cooking

Your Ingredient Toolkit – Thyme

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Thyme is one of the most unexpected ingredients in my “toolkit” of things that I use to tweak and improve recipes.

It’s a strange spice. It has a woody, somewhat bitter taste that reminds me a bit of bay leaves, and not something you’d think “man I need to add this to my food!” It’s not like pepper or garlic where you can say “yeah, that’ll work!” or “yeah, that won’t work.”

But the power of thyme isn’t in it’s taste per se – it’s how it works with other tastes.

Thyme has this strange ability to blend flavors together and enhance them – especially vegetable tastes. Time and again I’ve found that dishes that are vegetable-heavy but are missing “something” are improved by adding or increasing thyme. It seems to enhance or “turn up” the flavors.

I’ve found this is especially true in dishes with tomatoes in them. Thyme just makes things work when tomatoes are involved. If your tomato sauce or other dish needs a certain “oomph” consider some thyme.

It also plays well with other “leafy” spices – basil, oregano, rosemary, etc. If you’ve got a heavily spiced dish that’s not quite working, thyme may be what you need to tie it all together.

I usually find you don’t need more than 1/4 or 1/2 tsp of ground thyme to get the effects in an average-sized dish. So it’s not much effort to give it a whirl, though I think it’s taste could be overdone, so I’d start low just in case.

Next time you can’t get that dish right, give thyme a shot!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Cooking: Containers Are For Eating

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OK, I know the image of eating a reheated meal out of a container is not exactly dignified. It conjures up imagines of someone who can’t cook, is too rushed, or just has no dignity.

I beg to differ.

See, I cook and freeze a lot of food. I live alone, I like to experiment with cooking, and I like to pace out what I eat so it’s not the same thing four days in a row. Needless to say a lot of what I eat spends its time in a glass container in the freezer.

In turn, that container may not be reheated at home. A lot of food I make is reheated at work, even though we have a great cafeteria (I’m a cheapskate also).

In all these cases, if I reheat food, unless I really need to (like, say, pouring out curry sauce) do I really want to reheat something then dump it into another dish or bowl? Hell, I just eat it out of what I reheated it in.

Why?

  • First, it’s faster. I don’t have to go around getting something else to eat out of.
  • Secondly, it dirties up less dishes. Like I really need to mess up the food container and another dish (or a paper one and waste it).
  • Third, I don’t have to pack or find other dining ware. I just use what I have.
  • Fourth, a good container is multi-use.  It’s not just for freezing – I use mine to store vegetables, side dishes, etc.  Saves me a plastic bag being thrown away.

Do I do this at home? Absolutely. I don’t need to make more of a mess. So yes, in stereotypical bachelor fashion, I eat out of the reheating container.

But as far as I’m concerned? It’s worth it. It’s simpler, faster, and neater. It’s not undignified – it’s precise.

(Besides, I think most of my food is pretty damn classy, thank you!)

If you shop around you can also find some great storage containers that make excellent dining ware. I myself favor the Ziplock glass containers, which come in multiple sizes, have nice-fitting lids, and are pretty sturdy. Also being glass they look a bit more dignified to eat out of.

So go on. Eat out of the container!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Cooking With Steve: Start With Something You Like

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Eating healthy is a pain for a lot of people. We’re not taught how. Advice often seems like it makes eating a chore. There’s also a lot of really tasty stuff that will also kill us – and is easy to prepare.

Now I do advise you to eat healthy, because let’s face it right now a lot of people are eating utter crap and killing themselves. Just reading about current health trends gives me bouts of empathetic hypochondria. That would also be a good band name.

One thing that has helped me that I can pass on is to start eating healthy, start with eating healthy foods you like.

Maybe you like carrots, or cherry tomatoes, or whatever. Take an inventory of things that you like to eat that are good for you (with appropriate research or consultation) and then start eating them more regularly. Reach for that plain yogurt with honey over a milkshake, or that homemade energy bar over a candy bar, or what have you.

You may just surprise yourself. There’s probably lots of stuff that’s good for you that you didn’t think about before.

This makes it a lot easier as you’re eating good things and thus have less room for bad things – and you’re not noticing the loss of deliciousness. If you find enough healthy foods you enjoy, you can flesh out your menu without feeling much sense of loss at all – and have the gain of feeling better and probably enjoying more natural tastes.

Here’s what I advise:

  • Take an inventory of healthy things you enjoy. Think them over because some things are not obviously healthy, some aren’t as healthy as we think, and some are good in moderation (like fatty but nutritious nuts). Also don’t forget some things are only bad to us due to additional things – maybe if you made your own low-fat vegetable dip you’d enjoy those carrots even more and be healthier.
  • Figure out how you can work in these healthy foods into your diet. If you like spinach salads see where you can work them in as a side dish. If you like peanut-butter-on-green-apple then you’ve got a healthy snack.
  • Rotate the foods you like so you don’t get sick of them – unless you find that’s not possible (I love cherry tomatoes, so I could eat them every other day).
  • Explore what related foods and similar foods may be out there that are also healthy and add them to your repertoire.
  • When you make a new discovery of something healthy-you-like add it to rotation. You may be surprised (I was surprised to find out how great Kale is for a salad).

So trying to eat healthy? Start with what you like – it’ll be easier on you.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.