Meghan Carle - Teens Cook: How to Cook What You Want to Eat

Copyright 2004 by Megan, Jill, and Judi Carle
Photography 2004 by Jessica Boone

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with publisher

eISBN: 978-1-60774-123-7

Cover and book design by Toni Tajima
Food photography and prop styling by Jessica Boone, Los Angeles
Food styling by Susan Draudt, Los Angeles

v3.1

This book is for the one person who matters the most: Mumsernoonernutter, the Mumsinator, the Mumster, the big Mum, or, as everyone else knows her, Judi Carle, our mom. Although she probably thinks that we dont realize how much she does for us (and believe us, its a lot) we really do appreciate all her work. Besides washing the dishes and cleaning up after we destroy the kitchen, she is really the brain behind this whole operation (we just stand there and look pretty). Whether its going to debate practices or cutting up thirty-five pounds of cheese for a choir dinner, she supports us in everything we do. We know that sometimes were a little tough to put up with, so merely living with us is a feat in itself. Mumsernut, youre our hero and well always love you.

Many people deserve our very sincere thanks for their help with this book:

Lorena Jones, for believing that two teenagers could actually put together a book worth publishing.

Toni Tajima, for listening to all of our scattered thoughts about design and turning them into so much more than we had imagined.

Photographer Jessica Boone and stylist Susan Draudt, for making our food look great, making the photo shoot really fun, and never complaining about the loud music or our singing.

Yvonne Govea, for the countless hours she spent chopping, cooking, and cleaning up after us. (We are particularly grateful for the cleaning up.)

Kristin Rill, Kelly and Kevin Jackson, Paul and Jimmy Casperson, and Tommy Franks, whose input as our teenage recipe testers was invaluable.

And, last, but certainly not least, our Dad, whose years of eating undercooked cakes, gloppy sauces, and blue mashed potatoes without complaint typifies his unwaivering support for everything we do.

We began helping in the kitchen when we each turned three years old. Were sure that, at that age, we were more of a hindrance than help, but because our mom thought cooking was a good learning tool, she tolerated all of the mess that we made. Of course, we didnt care about any of that learning stuff, we just thought it was fun, and we still do.

We learned to cook through trial and many, many errors. We cant tell you how many times we have dropped eggs on the floor, coated the kitchen in flour, or boiled things over on the stove. Once Megan even got her head too close to the electric mixer and it yanked out a quarter-size chunk of hair. (She was the only kid in preschool with a comb-over.) The point is, if there is a mistake that could be made, we have made it. But, as our mom always says, mistakes are the best teachers. Through those mistakes we have learned what works and definitely what doesnt.

Our goal in cooking has always been to prepare what we like to eat in the easiest possible way. We take shortcuts that would probably give a chef hives. We get bored just thinking about making stock from scratch. Why do all that work when someone else has already done it? Also, we dont do bones. We only buy boneless chicken and meats. We tell people this is because we are reinforcing the economy by keeping butchers employed, but no one believes us. The truth is, cutting raw meat off the bones gives us the creeps.

We included a variety of our favorite recipes in this book. These recipes have been adapted to our tastes, but feel free to adjust them to yours. We wont be offended. Its what we did. The beauty of cooking is that you can make things exactly the way you like them. Sometimes its as simple as switching out foods you dont like. We have found that vegetables are pretty much interchangeable, vegetable stock can always be substituted for chicken stock, and one herb will work as well as another. Once you get the hang of it, you wont have to think twice about it. This is particularly useful for vegetarians, like Megan, who almost always require substitutions.

If you are just learning to cook, you may want to follow a recipe at least once, and when you are comfortable with it you can start to change things to your tastes. Even if it doesnt turn out exactly the way you planned, it will probably still taste good. Dont let mistakes stop you from trying again; we make them all the time. Just recently Megan made some pumpkin bread to take to work. Her coworkers loved it and several asked for the recipe. Only later did she realize that instead of using ginger she had inadvertently grabbed the hot mustard powder. The only problem then was whether to give them the recipe with the ginger or the hot mustard.

Many of these recipes started as a mission to re-create something we had in a restaurant. This can be a little more challenging than just adapting a recipe, but the reward comes when you get it right. When we are trying to re-create a dish, we start with recipes for similar dishes. We look at them and decide what the similarities and differences are between the recipes and the dish we are trying to create, and then from there, decide which direction we want to go in first. Seldom do we get it right on the first try, but the process is still fun. Sometimes they are easy, like the took several months of eating pancakes every weekend to perfect. We tried three different recipes for the pancake part before we got it right and then went through at least a dozen versions of when to add the apples, how many to use, and whether we should use white or brown sugar before we were happy with the result. It was like a puzzle that drove us crazy until we figured it out.

At best, this book will teach you some of the basics of cooking and inspire you to explore even further to develop your own personal style. At worst, youll learn that, without all the cooking lingo, its not hard to make some great dishes, and thats not bad either.