make your stomach happy 

copyright ©1999-2000
DigsMagazine.com.

• Pasta and rice. MUSTS. Always have on hand. And get a rice cooker. Trust me.

• Cheat items. Chicken stock. No, I don’t make my own. No, I don’t even have the good canned stuff. I use (gasp!) bouillon granules. Not the cubes, the granules. Instant chicken stock/broth. It’s what makes ramen soup taste so good. If it’s pricey, check in the Latin Foods aisle (if your store has one). Critics say it’s all salt. But no, not all salt. It’s also got really yummy chicken flavor. And critics neglect to mention that you’d be adding just as much salt to your fresh chicken broth for it to taste good anyway. Just cut back the salt, and treat bouillon granules like spice. A little sprinkle makes any food taste good, and it’s easy. In most stir fry dishes, the sauce is made with some chicken broth (+ stuff). Just add bouillon and water. Easy. (I’ll just list chicken broth as an ingredient in the dishes; you make it however you want). Other cheat items: BBQ sauce, jarred spaghetti sauce, canned tomato sauce, canned tomatoes.

MEASUREMENTS
Just about everything can be eyeballed, to taste, or substituted (except maybe "fermented fish paste"). I used to hate when I’d ask my mom for a recipe, and she’d use terms like "a little this" or "some of that," but it’s true. Even for those novices who get hives just thinking about cooking without chemistry-accurate numbers (i.e., 5 cm³ of potato in a .1 molarity NaCl chicken stock), just think about PBJ’s or salsa and dip. You don’t measure how much peanut butter -- you just spread. And you don’t apply salsa to chips with a 1/2 teaspoon -- you just scoop. So, unless you’re baking (which IS chemistry) or dealing with toxic ingredients, treat the listed measurements with the flexibility and lack of respect they deserve.

o o o o o

Sure, it’s nice to make the fancy things you see on TV, but when you gotta eat, you gotta eat. I’m not saying the recipes will all be great -- I’ll tell you when they’re iffy -- but they will get the job done. When it seems there’s nothing to eat, just use what’s in your fridge. Go to it.

Let’s start with a very normal dish:

Recipe #1: Linguini with Turkey/Spinach Marinara

o

Steve Loh has written for various publications and lives in Los Angeles. He enjoys movies, talking, bubblewrap-popping, and improving the state of the union. If you pour sauce on it, he’ll eat it. He can be reached at steveloh@yahoo.com.

---------------------------> lounge . nourish . host . laze . home.