Home Cooking — Beginning at the Basics!

Hello! Welcome to my first article! If you follow my Instagram account, @RaddFlavoredFoods, then you already know what I am about! If not, here it is! I am an amateur chef, with little restaurant experience, lots of home cooking experience, with a pot full of passion. (Sorry, but the jokes don’t get much better.)

I love food. All kinds of food. American, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian, etc. I also LOVE making food! Especially when it is for other people!

I have made it a goal to stay open and try anything new, or old items a new way. So far, the only thing I have yet to be able to stomach is beets. Everything else has been fair game! While I do try my absolute best to stick to a nutrient dense, fresh vegetable and fruit diet I do really, really enjoy meat of all kinds.

Growing up, I like to think the family meals were pretty diversified. My Mom had this humongous binder full to the stretching point of recipes. Some were printed from websites, or photos from cookbooks, but a lot were hand written and passed down from family. Mom would go through the book, pick out a recipe to make, and afterward we would all vote on whether or not to keep it.

Some of my absolute favorite childhood recipes are an incredibly filling hamburger and carrot stew, delicious banana bars with frosting, Ritz cracker chicken, and Dinner in a Pumpkin! All of them were so memorable, (especially the pumpkin one, since we got to clean it out and bake the meal inside the pumpkin itself) and so delicious. I cannot wait to share them all, and so much more, with you!

But first,…lets talk about the basics of home based culinary magic. Your ingredients! I will go more in depth with individual foods and spices in future articles as well as ways to spruce them up, but for now here are the basics that every pantry and fridge needs:

• Salt — There are so many different kinds of salt, but for our purposes, lets just stick to kosher salt, sea salt, and table salt.
• Flour — The are more types of flour to choose from then just about any ingredient, and it’s all based on your flavor profile, cooking mechanism and allergies. Normally, most recipes call for regular old bleached or non-bleached all purpose flour, depending on your preference. Could also choose whole wheat, baking flour, cake flour, almond flour, tapioca flour, cassava flour, or a gluten free blend! I know, it can be a little overwhelming.
• Sugar — I like to keep granulated sugar, light sugar and dark sugar in my pantry.
• Eggs — Let’s stick to the classics here. Chicken eggs.
• Butter — Generally, I would recommend sticking with unsalted butter, and adding salt as needed.
• Oil — Every oil has a purpose. Generally, I would recommend having a neutral tasting, high heat oil like vegetable or canola oil as well as olive oil for the more full bodied flavors.
• Onions — Red, White and Bl…Yellow. Red, White and Yellow. Theses are the three basics types of onions. What you decide to keep on hand is completely up to you. I’ll go more in depth on their flavor profiles and uses later on, but for now, I generally only keep yellow onions in the pantry consistently.
• Garlic — Whole clove, fresh garlic will last a pretty long time in your pantry, as long as it’s not humid or hot. Garlic is a main seasoning a garnish in so many dishes, and one that I find excuses to use.

Honestly, I could probably list about a dozen more, but these are the actual basis for delicious food. Check back for the next article where I will go over the basic tools that every kitchen needs!