United States Chef
Greg Profile
Greg
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About me
With 4 active kids in the house, and my wife and I actively involved at work, church, in the community and socially - I took over dinner duty 25 years ago when my wife's new schedule kept her in the office until 6PM. Dinner around the table was always a priority, and good food helped get the kids there. I'd always helped, especially when company was coming, and I found myself enjoying my time in the kitchen after a day of teaching second graders. My wife is a bargain hunter, and uses the weekly grocery flyer to plan the meals - so we ate well, but always on a budget. And she is a good planner, with a complete menu laid out for the week. Now that the kids are gone, I still do the cooking, and my wife usually does the clean up. I enjoy trying new recipes, and we enjoy going to the local farmers' market to pick up fresh produce. A chicken roasted for Sunday dinner becomes chicken soup or chicken and dumplings on Tuesday, Or a beef roast in the crockpot on Monday becomes bbq sandwiches Wednesday. Cooking is a creative outlet that everyone can enjoy.
I'm not a great baker because I don't tend to follow recipes closely. My wife, however, is an awesome baker - and bakes an incredible apple/cranberry/walnut pie. She and our youngest daughter always bake at Christmas, and this year they baked 99 1/2 DOZEN assorted cookies - most of which were given away or taken to holiday events. BTW - they baked those cookies in 1 LONG day. I learned a long time ago to just stay out of the way!
Cooking Influences
My own mother wasn't a great cook. But both of my grandmothers were, and they lived nearby. I didn't learn to cook from them, but as I got older I was inspired by what they had done. As the Thanksgiving table was cleared, the turkey carcass went into the stock pot. Potatoes were peeled, they didn't come from a box. Just like the cakes and cookies they regularly produced. And both made fantastic noodles in just a few minutes each time they needed them.
Recommendations
Favorite Cookbooks
- Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (Hertzberg and Francois)
- The recipes in this book are very easy to use. Even for a non-baker like myself.
Comments
- February 7, 2011Thanks for the vote of confidence, John - I don't cook "fancy", but I do enjoy sharing what I prepare with family and friends.
- February 7, 2011You sound like a really good cook, Greg, and one that I will enjoy following. I hope you'll share your creamy grits recipe...it sounds wonderful!
- February 5, 2011Fixing a full breakfast for a large group was pretty easy compared to fixing a full dinner. I used pre-cooked bacon, adding a sprinkle of brown sugar and black pepper before putting it in a 350 oven for 12 minutes. The sausages were also precooked, so just needed warmed up in the microwave before I put them in the warming drawer with the bacon. No one eats grits in Iowa, so I fixed creamy grits topped with cheese, chopped scallions, red/green peppers and tomato. No one could believe how easy they were to fix. Or how good they were. My wife handled poaching the eggs. We also fixed a wine cooler - equal parts of white grape juice and Moscato d'Asti instead of the typical mimosas. All in all - it was a fun and fairly easy morning.