Inspiration Cooking

Hopefully this episode doesn't make you too hungry. Today we are talking about a way of cooking that will set you up for easier dinner making for the rest of your life. We will also be giving several of our recipes for doubling food for those busy nights. We understand that doubling dinner off the top is a learned occupation. Enjoy!

Transcript

Ellyn (00:04.709)

Today, we are going to talk about inspiration cooking and our favorite meals to double. Inspiration cooking is a name that we just coined and I bet you've done it. Stick around and we'll explain. Guilty secret for me, not really so guilty because it makes my life easier. I don't really use recipes. How about you, Lauren?

Lauren (00:24.834)

Yeah, I definitely have in the past, but I don't really have time to now anymore. I wish I did because I feel like a lot of the time I cook the same things over and over again. I do like to spread out, but sometimes I just don't have time to think that much.

Ellyn (00:41.028)

Right.

Lauren (00:54.934)

A lot of the time I just make the same thing over and over again. And it's just all memorized stuff.

Ellyn (00:55.157)

Mm-hmm.

Ellyn (01:03.765)

Yep, and the same for me. If I do want to make something new, say I want to make curry. I’ve got to tell you a little story. Lauren makes the very best butter chicken I have ever had. Well, it was the first time I had ever had butter chicken when I had it at her house. And it is just so amazing. And so I decided I was going to learn to make curries, which butter chicken isn't exactly a curry, but I digress. So I went on the internet and I consulted, I don't know, 10 different recipes, and I picked my favorite parts from each one, and then I made it my own. I learned even when I was making something completely new to me that I'd never made before, I still didn't use a recipe. I just, I can't, it's like a mental breakdown for me. It is so boring to follow a recipe. And I look at a recipe and think, I can do that better. Even if I've never made it before, it's not right, but it is really a mental problem for me.

Lauren (02:16.886)

It’s not really call it a mental problem. It's more, I never have those exact ingredients from the recipe. So then what am I supposed to do? Make some kind of special trip to the store to get ingredients? And I know people do this, I'm sorry I'm making it sound like that's ridiculous, but for me it is. I remember a few years ago when I was talking to an acquaintance of mine about making cake. She said, “well I just always use cake mixes” and I said I would too if I had a cake mix at my house but I never do and I already have all the ingredients for making cake so why would I then go to the store and buy a mix when I had all the ingredients at home already? That's kind of what it is with the recipes for me too, is I, if I don't have it, then I will be putting in something else or just skipping that ingredient all together.

Ellyn (03:18.02)

right.

Ellyn (03:25.521)

Mm hmm. And as far as cooking and baking, baking is a little bit different. You kind of do need to follow a recipe when you're baking. But when you're talking about cooking, you don't generally need to follow a recipe quite so much. And this is like I said at the top, this is our new coined phrase. This is inspiration cooking. 

When you look at a recipe and think to yourself, well, gee, that's not enough garlic. And I almost always think that.

Lauren (03:58.551)

Or enough food. I have a family-sized thing of chicken out and the recipe calls for two chicken breasts. That isn’t what I have out and certainly wouldn’t be enough for my family.

Ellyn (04:12.037)

Right. I really like spinach. I'm going to put in the entire package of spinach instead of half the bag of spinach because it’s spinach, you can always use more spinach. You know, this is making your food your own. And it is how we learn to cook. It is how our parent, our mother taught us to cook.

Lauren (04:36.45)

Thanks, Mom.

Ellyn (04:40.693)

It makes your cooking just so much easier. You, you don't have to stress over not having an ingredient. You don't have to run out to the store because you don't have the kind of cheese that the recipe calls for. It calls for whatever sharp cheddar or mild cheddar or whatever. Uh, Monterey Jack, I don't have any Monterey Jack. Well, then you can use sharp cheddar or mild cheddar or whatever cheddar you want.

And so it just makes your cooking easier. And I feel it makes your cooking more your own. This is inspiration cooking. You can adjust it. You can omit ingredients. You don't like onions. Lauren is not a big fan of onions. 

Lauren (05:24.906)

I like them cooked. All the way. Some times a recipe will call for the onions to only be cooked for a few minutes and then the dish is done, that will never be me I need them cooked longer if I’m going to enjoy the food. I would put them in closer to the beginning because I know I don't like them like that. And my, I mean, I wish I could say my people don't either. My husband doesn't like them crunchy, but my kids are like, give us the raw onions. They're so weird.

Ellyn (06:04.102)

They are some strange children. Which child likes raw onion? Yours, yours do.

Lauren (06:09.29)

I don't know, but whenever I'm cutting them up, they always come over and ask for some off the cutting board. The three of them. This is not some kind of isolated incident where they asked and then never came back. No. They come back and ask for more raw onions. It's really quite bizarre. But anyway, you don't have to follow the rules of a recipe. All you have to do is make it the way that you like it.

Lauren (06:39.546)

And that's the, that's inspiration cooking. That's what we hope to help you learn how to do.

Ellyn (06:39.939)

Right.

Ellyn (06:47.797)

Yes, definitely. So if, for example, you're making meatloaf and maybe you are following a recipe, maybe you just know what's in meatloaf. If I'm making meatloaf, I just kind of know what's in it. And so I just add all those ingredients, mix them up and there's my meatloaf. But say I got halfway through it and realized, oh, I don't have any, I don't know, ketchup or better yet, bread crumbs. I don't have any bread crumbs. And you must have bread crumbs in your meatloaf, but you don't have to actually. You can put in pork rinds, make an excellent substitute for bread crumbs, or you can use Parmesan cheese. You can actually cut up slices of bread and put that in there. There are a lot of good substitutes to use instead of bread crumbs.

Or maybe you just want to get a little spicy tonight and decide to go in a different direction with your meatloaf. You can always make a sweet maple glaze for the top of it. You really don't need a recipe for that. Little maple syrup, little balsamic vinegar. Reduce that down in a pan, pour it over the top. Delicious. Or you could even do a spicy meatloaf with a Mexican flair and use the more Mexican flavors in it. Even with a simple meatloaf, there are a ton of different directions that you can go with on the fly and you don't really need a recipe for it.Again, this is inspiration cooking and we highly encourage our listeners to try it out. If you are an avid recipe follower, just try it on a side dish. Maybe you

Lauren (08:45.186)

Oh yeah, great idea. And you can always just throw that out before dinner if it didn't work out.

Ellyn (08:52.125)

if it didn't work, but I mean, it's going to because you’ll be tasting as you go. Use a small spoon and take a taste every now and then. Make sure that it's seasoned properly, that it has the proper flavor profile that you're looking for. Our mother,

Lauren (09:02.798)

Mm-hmm.

Ellyn (09:21.065)

we're big on our mother's cooking, she likes to keep tasting spoons at the back of her counter. And I don't know why I don't do it. I should, I usually just go get one out of the drawer. But you do, when you're doing cooking like this, you do need to taste it a little bit more to make sure that you are seasoning it properly. And that you are getting the flavor profile that you're looking for. But even following a recipe, especially if it's a new recipe, you're gonna wanna do that too because you're following somebody else's directions and you wanna make sure that their directions are what you want to eat. 

Lauren (10:02.958)

Not everyone on the internet knows what they are doing when it comes to recipes. Maybe they have a good idea, but the ability to write down the recipe wasn’t there. So check up on them and give it a taste sometimes.

Lauren (10:16.674)

So my method of cooking, on nights when we're not too busy, is just get out a meat in the morning to thaw and by evening I have an idea of what I want to do with it. So you know, I go to the store every week, I buy vegetables that I know the whole family likes and I will make the meat and some method such as if I got out hamburger I can make any one of a thousand things with it. You really have a lot of options when it comes to what you're going to make with pretty much anything that you get out. Like if you get out chicken, I mean, you can make a lot of things with that. You just need to make sure and have some veggies that your family likes and rice and noodles. That's my theory of cooking.

Ellyn (11:06.749)

Mm-hmm.

Ellyn (11:16.203)

We're big on rice and noodles. Very good way to bulk up a meal.

Lauren (11:16.534)

It sure is. If you're feeding a lot of people, it's kind of the way to go. So you do have to be careful not to waste food like this. So you get out of meat in the morning and by evening, you know, after you've done all the millions of things that you do every single day, you're tired and get pizza instead. That gives you one more day to think up something for that meat. You know, obviously put it in the fridge,

Ellyn (11:26.402)

Mm-hmm.

Lauren (11:49.806)

you do have to be a little bit careful not to let it go to waste. And the other thing is, this method does not work on days when you have activities. It's kind of a rush around and just get it done method. And on activity nights, you may not have time for that. So that brings us to the second half of this episode. Hello and welcome to the second half of this episode.

Ellyn (12:19.665)

You're funny.

Lauren (12:19.806)

Well, I try. Well, I do work on it. So we, uh...

Lauren (12:33.27)

We double recipes very often to get a second batch of stuff, on busy night all we have to do is heat it up.

Ellyn (12:49.933)

You need to think a little ahead with the idea. On a night when things aren’t too busy you make a lot of food so when things are more busy all you have to do is heat up food from the first time you cooked.

Lauren (13:09.09)

I said such truth.

Ellyn (13:15.662)

You'll want to be getting out, say, double the meat on your not busy nights. So if you're making, again, I'm going to use my meatloaf example. If you are making meatloaf tonight and you know on Thursday you're going to have a really busy night and you're just going to eat that meatloaf a second night, on that night also, you're going to want to get out twice as many ingredients for tonight's meal so that you don't have to think about food on Thursday night. We have a couple of meals that we really like to double. But before we get to that, we did want to talk a little bit about a few things that you're going to need to get.

so that you have dishes large enough to make these big meals. If you have a big family, and Lauren and I each have five members in our family, she's not there yet with teenagers, but I am, and they eat a lot of food. You'll get there, Lauren. You'll have all three of yours be teens at the same time. These dishes that we're talking about today may not be big enough for your family.

Lauren (14:26.47)

Yay. It's so exciting.

Lauren (14:35.698)

I know some of our listeners have more children than we do, my experience is I bought what seemed  like ridiculously sized pans for even for a family of five. It seemed enormous because of the doubling, I love to double because whenever you double a meal, it means there's some other night in the week you're not cooking. I do it as often as I can. And the first thing you're going to need is giant pans and baking dishes.

Ellyn (15:33.261)

If you have, and Lauren is very blessed to have one near her, a restaurant supply store near you, I highly recommend seeking it out and shopping there for your oversized dishes. You can buy some pretty big stuff at Walmart or in other Amazon, but restaurant supply stores tend to have big stuff, really high quality. You may not have the beautiful rolled edges and stuff. It might not be as soft and pretty as the more expensive stuff, but.

Lauren (16:14.658)

High quality as in it'll last. It'll last until your teenagers move out. In fact, I mean, they're made out of stainless steel. These pans are going to last the rest of your life. They may not be beautiful, but they will be more than serviceable.

Ellyn (16:17.801)

Exactly.

Ellyn (16:31.717)

Mm-hmm. And not really expensive. I am so impressed every time I go to the restaurant supply store, how inexpensive it is for, decent quality, and stuff. My biggest baking dish is an 11 by 16. And sometimes I use that in my 9 by 13 too sometimes the 9 to 16 doesn't hold as much as I need it to.

Lauren (17:05.63)

A lot of the time when I'm doing it with a baking dish, I'll actually make one and cook it right then and make another one and put it in the freezer. I don't even cook it. I just take it out in the morning of the day I want to make it for dinner. You do have to take it out several hours before you go to cook it. But if you take it out in the morning, it'll be thawed and ready to go into the oven that evening. Still pretty easy.

Ellyn (17:29.161)

And you had a really good idea about freezing meals.

Lauren (17:33.702)

in the shape of the container that you wish to cook it in.

Ellyn (17:36.421)

It... Yes, that's brilliant. 

Lauren (17:40.79)

Whenever, and it took me a while to figure this out. Whenever I froze chili or soup in a bag, because that's almost just what I did it in, was a big Ziploc bag, it was a square. And I don't know about you guys, but I actually don't have any pots that are shaped like a square. They're all circles, it's weird.

Lauren (18:06.206)

I learned that if you just take that same Ziploc bag and put it into the pan that you want to cook it in and then in the freezer, it will then be frozen in the shape of the pan.

Ellyn (18:22.181)

Brilliant. That is so smart. To me, that's just an awesome idea. And one I hadn't thought of. I was glad that you shared that with me. I actually just bought a new soup pot because my nine quart soup pot wasn't large enough. And it...it had something go wrong with it too, but it wasn't big enough. I could get about a meal and three quarters in it for my family. And it just wasn't quite there. So I ended up buying a 12 quart to go along with my ridiculous. It's actually my canner, but I have used it for soup. My 20 quart soup pot.

Lauren (18:57.654)

Mm-hmm.

Ellyn (19:14.529)

I have used that for, if we're having two, other families over, I've used my 20 quart to make soup in too. But for just our family, we go for the 12 quart.

Lauren (19:25.63)

It does seem a little bit ridiculous when you're standing over this giant pot. I feel like I should be saying, bubble boil and trouble. Oh, I'm stirring. And you have to get special spoons too that reach all the way down to the bottom of the pan.

Ellyn (19:44.18)

It feels ridiculous, but on the night that you're not cooking, you will be so happy.

Lauren (19:50.482)

Yeah, and you cook your food in a much smaller pan.

Ellyn (19:54.954)

And then another thing you're going to need are large storage containers for the fridge. If you are not going to freeze whatever it is you're cooking and you're just having it later that week, obviously you're going to need some sort of large vessel to store it in the fridge.

Lauren (20:14.61)

And we can include some links on our website to containers that we really like. I do like to store things that were just on the stove in glass. So I have my favorite giant glass containers. If you don't mind storing things in plastic, obviously it's a little bit cheaper to buy those and you can usually just buy them at the grocery store.

Ellyn (20:43.077)

And another good thing to store them in is half gallon mason jars. They don't take up their glass and they also don't take up a sponge room in your fridge. They stand up. So if you're making a big batch of soup, you might need two half gallon mason jars or a half gallon in a quart, maybe. But I I'm a big advocate for just having around lots of canning jars anyway. You know, I do a lot of canning.

Lauren (20:49.239)

Oh, yeah.

Ellyn (21:11.877)

and they're just handy to store things in. They just don't take up as much room in your fridge. I'm a big fan.

Lauren (21:19.662)

I mean, they take up this room, but instead of going out, they go up. It's always nice to have. Canning jars around, and we can include a link for canning jars too.

Ellyn (21:25.378)

Right.

Ellyn (21:30.425)

Definitely.

Ellyn (21:34.433)

Yes. And if you're storing things in your fridge, prepare to defend your leftovers.

Lauren (21:45.623)

If it was something good, and I mean, let's just face it, if you made it, of course it was, especially with teenagers, I had to defend them against my husband, my children are still too little to just go into the fridge and get themselves food. I mean, they'll get a sandwich, but they don't ever get leftovers and heat it up and eat that. Not yet. I'm not there yet.

Ellyn (22:05.295)

Ha!

Ellyn (22:12.181)

Not yet. The time is coming. I have special, brightly colored sticky notes that I write no on top of my containers that they aren't allowed to eat. And that's enough. They still respect the sticky note. I don't have to beat them with bats or anything, right now. I mean, in the past I have. That's why they respect the sticky note.

Lauren (22:14.865)

I know. Right. Alright. It's so hard to resist the really yummy leftovers.

Ellyn (22:44.413)

It is for me too. I mean, I'm not going to lie. I, I see it in there and I'm like, well, if I just have a little bit for lunch, is that still be enough? And for dinner, right?

Lauren (22:46.644)

Yeah.

Lauren (22:54.702)

Yeah. And then I wouldn't have to make anything. That's the real selling point of leftovers.

Ellyn (23:00.718)

Hahaha

That's right. So the struggle is real. I totally get wanting to eat the yummy leftovers. It's rough. But if you made enough, you have enough for another dinner and a lunch after that.

Lauren (23:19.646)

Yep, it's true. Especially if you stop people from having seconds the first time through. I have taken to dishing out all the food for the whole family and then making the like leftover container as well. And then if there's anything left then you can have some. But if there's not, you're just everyone's just out of luck. If you're still hungry you can have a cookie.

Ellyn (23:25.365)

It's true. 

Ellyn (23:49.866)

My family's least favorite phrase is, we're having this for another meal. I get such groans of, oh mom. But I tell them right at the beginning of the first helping. So enjoy it, because this is all you're getting.

Lauren (24:09.582)

I feel like that's more than enough! So some of the things that we like to double. Now these recipes are all going to be on our website. It can be a little daunting to figure out exactly how much is double your usual recipes. These aren't these aren't abnormal recipes. They're kind of things that a lot of people make all the time. But doubled?

actual doubled with the seasoning and everything, it can be a little bit difficult to manage right at first. So we thought we'd include some of our favorites with the proper amounts.

Ellyn (24:52.341)

and understand that we're each feeding families of five. So if you have a family of three, you might get three meals out of it. If you have a family of seven, you might need to scale up even a little bit more than we did, which I mean, we're in all of the things that we, almost all the things that we're including are somewhat carb heavy. So you can add another pound of meat and another round of carbs and it should scale up pretty easy. So one of our favorites, of course everybody's favorite, is spaghetti and meat sauce. You've got to love your spaghetti and meat sauce.

Lauren (25:28.203)

Yeah.

Lauren (25:40.586)

This also freezes beautifully. Actually, I don't think we're going to mention a single thing that doesn't freeze beautifully. So if you, like, if you know that you're going out of town and when you come back, you'd like to have a meal, this is all of these will work for that to just stick in the freezer.

Ellyn (25:50.794)

Mm-hmm.

Ellyn (26:03.905)

Yep. And obviously not the spaghetti part of that, but the meat sauce. So you would have to make your spaghetti probably fresh. At least that's what I do. Is that what you do too, Lauren?

Lauren (26:13.758)

Yeah, the spaghetti never lasts. I don't have a secondary pan big enough to make enough spaghetti for two meals.

Ellyn (26:24.773)

Mm-hmm. And I don't really either. Our next meal is Korean beef. And this was a discovery of just a couple of years ago. And if you've not made it, this is just delicious. Little spicy, little sweet, super yummy. And you can bulk this up with really whatever vegetable you have on hand.

Wonderful. This is a good example of inspiration cooking. If you have cabbage, broccoli, beans, I made it with beans the other night from the garden. It was delicious. So good.

Lauren (27:00.83)

I've even put carrots in it, like shredded carrot and zucchini. Oh, it's really good with zucchini. Anyway, moving right along.

Ellyn (27:06.885)

That one's really easy to just go wild with because all the flavors match and just go really well with it. It's so good.

Ellyn (27:24.489)

Next up we have tacos.

Lauren (27:24.386)

Tacos or Mexican food, it doesn't have to be tacos. I make tacos or burritos or nachos. Nachos is a family favorite.

Ellyn (27:42.077)

enchiladas. You can have tacos the first night and then the next night you get bored and you might have enchiladas with it or you might have burritos with it or Lauren's favorite nachos with it. So it's a really versatile starting place that you can do tons of different things with. Next up is meatloaf and we talked about meatloaf quite a lot at the top so we won't

Ellyn (28:09.973)

expand upon that a whole lot. But again, this recipe will be on the website. This is another family favorite.

Lauren (28:18.374)

Seasoned chicken thighs are a good one. I like to buy an entire package of chicken thighs and

Ellyn (28:31.437)

bone in chicken thighs, right?

Lauren (28:33.03)

Yep, yep, and season them in the oven. And I do have an eye to what I'm going to make next, because that will affect what seasoning I use. If I'm going to make fajitas with it the next time, I put on something a little bit more spicy. So that the chicken will go with the fajitas. But the first night you're just having slightly spicy chicken with rice and vegetables or whatever. This is a really great one in winter. It takes a little time to cook the thighs and you kind of cook them at a high temperature and you get that really nice crispy skin on top and the seasoning is, I don't know, it's just very warm and inviting, you know, and you can make anything that you want to go with the thighs and then use the remaining thighs for something else later in the week. I mentioned fajitas and another option is soup. I don't know. What else do you make?

Ellyn (30:26.625)

I like to make a Mexican rice, a spicy rice with cheese on top with leftover chicken thighs.

Lauren (30:31.844)

Oh yeah, yeah.

Lauren (30:36.827)

Mm-hmm. It just is so much faster once the meat is already cooked. All you have to do is make rice and add seasoning, put cheese on top, and you're done. 

Ellyn (30:46.837)

Right. And there's so many recipes online and here I am like talking about recipes, but there's so many recipes online that starts with start with two cups of cooked chicken. This is a good place to get that two cups of cooked chicken. You can, just do a recipe earlier in the week with your chicken thighs or just make something earlier in the week with your chicken thighs and then you have just cooked chicken, you can do anything with it. 

Ellyn (31:14.521)

chili and soup. Super easy to just make large portions of these two dishes and then eat it later in the week. And then if you actually, for us, if we have extra chili left after that second meal, we'll turn that around one more time and make chili dogs with it, which is just the best. So good. It's such a treat. Delicious.

Lauren (31:41.77)

You're fun! I think that's a brilliant plan.

Ellyn (31:45.829)

And it's homemade chili on your hot dog. It's so good, it really is good. And then there's this couple of things that me personally, I like to have on hand just frozen in the freezer. I will take a few pounds of meatball or a few pounds of beef and make meatballs and freeze them individually on a sheet pan, transfer them to a big Ziploc bag, and then I have frozen meatballs. And they, I mean, there's a hundred things frozen meatballs can do. Meatball subs, you can make spaghetti and meatballs, you can make a smothered meatball, just so many things you can do with meatballs. That's one thing that I'll make once every few months, and then just have raw frozen meatballs in the freezer. And that makes your life easier. I like to have marinated chicken for, you know, I'm just pulling out. Go ahead.

Lauren (32:45.277)

Yep.

Lauren (32:48.862)

And in fact, marinated anything in the freezer, is a fabulous idea, even though it’s frozen, it is still doing stuff. And as it thaws out, the marinade is more able to really get in there. it is so much better than just marinating for a day.

Ellyn (33:17.545)

It's true. And we actually just had marinated chicken that had been in the freezer for a couple of months for dinner tonight. And it was delicious. Throw it on the grill, easy meal. It was so good.

Lauren (33:26.624)

Yeah.

Lauren (33:31.638)

Yep. Now I certainly won't hold it against anyone to keep some frozen things in the freezer, obviously, that are lazy.. Lazy is a good word. Yes, lazy food. I love lazy food. It tastes amazing and it's so easy.

Ellyn (33:48.581)

lazy foods.

Ellyn (33:52.938)

Me too!

Lauren (33:55.506)

like hot dogs! I think we've talked about this before, but I'm sure we will again, because as you all know, hot dogs are one of my favorite things.

Ellyn (33:59.659)

Uh, yeah.

Ellyn (34:06.724)

And it really goes well with that chili from above. So you pull out your little bit of leftover frozen chili and some hot dogs and you've got dinner.

Lauren (34:11.386)

Exactly.

Lauren (34:17.13)

Yep. So we will have all of these recipes that we mentioned for the doubling on our website.

Lauren (34:29.934)

for you guys to look at by, I mean, you should be able to see them now.

Ellyn (34:36.853)

Yes, they, we hope to have them, they will go up with the episode. So they, they should be available immediately. So go check those out.

Lauren (34:47.798)

Well, we hope we've given you some things to think about. Inspiration cooking makes food so much more interesting. You never really make the same dish twice. It makes cooking more inventive. Give it a try and let us know what you think. Until next time.