Recipe Tips for Tiny Kitchen Cooking

Katie Butterfield recently graduated from UC Merced with a degree in political science. While finishing her degree, she discovered her passion for sustainability. She also loves food! These two passions led her to create her own blog about the food movement. Her goal is to educate people about the problems in our current food system and give examples of how to make it more sustainable- check out her awesome recipe tips! 

I learned to cook in a large kitchen with ample counter space, multiple ovens, and perhaps the largest, fully stocked pantry you've ever seen.  When I went to college, this changed dramatically.  First I lived in the dorms, then in a house with six people sharing a kitchen.  Now my husband and I live in an apartment with a limited kitchen. 

We have found that the best way to make cooking dinner easy is to perfect the base meal that we cook. By base meal I mean that one dish that we make whenever we just can't think of anything else to cook.  Changing our base meal to fresh vegetables and rice was not only beneficial for the size of our kitchen, it was also a step toward eating more sustainably.  We found that it is simple and quick to make and turns out a little different every time because we use different vegetables and sauces.

 Rice and Veggies:

• Cook some rice (we use about ½ Cup of dry rice per person).  Follow the directions that came with your rice to make sure that it cooks properly.  Different types of rice have different cooking times. We use a rice cooker because we make this meal so often. 

• Next chop up your vegetables and sauté them in a pan with a little oil and a pinch of salt.

•  Serve vegetables over rice with salt, soy sauce, or other sauce. 

Often we eat this with cheese sauce.  Changing the sauce is another way to make this simple meal different every time.  My husband and I both love peanut butter, so we have created a peanut butter cheese sauce.  If you'd like to get creative with this meal and you like peanut butter, here is the recipe. 

Peanut Butter Cheese Sauce:

1/2 Cup peanut butter

1/2 Cup warm water

pinch of salt

hot sauce to taste (optional)

1 Tbl. Honey (optional)

3 thick slices of cheese (we like cheddar best), cut into small cubes

• In a bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, water, salt, hot sauce, and honey.

• Once fully combined, the mixture should be smooth.  Transfer to a small pot and place on medium high heat on the stovetop.  Once the mixture is simmering, mix in the cheese, stirring constantly. 

• When all of the cheese is melted, pour this sauce over your rice and veggies and enjoy!

I don't know too many people who have been brave enough to try this, so if you are one of them, don't worry! You can make this with out the cheese and have a nice Asian-style peanut sauce.  Or make your own wacky sauce, or normal sauce if you prefer.  It is important that you cook food that you like the taste of so that you want to keep cooking- no reason living in a tiny house should make this difficult! Get creative and find something that you love! 

Meals on Wheels: "Camping Spaghetti Sauce"

Therese Ambrosi Smith is a writer- check out her work here. She spent four months constructing a modified Tumbleweed for use as a mobile writer’s studio. She loves cooking and eating as much as she loves writing and building things. One example of a recipe she's cooked in her tiny kitchen - that her guests have loved - is wild rice and mushroom soup. Her regular contribution to this blog, “Meals on Wheels," addresses the challenges and rewards of working in a tiny kitchen. 

I love to invite people to dinner -- I like cooking and eating -- but I also enjoy sharing our tiny house.  Folks with thousands of square feet marvel at the comfort possible in our  286 sq ft home, carved from a single car garage. With leaves in the table, we handily host gourmet meals for eight.

Recently we downsized our office, building a new space based on a Tumbleweed design.  We work efficiently in the 84 sq ft trailer. As an author, I’m trilled to have my workspace double as a mobile retreat and guest cottage.  An inflatable bed and RV toilet are employed when we need to house visitors.

We made the decision to rent the “main” house for income when I decided to live more creatively.  The journey began with shedding a mind-numbing job and the trappings it provided. Designing a functional living space was task one.

Everyone who decides to downsize -  and designs his own house - goes through the very healthy exercise of defining what’s important. We determined that our most used room was the kitchen - and we used it for non-eating activity too -- from conversation to crafts.  The table was central to our plan. 

We spent as much time planning the space as building it.  Everything we thought we’d need was measured and plotted on graph paper before the first board was cut.  The garage conversion took four months of weekend work and now, after four and a half years --  and a novel and a half  -- I think it was the smartest thing we’ve ever done.

Living small became fodder for fiction.  My first novel “Wax” was about young women coming of age in the shipyards during WWII.  If you’re familiar with the history, housing was in very short supply in war industry towns.  Parking Lot C, in the Kaiser shipyards, became a village of Airstream trailers for the duration.

When “Wax” was nearly ready to print, I was asked to provide two pages of filler. The printer’s final page “signature” is produced in multiples of eight, so my 334 page book was a little short. What would be worth printing?  (Clue: the women are eating spaghetti in two important scenes.)  Sylvia’s Famous Spaghetti Sauce Recipe (As adapted for the two-burner propane stove in Airstream No. 28).

Back home in Kansas City, Sylvia would spend all day on a rich meat sauce starting with garlic and olive oil and cubes of pork and beef shoulder, seared at 475 degrees for half an hour. She’d transfer the meat to a big stock pot with two quarts of broth, veal bones and vegetables. A long, slow simmer in the broth would tenderize the tough but flavorful cuts of meat, and to the whole she would add tomatoes and the remaining seasonings. The sauce would then simmer for another six hours until the meat fell apart. Everyone she treated to a serving of her Famous Spaghetti Sauce said it was the best ever.

She refined her technique — using ground beef — so she could make “Camping Spaghetti Sauce”. In her tiny Airstream trailer, with few cooking utensils, Sylvia did her best to recreate a favorite meal for her friends.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp unsalted butter

2 Tbsp minced garlic

2 Tbsp minced onion

¼ cup minced carrots

¼ cup minced celery

¾ lb ground meat – can be pork and beef mixed

3 cloves

1 C whole milk

2 C dry white wine

1 28 oz can whole tomatoes packed in juice

1 Tbsp oregano – fresh, minced

one more tablespoon minced garlic

salt to taste

Melt the butter in a sauce pan over a very low flame and add two tablespoons garlic. Simmer the garlic very slowly until tender. The more slowly it cooks, the sweeter it will be.

Add the carrots, onion and celery and sauté until the onions are soft. Do not brown. Add the cloves.

Add the ground meat and stir to heat evenly for about three minutes, until the meat is gray but not browned.

Add the milk and allow it to simmer until evaporated, about twelve minutes; follow with the wine. When the wine has evaporated, add the tomatoes with liquid and the oregano. Allow the sauce to simmer on the lowest possible flame, for three more hours. Thirty minutes before it’s finished, add the final tablespoon of minced garlic. Add salt if desired.

4 Servings  Enjoy!

“The time went by so quickly; we never had a chance to make plans,” Doris said. “When the ships on the line are launched we’ll be sent home too.”

“Now come on girls,” Sylvia said. “This is our last night together in The Land of C. Let’s have a little more optimism. We’ll be at peace soon.” She adjusted the seasonings and gave the sauce a final stir. Her red hair color was starting to fade. “All those love-starved men will be returning to wine and dine you marriage-age treasures. Life will be good,” Sylvia said. She looked at Tilly.

Tilly winced.