Relearning the skill and pleasure of home cooking

Unemployment is fairly high in Sheboygan County, especially in the larger urban areas such as the city of Sheboygan. For many it is a difficult time – and to others it is even tougher. Over the past year or more, this column has discussed a variety of helpful services people may be eligible for, including food stamps, United Way, unemployment/employment support, veteran programs, food pantries and more.

The column has also promoted self-help efforts that can minimize or lower one’s overall living costs – such as starting or expanding backyard gardens, walking or biking to work or neighborhood stores. Not only does that save a few dollars, this kind of effort can also be the start of a healthier living style.

Having just come out of the kitchen, I would like to suggest home cooking as a way to eat better and at the same time lower your family’s food costs. It’s not always easy, certainly not often fast, but it can be both fun and enjoyable. – I’m talking about cooking from scratch.

My latest project was a large kettle of green pea soup. Because I do most of the cooking at our home, I like to make large batches of soup or chili – enough so we can freeze four or five future family meals. The type of the ingredients and sheer size of the project makes these meals cost-efficient. I do the same with meatloaf meals when hamburger goes on sale. When it comes to chicken, I wait for a sale, such as a recent leg/thigh sale for $0.88 per pound; I freeze them in meal-size packages; later, I put a package in a slow cooker with chicken stock, and raw vegetables and in about four or five hours a well-balanced meal is tableready with little or no work.

With fast food and other restaurants, along with countless frozen meals available at the grocery stores, cookbooks for some seem out-of-date. But if you want to save money and provide quality meals that almost always work out well, a good cookbook is like a partner and can be a real blessing.

But let me talk about my recent green pea soup with ham effort – it turned out really well.

In a large pot, I put two quarts of water and two smoked ham-hocks and slow-cooked them for about five hours. The meat was cut off, diced and saved while the juices were allowed to cool overnight to allow the fat to rise to the surface for removal. Two pounds of green peas were set in water overnight in preparation for cooking the next day. Two large onions, seven full stalks of celery, seven medium sized carrots were cleaned and diced. Carrots were then slightly precooked.

The next morning the peas, diced ham meat, juices from the cooked meat and bone (minus the fat), water, diced onions, carrots and celery were put into a large pot, mixed and slow-cooked for just over four hours (or until done). Salt and pepper were added to meet the cook’s taste. Enough soup was saved for an evening meal and the rest was frozen in meal-sized plastic containers.

To stretch the green pea soup farther, one can cook up a batch of elbow macaroni and add it to each soup meal. And to save additional money, you can purchase a less expensive ham bone. The total cost for about 17 good-sized bowls of quality-tasting pea soup was about $12 and included half a package of leftover celery.

What was also nice is that while the soup was cooking I had the opportunity to complete this and a different column. Once the soup was cooking correctly, the only work needed was to stir it from time to time.