What is your Food Philosophy?

good ingredients
tried and true preparation methods and flavor combinations
smaller portions

Thanks for catching that error.. Fixed it...

Thanks for sharing your philosophy. It sounds like you have great mom.

That is why I created this post. Not to hear my own opinions repeated back to me but to learn what other people believe.

I am a man but my MIL was exactly what you described and consequently so my wife. Wondeful in alot of ways but she does not enjoy kitchen duties. I love to create dishes tfrom scratch so do the meal planning and cooking. I pour myself a drink turn on some music and she sit nearby and we talk about our day. She handles the cleanup afterwards. We are empty nesters so it's just the two of us.

I don't consider this post strange. I consider it food for thought. LOL

For me, it’s all about stretching ingredients, scheduling my meals so nothing expires or is wasted, minimizing the amount of dishes to clean, ensuring meals brought to work are as simple as possible to reheat, and making them taste as good as possible.

I typically cook two large dishes in a week plus one or two sides. Those are divied up for lunches and dinners based on my post-work schedule, and the remainders are frozen. It’s cheap but good peasant food: rice & gravy dishes most frequently, but sometimes pasta dishes, meat & 3’s, or sandwiches. What comes out of my kitchen is pretty similar to what you’d find at a gas station plate lunch joint next door to a South Louisiana refinery.

I can’t afford the best ingredients, and since I am usually cooking for myself, I can’t afford ultra fresh ingredients that will go bad before I can use them. My time is often at a premium, so shortcuts are used.

I tend to have 3 tiers of dishes:
1. Zero cook. These are things like salads and sandwiches. The ingredients are precooked and only require a minute or two of assembly and/or heating.

2. Fast. These meals take no more than 45 minutes from the word go. This is stuff like blackened chicken, spaghetti, pork tenderloin, Mexican chicken and rice, crawfish monica, or just searing a steak or fish if I have good ingredients on hand. I can make this after work and eat it the same night.

3. Mid/high effort. This is stuff that takes less than 2 hours to make, but requires me to really pay attention the whole time. Jambalaya, stovetop red beans from scratch (aka the right way), pork chops & gravy, gumbo, etc are all done this way. I can maybe do this after work, but I’m probably not eating it the same night. This is best for a weekend.

4. Slow/low effort. This is largely slow cooker meals. Stuff like pork stew, pot roast, red beans (the mid way), carnitas, barbacoa, hobo chicken, etc. I can prep this the morning before work and cook it all day for dinner or prep it the night before to bring for lunch. I don’t have to babysit these dishes.

I love to cook, and have been told by many that I do it quite well.

For me, it is an act of love of food, love of sharing the food I cook with others and a feeling of satisfaction when I can look around and see so many happy faces. All that puts a smile on my face and makes the work worthwhile.

Good food, made with good ingredients and almost all of it made from scratch with as much fresh produce, meats and other ingredients as I have at my disposal.

I absolutely despise the "it's more expensive, so it's of higher quality," movement. It's garbage. Nobody on here is buying 5lb chub ground beef from Piggly Wiggly, the H-E-B meat is perfectly fine. You know what you get when you make Wagyu burgers? A ton of grease splatter, but bragging rights, I guess? Just get the 80/20 generic grass fed, less splatter, and cheaper. There are a few things which warrant spending more (Irish butter, hell to the yes, eggs which have darker yolks due to feed, etc.) You can also buy grass fed beef from farmers to get shipped to you for nearly the same cost as GF Australian beef that H-E-B sells.

I do like your categorical system. You can also add to #4, sous vide. Pork tenderloin that way, crusted in cast iron/carbon steel afterwards is something my kids love.

Wow

That is some excellent food prep planning.


When I make casseroles I double everything and make one to eat now and freeze the other to eat later on.