An Everlasting Meal (non-fiction narrative re cooking)

I'd first heard An Everlasting Meal mentioned as a book that helps people reduce waste in their kitchens. It sounded like a very how-to, well-organized book that would be useful. It technically was a how-to that was helpful -- but not really organized per se. It had a table of contents but the chapter titles were things like Stride Ahead. I had to be a paragraph in before I could tell if the chapter was relevant to me as a vegan -- How to Boil an Egg was not, for instance. Or maybe it was. I can't recall if that was the chapter on boiling stuff or a chapter on eggs. That's how useless the vague chapter titles were. 

But so much in the book was helpful. Cooking is one of those things that I can sort-of do if I follow a recipe. There is no intuiting for me. I live with a person who cooks intuitively, who is frustrated by following recipes and likes to explore in the kitchen. Their stuff almost always comes out delicious. I, on the other hand, have to read and re-read a recipe and lay all ingredients out mise en place in advance, sequentially. And I still miss steps. If a recipe is written wrong, I am not going to figure out how to MacGuyver it to delicious. But this book and it's narrative about how to cook helped my mind bridge that gap. I am not saying I'll be greatly improved. I'm just saying I'll be a little less hopeless. 



Skipped the Waters intro - had a feeling it'd be annoying

I ended up with 5 pages of notes from this book. Way more than I thought! In the interest of "not forgetting stuff I read in less than a month" I'm going to type out some of my notes here. 

Boiling water:

  • Salt your water! You can put water on and add stuff to it and have any kind of dish - boiled vegetable sides, soups, stews. Start with salting it.
  • Put in any stems and roots you save.
  • Don't shock vegetables. Fresh green isn't always tastiest. 
  • A plate of boiled vegetables can be dinner with a side of soup and garlic toast:
    • Boil vegetables - separate if different vegetables and if needed
    • Dress with olive oil 
    • If tubers, add a splash of white vinegar and or lemon juice when hot
  • Boil stuff sequentially in the same pot using the same water for a pasta dish:
    • Vegetables first
    • Then pasta
    • Smash boiled vegetables with olive oil and some parm substitute for a pasta sauce 
    • Drain pasta, mix in "sauce" while it's warm 
  • If using the same pot of boiled water to cook stuff go from less starchy to more (veg --> pasta)

Stride Ahead (this is basically bulk meal prep):

  • She goes to the farmers market and gets a ton of vegetables and bread and preps all the vegetables that day.
Roasting vegetables and sauteing greens.
  • Start your roasting at 400 degrees F, 450 degrees F if the oven is full.
  • Next your basking trays of vegetables considering your longest and shortest baking times (put in your longer ones first, say they need 60 mins -- then put in your shorter ones that need 20 mins after 40 mins have passed and the first tray only needs another 20 mins so they're all done at once). I spent a lot of time thinking about the magic oven she has to cook that many vegetables on baking trays in a single layer. 
  • All vegetables except squash and root vegetables like to be roasted separately. 
  • If vegetables are sharing a pan, group them by "how they're grown" which should also result in grouping them by cooking time (her categories are leaves, roots, stems, tuber -- beets are the exception; the beet stands alone). This seemed like conflicting advice to the above bullet and I do mix root vegetables so I'm comfortable with continuing to do so.
  • Toss vegetables with olive oil and salt after they're cut into 1" cubes. I always forget whether to salt at the start, end or both so, thanks for this one!
  • Roast sweet potatoes whole (puncture with knife). 
  • Put garlic cloves in dishes later so they don't burn. Also always forget this.
  • Her seasonings are: olive oil, lemon, herbs, garlic. Which herbs? There's a chapter on that I was afraid to read because I have herb anxiety. I skipped over it and came back to it later. Notes below.
  • Beets should be washed out in a square baking tray with water. Leave some water in the bottom. Cover with foil to steam them. The foil has to stay intact. Can't I just use a casserole dish? The lid will stay on and I don't have to mess with foil. 
  • Once all your vegetables are in, check on them in a half an hour (except beets, which maybe take longer and you only check those with a paring knife for done-ness). 
  • After all the roasting vegetables are in the oven, start dealing with the greens. Sautee all the greens together -- in olive oil, with salt. Add in garlic after the greens get going. Add water as needed. Amazingly I already knew how to do this and I called it "sweating my greens" - whatever. 
Using the vegetables you just made.

  • All cooked vegetables become great side salads. (Roasted or boiled vegetables!)
  • Add the following: toasted nuts, herbs of the undesignated variety so that helps me exactly zero, and a sharp vinaigrette. I have learned to spell vinaigrette thanks to my note-taking on this book. 
  • For roasted cauliflower/broccoli, plump golden raisins in warm white vinegar, serve with croutons and add in capers, pitted olives, fresh mint (why?) and olive oil. Also my partner vetoed the golden raisins so that's minus mint, minus raisins but let me know if you try it. 
  • I figured the vegetables would also go well over couscous or quinoa with the same ingredients and dressed with a citrus dressing or sharp vinaigrette so just throwing that out there for a heartier side salad. 

Potage!

  • Soup! Again, this is referenced in the Boil Water chapter or whatever that first chapter was. Apparently you have two options (because I skipped all the dead animal stuff!) -- any vegetable and sweet potato coconut. 

  • Any vegetable soup. Start with:
    • 1/2 onion
    • Clove of garlic (does she mean bulb? what's a clove do?)
    • Cook, salt, add butter stuff, fresh thyme and olive oil
    • If it browns, add a bit of water
    • Then -- add vegetables (your roast squash, any roasted root vegetable)
    • Then -- add equal amount of soup stock (same amount as your vegetables added)
    • Then -- simmer for a half an hour
    • Then -- puree 
    • Does she ever say what type of flame? I'm guessing medium? I didn't write it down.

  • Sweet potato coconut soup recipe:
    • Take 2 roasted sweet potatoes and put them in a food processor
    • Then -- add butter stuff, cream stuff, paprika
    • Puree and warm in the pot
    • Then -- add broth and coconut milk
    • Then -- finish with lime juice

How to Light a Room (which means...herbs):

  • Parsley goes with everything. 
  • Rosemary and thyme are hardier and good for roasting. You can also put it in rice at the start.
  • Storage if you're not parsley:
    • Store dry, wrapped in paper towel
    • Stack and put in snap-tight glass container 
  • Storage if you're parsley:
    • Rinse, chop and store with stems in closed container "for weeks" (ooookay but to be fair I have not tried it)
  • With herbs (and I guess everything else) "fat unlatches flavor" (so putting it with oil helps)
    • Parsley Oil recipe:
      • Chop leaves
      • Smash garlic "clove" to paste with a little salt
      • Douse both in olive oil
      • If you're adding another herb (marjoram, sage), add half as much as you added parsley
      • Add lemon zest
      • This goes well over beans
Okay that was it! I still learned more than I previously knew. I had so much anxiety over this chapter and basically I learned that parsley is king and you can roast sage and rosemary. Got it. 


Bread:

  • The Lahey no-knead recipe is in here. I should make this one day, seriously. This recipe is everywhere. 


  • How to make croutons 
    • 1"? size?
    • Coat with olive oil
    • 400 degrees F for 10-15 mins
    • Cool
    • Put in a container in the freezer for up to 3 months 
    • These are apparently a salad staple. I have literally never thought about croutons but maybe I should start?

Salads:

  • Here are the parts of a salad:
    • Vegetable (cooked or raw) and/or fruit 
    • Acid
    • Salt
    • Fat 
    • Obviously some of those are the dressing. 
  • Fruit Salad:
    • Sliced citrus
    • Salt
    • Vinegared onions
    • Olives, chile flakes, olive oil
  • Lunch Salad:
    • 2 c. rice, lentils, beans, grains (? I don't get why these are used interchangeably but I kind of do -- nutritionally not the same but all make an okay salad base)
    • 2 T fresh oregano
    • 1/2 c. nuts (pine, walnuts, almonds -- toasted and finely chopped)
    • 2 T drained capers
    • Pinch chopped fresh chives (note to me: this is different than scallions I think)
    • Basic vinaigrette (below)
  • Basic Vinaigrette:
    • 1 shallot (you know what this is - it's like a tiny onion that's cooler)
    • 1/3 tsp of salt 
    • 1 tsp of dijon mustard
    • Juice of 1 lemon (me: or reasonable facsimile from lemon juice jar or smaller amoutn from preserved lemons jar)
    • 1 T red wine vinegar
    • 1 "clove" garlic, smashed (quotations mine)
    • 1/2 c. olive oil
    • Let sit for 5 mins and remove garlic clove (whyyyy?)
Beans:

  • How to make beans:
    • She makes them stovetop (I will never not use an Instant Pot, sorry)
    • Fennel for bean broth is a really great pairing, apparently
    • Also: parsley stems, sprigs of thyme whole, bay leaf
    • Salt your beans and add in olive oil (a "Tuscan amount"?)

I don't remember what chapter this stuff was in! Does it matter?

  • Mirepoix -- Cook finely chopped onion, carrot and celery in olive oil (to mix with beans, with veg sausages, etc)
  • Polenta -- Make it. It's good day-old with leftovers on top (versatile - vegetables, beans, tofu, etc)
    • If it's a day old, you can slice and fry it.
  • What to do with overcooked beans/lentils? Fry into patties after pressing out water. 

Animal stuff:
  • Seriously every other chapter had an egg on top of something. It was like the educated chef brought Gudetama to life! Sad little egg boy, laying on your salad! 
  • There was a lot of that woe, factory farming is bad but you'll find "good" meat, fancy and "green" eater! And that reduced-suffering farming is just the solution (despite, you know, most of them end up at the same slaughterhouses as factory farmed animals and dying the exact same way). I jotted down the statement she put forth --  "a good life for a good life" -- which enraged me of course. Because it's me -- you knew it would. It just feels like the most pretentious thing to say. We feed our cats animals. The hermit crabs even get animals (plankton, catfish, chicken mix in very small amounts) because they need animal protein or they can cannibalize if they're lacking. I am aware it's a cognitive dissonance and if you asked me which animals I valued more, they would all be equal. However, I have a number of obligate carnivores and omnivores in my care, and I feed them dead animals. It sucks. I own it. If lab-made meat happens, I'm all over it for them. But right now, those dead animals are the reason my animals are alive and healthy. It's not "a good life for a good life." It's a shitty horrible life and shitty horrible system to support my pets' lives. And I get to exist with the shitty emotional baggage that goes along with that. Not pretend that my pets' wonderful lives are honoring those dead animals' lives. 
I didn't even read all of the animal chapters -- that was just from what I accidentally encountered. I saw someone selling a shirt today that said, "I'm not perfect, but I am vegan" and that equally enraged me, if that makes you guys feel any better about my rage against the non-vegan author. 

Summary:

This will be a weird segue given the prior bullet, but I found this book really helpful. For someone like me, who doesn't "get" cooking, it was helpful to hear her walk through her process. It was helpful for me to hear what pieces of food can be matched with other foods with some sauces tying it together. What are the basic, versatile recipes where you can cook from your pantry. What herbs should I touch? All of that was covered. 

The only reason I wrote out all my notes is so I'll have them online and be able to pull them up from my phone in my kitchen! I'm going to try to use this book as a keystone to figuring out what to do in the kitchen when I'm allowing myself to problem-solve what to make. I even started with this:


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