One Basic Dough Recipe

This recipe is the one I use for Pizza dough, Hot Pockets and Pita Bread.

Dough V1
1 packet Yeast
1 cup Warm Water (above room temp but not too hot to stick a finger into)
1 tsp Molasses
1 tsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Oil
2.5 cups Flour + more for kneading
Spray Oil

Put yeast packet into mixer bowl. Add molasses, sugar and warm water. Stir it in three circles with a spoon. Walk away for 5 minutes.

If you see brownish foamy stuff in your bowl when you come back, it's ON! This is the yeast "proofing", which means that your yeast is doing as it should. If the yeast does NOT get foamy, your water was too hot or too cold.

Dump the flour into your mixing bowl on top of the yeasty foam. This is where you choose which flours you want to use or if you want to throw a bit of herbs into the dough to make it prettier and add some flavor.  Mix on low until combined while drizzling the oil into your dough.

***Mixers have a special attachment for making dough. It's called a dough hook. It makes things easier, but if you don't have one it's ok. Your bread won't be mad at you.

Scrape your dough onto a floured work surface. Make sure to have enough flour to cover the entire area you expect to use but not too much as it will dry out your dough. Knead the dough with the heels of your hands until it has become smooth and springy. This is another finesse area. Too much kneading will wreck your dough. Push the dough away from you with firm but not Hulk pressure, then flip it on the board, turning the dough 90 degrees. Do it again. And again. And some more. Until your dough has become a springy ball of happy. 

Place your dough ball in a bowl that is at least 3 times the size of your dough ball. Spray oil to coat the bowl first, then spray your dough as well. Cover with a moist paper towel and let it rise for about 45 minutes. The dough should double in size.

Once the dough has risen, it's time to make what you want with it.

Lesson 3 - Staples, Stuff and Spices

Grocery staples are to cooking what primary colored paints are to art. Even if you don't have precisely what you need, you can still pull something together if you know what the components are.

Staples are the things that live in your cupboard and you are rarely - if ever - without. You can make almost anything with the right mixture of staples. Most of the items in this list are common. You can add or take away depending on what you cook and how you cook. Try to keep from pulling too much from the list, however. 

Common Staples List:
Milk
Eggs
Salt
Sugar
Black Pepper
Parmesan Cheese
Flour
Oil
Shortening
10 favorite spices or seasonings (this is a big deal, we'll hit it later)
Vinegar
Rice
Yeast
Molasses
Soy Sauce
Baking Soda
Baking Powder
Butter or Margarine
Corn Starch
Corn Meal
Vanilla Extract
Bread Crumbs

Go look in your kitchen cabinets. If your parents cook, you will find at least 80% of these items in your cupboard.


Got yeast, flour, salt, sugar and water? You can make pitas, pizza dough, flatbread, bread, rolls...
No yeast? Just flour, salt and water? You can make gravy, batter, pasta or noodles for soup.

As you collect recipes and find the ones that work best for your family, you will start to notice patterns in the items you use. I have my own list of personal staples. It's a little beefy, but I've pulled miracles having these things jammed in the cupboard.

Tricksy Kitchen Hobbit Staples:

Flours : Whole wheat, maseca (corn flour), white wheat, semolina, white

White flour is my base flour but I mix it with other flours depending on the recipe. Semolina is for pizza dough or pasta dough. Maseca goes into my corn meal to make cornbread. I try to mix 2/3 white to 1/3 wheat flour in my doughs. Due to gluten content, you can't add too much whole wheat flour without it impacting the finished product.

Consomme or Bullion Cubes :  Chicken, Beef and Ham

If I'm going to use salt, it might as well have a flavor. When I make rice to go with chicken, I use a chicken bullion cube rather than adding table salt to it.  Making ham gravy or beans and rice? Goya Ham Bullion packets are the bomb!

Oil : Spray Oil, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Sesame Oil, Peanut Oil and Canola

Canola is for baking with premade mixes or anything that is going to be cooked at a high temperature. Sesame is used when making Hummus or anything Asian. Olive oil goes with Italian foods, Salads or anything  where you want your oil to have a flavor. Peanut oil is for deep frying. Trust me, it's amazing.

Cream of Something Soup: Mushroom, Celery, Asparagus

A can of any one of these soups can help create a hearty gravy, keep baked meat moist or add goodness to a rice dish.

Salad Dressing : Italian, Caesar, Ranch, Ken's Sweet Vidalia Onion

Italian and Caesar are super quick marinades to add flavor and increase tenderness in meat. Ranch and Ken's are sauces that I use in many of my recipes. They aren't just for salads. :)

Herbed Tomato Paste:

I prefer the herbed version to the regular tomato paste. I use it as pizza sauce or to tenderize pork.

Vinegar : White vinegar, balsamic vinegar, malt vinegar

White is used when I need a basic acidy vinegar. If I want a deeper flavor from my acid, I use balsamic. My family prefers malt vinegar to ketchup on fish and fries.

Lemon Juice

Another basic acid.

Spices

Fresh is better than dried, in spices. Most of us use thr dried stuff rather than fiddle with the care and upkeep of an herb garden. If you have a green thumb and a little bit of time, go ahead and grow what you use. I like mixed spices. One at a time can be handy, but why open 4 bottles when you can shake out of 1? 

Five Spice : This is an Asian spice that I use in Dim Sum. It can be mixed with honey to make some super amazing chicken wings or pork ribs.

Adobo con Pimiento: This is a Spanish garlic salt with pepper. 

Badia Completa Sazon : Another Spanish spice with dried veg bits in it. It has a green top.
Smoked Paprika
Italian Spice Blend
Chili Powder
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Seasoning Salt : This is the stuff in the red shaker bottle.
Cumin : a flavor intensifier herb often found in Spanish dishes.

Lesson 2 : Food Storage

 This section is about what most people find in their kitchens and the proper nomenclature for most of it. Yes, you may be aware and know half of the things you're about to read. It's cool. Keep reading, you may find things that are new to you. 

A pantry is an area separate from the kitchen or a closet where dry good are stored. Some houses no longer have a "pantry", utilizing kitchen cabinets instead.

The freezer is for frozen things.

The refrigerator is to keep things cool. 

Simple, no?

Care and Happiness of your Refrigerator:

Hot & Cold

It is not advisable to put cans in the fridge - other than soda cans.  Putting hot food in the fridge makes the motor to work overtime and can cause your fridge to have a shorter life span than it would normally. This is a big thing to have to fix or replace. It costs big money. If you can, let your items reach near room temp before putting them in the fridge. 

Beware of cross contamination. 

When meat items defrost in the fridge, there are times they will leak. Having chicken blood drip into your salad greens is bad. Always, when you put something in the fridge to defrost, make sure to place it in a pan or bowl to catch any accidental spillage. An ounce of prevention beats being upset or sick later.

Things will dry out

In the same way that your lips get chapped in the winter from the cold, so will your food items. If you put something uncovered in the fridge for more than an hour, it will start to dry out. Keep your food items wrapped, sealed or covered to get the most life (and least waste) from them.  

Those drawers

It is common to have drawers in the bottom of your fridge. They usually have words written on them telling if the drawer is for vegetables or meat. Scientist designed this, don't try and reinvent the wheel. Put your long term veg in the veg drawer and your meat or cheese in the meat drawer. Being mildly closed in as they are creates a slightly different environment that works better for the long term storage of these items. In the door of the fridge is a little flappy door storage thingie, usually found on the top shelf. This is for stick butter. Personally, it's where I stash all my little packets from takeaway meals... soy sauce, duck sauce, hot mustard, ranch dipping sauce. You get the idea. I rarely keep stick butter, but when I do - that's the spot it lives in.

When to chuck stuff

Vegetables will wilt when they have reached the end of their life span. When you notice one of a certain item has gone bad, it is time to check the whole lot. One spoiled potato will stink up your fridge like nobody's business. Mushy tomatoes or  peaches are not fun to deal with. Worst case scenario, you'll have to wash out the entire inside of the fridge ahead of schedule. Take the extra 5 minutes now rather than hating life later. Meat will change color as it rots. If it smells wrong, toss it. It's not worth the whole family getting sick over. 

Read labels or google it

If you are not sure how long something will live in the fridge once it has been opened, read the packaging. If the information is NOT there, google it. I am certain that a kajillion other people have had the same question. If you're a touch OCD (nothing wrong with that) keep a sharpie nearby and write the toss date on the item if you can. 

Scheduling!

We do our major shop for groceries once a month. I find that towards the end of the month, I have less in my fridge than at the start. That's the best time to clean that sucker out. It's a tedious and thankless job that is not noticed unless it is not done. Suck it up, buttercup. It's gotta be done. It will also give you a better idea of which staples need to be bought and what you still have after the last wipe out and dry down. I check the expiration dates on all my bottles and jars at this time as well. It's as good a time as any. 

Freezer Fun

Frost and defrost

Most freezers are frostless nowadays. If you DO find frost in your freezer, it is likely due to a leak in the seal that goes around the door , somebody left it open for too long or the weight of the stuff in your freezer popped the door open slightly. Refer to the manual for the best way to defrost your freezer. Manuals are easy to find online. It's not a bad idea to have a favorites list that has the manuals for any big ticket item that costs more than $200 and any complicated electronics gear. It's ok. Google won't bite your fingers.

Vents

In the top back of your freezer are little vents. This is where the super cold air comes from to freeze your stuff. If you block this vent, the air will not be able to circulate to all your frozen items and they will not keep as long as they should. This could also cause a problem with the motor that runs the fan that pushes the air into your refrigerator. Ka-ching. Having the motor work overtime costs money in power consumption. A broken motor costs money in having it fixed - while all your food rots or you spend half a day sherpa-ing it over to a friend's house trying to save your groceries- or having to replace the whole dang refrigerator - which can cost a thousand or more dollars (depending on where you shop). 

OCD joy

It is important to know how long items will live in your freezer. Here is a handy link that spells it out for you: Frozen Food Advice I break down my meats as they come in the door. What this means is I freeze meat in meal portions, rather than singles. I do have some singles in there, but it is mostly by full meal portions. 30 seconds with a sharpie on my ziplock freezer bag will tell me when I bought it - which will let me calculate when it will go bad. Not everything you put in the freezer will need to be bagged and tagged. If it does, take the few seconds to write a note. It will save you one day, I promise. Also, it is a good idea to write what the meat is on the bag. I know you're thinking that you can tell the difference between pork chops and chicken legs, why bother. Mhmm. Let em get frozen like a brick and crusted in ice - it's not so easy anymore. 30 seconds at the start to save 5 minutes of staring and feeling the bag and staring some more later.

Freezer burn

When an items is improperly wrapped, you will find freezer burn. This is when the cold has sucked all the water out of the meat and dried it out. It is not a good thing. I have had the bone on a beef roast cut through the thin cling film and let in air = freezer burnt beef roast. If an item comes from the store in a heavy duty plastic wrap, I try to leave it there. If it comes in sad, thin, cheap cling film, I repackage it. Items wrapped in foil are more susceptible to freezer burn than those stored in freezer bags. There are times foil wrapping is unavoidable. Keep an eye on those items and use them somewhat soon. Freezer ziplock bags are thicker and generally have a heavier zipper than regular plastic bags. They are designed for the harsh climate of the freezer. Trust science, folks.

Pantry Tips

Weevils

Florida is crazy with the bugs. It doesn't take much to have them everywhere. I personally have found weevils in my corn meal down here. If you freeze your flours for a day or two, it will kill anything living in them. 

Upkeep

Check your expiration dates at least twice a year. Or you could just make the habit of looking when you pull it out of the cabinet. Whichever works for you, as long as you check your stuff.

Spices

Most spices will keep for a year in the cabinet. At that point, they have dried and lost most of their goodness. Toss em and start over.