Bread making - it is 4 hours plus where you can’t go anywhere because the bread needs looking after, not necessarily hands on work.
We used to make bread by hand - Dad being the master baker. Ingredients were weighed, assembled, sifted, warmed etc and then mixed by hand. He remarked to my mother that kneading the dough really cleaned the dirt out from under the fingernails - and nearly got the sack.
Then the dough was portioned and left in a warm, breeze free place to rise, with the conditions checked regularly. Then punched back, kneaded, shaped into rolls, loaves etc and laid out in oiled tins in the warm spot and checked frequently as a chill would leave a dry bit that would crack, too warm would kill off bacterial growth. Finally a quick mist of water on things that should have a crunchy crust and the oven relay started, with smaller, quicker cooking things first - usually soft buns. Then turning out on to racks.
The bread maker still requires me to stop it at the end of the first rise after the knead cycle (1:20min) to pull out the paddle as it sticks in the loaf and you end up with a big hole in the bottom. It then runs another 1:50min. Sometimes I just take it out and shape and leave to rise as buns, small loaves - Mr Z likes a quarter loaf with two crunchy crusts and a slice or two in the middle. He’s a man who likes the crust. So can’t go anywhere - watching the clock, keeping the temps stable etc.
People mock Jamie Oliver but he has been tireless and, I think, sincere in trying to make it as easy as possible for non-cookers to make simple, appealing and nutritious meals using cheap and readily available ingredients.
Once you can make two or three simple meals from “just five ingredients” it’s really just incremental steps and practice before you can make elaborate dishes. Making that first meal: that’s what must seem like a far-fetched dream to people with no background in cooking.
As someone once said about the extreme difficulty of getting the first rockets into space, once you leave Earth’s orbit, you’re half-way to anywhere.
At least with home made you can decide which ingredients to not include in a meal. EG salt, sugars fats, manufactured additives and plant extracts.
Making it taste great, partly practice, partly researching cooking techniques and recipes. While what results may not be a perfectly balanced meal, is the benefit that it does more good, less harm?
That sounds exciting @slb!
When is the next rocket leaving?
It is true that working people are time poor, but in the age of the pressure-cooker, slow-cooker, and the microwave, it’s never been easier to have something hot to eat when coming home from work.
Some foods take next to no time to cook: vegetables stir-fry, eggs, mushrooms, canned beans made into a tuna salad…the list is long.
More elaborate dishes could wait until the weekend, or when extra time is available?
I agree with @zackarii “there’s pressure to turn out chef standard meals”.
But not all home-made meals need to be like that.
I don’t bother about CSIRO healthy diet and other ‘you should’ type cook books.
we two walk regularly.
We have a veggie garden.
Before marrying and getting a veggie garden I used to have problems going to the loo.
But an increase in vegetables and fruit has seen that off. :-)! and
Tonight we will behaving roast veggies, potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, steamed MW’d Brussel Sprouts, plus French-Herbed Chicken! As per Women’s Weekly cookbook, but with soem mod’ns.
? the Chicken marinades itself while roasting - tehre’s a blended mixture of mustard, butter, herbs - parsley, oregano, and green sorrel and garlic - smoothed out UNDER the skin.
You do have to separate the skin from most of the chicken body, with a table-spoon overturned and then insert and smooth out the marinade. A quartered peeled onion goes inside the chook. ? Easier than stuffing, and we get requests for repeat meals.
I always use or 60Cm Charcoal Weber roaster, but do use a meat thermometer with a beeper! before that it had to guess, with no disasters, but this way IS less bother!!!
