Thrifty Cooking for Frugal living

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Thrifty Cooking for Frugal living
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Are Your Knife Skills Holding You Back in the
Kitchen? I have cut myself unintentionally
hundreds of times. When you cook professionally
and youre constantly under the gun to produce
more and more and fast and fasterouch
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it happens, and sometimes its serious. Under
normal household circumstances it is totally
possible to perform like a pro and never cut
yourself. All you have to do is follow a few
simple rules.
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If you hold a knife in your right hand, the left
hand must be very disciplined or else it gets
punished and vice versa. Rule number one, tuck
your left thumb behind your left fingers at all
times
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The thumb could be cut badly, if you forget to do
this. Visualize a half inch, hunk of thumb
rolling across your cutting board and counter!
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Rule number two, be sure your knife is very
sharp. A dull knife requires unnecessary sawing
and excess pressure and this increases your
chances of slipping and slicing yourself. And, a
dull knife has its own
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uniquely unpleasant pain, as if it bruises and
slices at the same time. Rule number three,
avoid cutting round objects. If youre cutting a
lemon, or an onion, or a potato, cut it in half
first so that youre dealing with a secure,
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flat surface. Rolling over and running the knife
across your knuckles can cause a surprising but
necessary trip to the emergency room, if you have
some weight behind the stroke.
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Like so many things, practice makes perfect, but
it helps to have professional examples close up.
Me, I started at 15, working beside a Master Chef
and I had the good fortune to observe his
technique over and over--
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this is key. If you see the motion and you pay
close attention to the position of the fingers in
all sorts of scenarios--cutting cabbage, slicing
raw meat, dicing onions, mincing garlic, finely
slicing fresh basil or Italian pasley
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you start to deeply understand the fundamentals.
On my website, ThriftCultureNow.com, we have
created a series of free online cooking classes,
using over 85 videos paired with written
guidance. Our
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focus is cooking techniques, frugal recipes and
food cost, so we provide you with the knowledge
you need to cook from scratch, using a huge
variety of ingredients, without using a recipe
book.
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We have a huge section devoted to knife skills
called, First Things First, Master the Blade,
and it contains almost 20 videos showing a
variety of situations and how to be totally
efficient with your knife. This will help
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make you a great cook. Not everyone learns the
same way, this is a fact. All I have done is
replicate the way I learned to be a pro with a
chefs knife. I learned by watching a pro and
copying what he did.
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If you love food and want to learn to cook
better, or if you have children on which you
would like to offload some duties, have a look!
There are dozens of delicious meal ideas, frugal
recipes, cooking technique
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videos, and the food cost method. Cooking from
scratch is the number one way that families can
save more money. Eating take-out or packaged food
is very expensive and unhealthy.
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If you learn the skills required for cooking now,
you will enjoy a lifetime of delicious meals.
Teaching your children to cook before theyre out
of the house is a great way of helping them
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to be very thrifty in the future you will save
money! Happy Cooking! Travis Grier is a Chef
and the founder of http//www.thriftculturenow.com