them in the refrigerator. I then made the meat balls and the spaghetti sauce. Dinner Saturday night was hot dogs with Friday's sauce.

Sunday I removed the short ribs from the brine and braised them. Dinner was spaghetti, meat balls and sausage. When the short ribs were cooked I cooled them to room temperature and put them in the refrigerator overnight.

Monday I roasted a chicken and put it in the refrigerator. Dinner was short ribs, which I had taken out of the refrigerator, then reheated after removing the congealed fat.

Tuesday I removed the meat from the chicken and had it with vegetables for dinner. I refrigerated the rest of the chicken.

Wednesday I took spaghetti, meat balls and sausage to work.

Thursday I made myself a hamburger steak with fried onions, peas and lima beans.

Friday I took short ribs, potatoes and lima beans to work. On Saturday I was back to the jumbo Hebrew National hot dogs with sauce.

Sunday was embarrassingly easy. I made a medium white sauce by whisking a paste made of six tablespoons of flour and two thirds of a cup of cold milk into three cups of simmering chicken stock. I mixed in the leftover chicken, which I cut in large chunks, and served it over biscuits with green peas and a salad.

Delicious! If you use canned chicken broth, which I always keep on hand, and Bisquick, this takes no time at all.

Dessert most days was fresh fruit, which at this time of year is a perfect ending.

Gene Burns