ARTS & CULTURE
14 Obiter Dicta
Jurisfoodence at Home
A plea and a recipe
benjamin hognestad › staff writer
I
couldn’t possibly overstate the benefits of
home cooking. It’s way less expensive, often
healthier, and produces little to no garbage in
comparison to eating out. It can (and should) be
tastier, and more interesting as well. It’s pretty much
better in every way. But of course, everybody knows
these things…
And yet, it seems like people are cooking fewer
and fewer of their meals these days. With a heavy
workload, we justify eating out because it feels like
our time is better spent either working or properly
relaxing. It’s so easy to fall into the habit of hitting
up Starbucks or Timmy’s for breakfast, or grabbing
some takeout for lunch or dinner. I have no statistics,
but I’d wager a good number of us end up consuming one meal per day that we didn’t make ourselves.
I’m no saint. I too have fallen into the takeout trap for
longer periods than I’d care to admit. Grocery shopping, preparing meals, and doing dishes all take up
valuable time.
But I’m here bearing a message of hope. For there
is a magical duo of kitchen implements—a prodigious pair of instruments so powerful—that will let
you eat like a king/queen on a peasant’s budget and
still have time for Game of Thrones. This incredible combination is none other than the humble slow
cooker and the common freezer. Many of us possess
both already. If not, old slow cookers are easily procured from a local thrift store. I have to admit that I
also have the advantage of an apartment sized deepfreeze. I bought it on craigslist last year when I found
the tiny little one on top of my apartment fridge was
filling up. It was probably the best purchase I made all
year. The guy dropped it off right at my door for $160.
It’s a small investment in the name of cheap, delicious
and earth-friendly eating.
The list of things that a person can freeze successfully for later consumption is substantial. Bigger
than most people think, I’d wager… But for the time
being I’ll just focus on one meal in particular: curry
and rice. Both are easy to make in large quantities,
and both freeze excellently. (To be honest, I’ve only
ever frozen brown rice, but I can say that it stands up
very well). I tend to freeze stuff in old yogurt and sour
cream containers. Then both the rice and curry get
defrosted in the microwave and dinner is ready with
practically no work.
Here is a lovely recipe I stumbled upon a little
while ago while looking for Indian recipes. It’s called
Rajmah. It’s a north Indian dish of spiced red kidney
beans. It’s, quite simply, mind-blowing. This is a
slight adaptation of a recipe that found the recipe on
food.com. The blurb that goes with it totally captured
my interest…