I've collected cook books for the better part of a decade. When I was purging my apartment to become more of a minimalist, I realized that I've not cooked out of 90% of them. I pantry cook pretty frequently, but rarely scratch cook much of anything. Sometimes I pan roast veggies ala Ina Garten but that's a pretty lame point of pride.
I'm compiling a go-to list of scratch recipes that balance easy, delicious, and frugal. I'm keeping it at ten recipes because the goal is to have them memorized and perfected. Here's the list so far:
Meats:
Roast whole chicken
My Grandma's pasta sauce with and without braised pork
Mom's meatloaf (adaptable to muffin tin lunch-sized)
Vegetarian if I'm feeling sassy:
Chili (adaptable to a slow cooker)
Lentil soup (adaptable to a slow cooker)
A well-balanced vinaigrette for salads
A well-balanced hummus that doesn't gas my friends with garlic (ha ha)
Carbs and comfort:
Large-batch pancakes
Killer brownies
One spot left... No kneed artisan bread? Fried rice? Uber healthy bran muffins? The perfect cast-iron fried steak? (This is going to be a fun project!)
