[nabs-l] cooking questions

Fri Jun 4 12:17:20 UTC 2010

hi kerrie and all,
i am in the same situation as kerrie and just moved to my apartment and 
don't know how to use stove specially gass stove. do you have any tips? i am 
very nervous because i am an international student and no one in my family 
let me use any stove or oven at all and now i am here and have no idea how 
to use oven and gass stove. i am international and might not have resources 
to attend the  training as well, so any help will be much appreciated. 
please send me some good recipies as well as i am starting from  scratch.
i can not have pork, beef and turkey but i would highly appreciate any help.
you can write me off list if you like at:
haltaf at carrollu.edu
hina.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark J. Cadigan" <kramc11 at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 6:54 AM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] cooking questions

I label my appliances with a combination of bump dots and stick on Braille
labels. Once you determine a system that works for you the first part of
your problem is solved. I am by no means a 5 star chef, but I can make
various things on the stove, but as it was pointed out earlier the oven is a
lot easier. Probably the easiest thing to cook on the stove is anything you
just put in a pot and boiled, EG soups and hard boiled eggs. If you learn to
use the oven, that will allow you to expand your options tremendously. I
always have to ask someone to read the instructions, but if I will be making
it again, I just write the instructions down in my recipes folder on my
computer. Make certen you have a good pair of oven gloves, or even welder's
gloves when you start cooking.

If there is a Trader Joe's around where you are, a lot of there meals just
require being warmed up in the oven. That might be easiest for you at first.

Doing things such as browning hamburger just require a frying pan and a
spatula. Once you know how to use the stove, it is just a simple matter of
moving the hamburger around in the pan so that it doesn't stick, and get's
cooked on all sides. Once you get that basic technique, cooking sausages,
scrambled eggs, hotdogs, and home fries among other things is quite similar.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ignasi Cambra" <ignasicambra at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list"
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 3:16 AM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] cooking questions

> There are actually many things that you can make in the oven. Actually
> pretty much anything can be made in the oven :) and I personally like it
> better than using the stove, just because it's not nearly as messy and it
> doesn't make the kitchen smell or anything... I have a few pans that I use
> for cooking in the oven. Some are bigger than others, and depending on
> what I'm making I just choose one of them. I bought one of those big oven
> gloves that basically cover your hand and part of your lower arm. It's
> rather hard to get burned with one of those lol... For most things, it's a
> matter of putting whatever you want to cook into the pan, sometimes a
> little bit of oil depending on what it is, salt and pepper...and then put
> the pan into the oven. You need to know how much time you need to cook
> whatever you're making and yes, finding someone to label your oven would
> be a good idea. But given that you're in college, finding a friend to do
> that for you shouldn't be too hard... With one of these gloves that I'm
> telling you about, removing the pan from the oven is really safe.
> So basically, you might need a little bit of training to use the stove,
> but you should really be able to work with an oven...
> On Jun 4, 2010, at 1:28 AM, Kerri Kosten wrote:
>
>> Hi All!!
>>
>> I hope these questions are not off-topic for this list. I understand
>> there is  a blind cooks list, but since I am a 22-year-old college
>> student I wanted to get some answers from other students.
>>
>> I know very little about cooking. My parents refuse to teach me how to
>> do anything with the stove (I'm talking about the stove, not oven) and
>> think I should make everything in either the microwave, or George
>> Foreman grill.
>>
>> I live in an area where the closest NFB chapter is an hour away so I
>> don't really have any other blind people that can come over to help
>> me.
>>
>> I can make a few things, mainly chicken (just put a boneless chicken
>> breast on the George Foreman grill), tacos (I cook the hamburger in
>> the Microwave, make the taco sauce in the microwave, and use hard taco
>> shells), sloppy joes (same thing, cook the hamburger in the microwave
>> and add the sloppy joe sauce), and steaks (George Foreman grill.)
>>
>> I can also use the toaster for fixing waffles, and strudles.
>>
>> I can fix hotdogs and pancakes in the microwave.
>>
>> As you can see, this is very limiting and gets old after a while. I
>> would like to learn how to fix other things but don't know how without
>> a blind person teaching me.
>>
>> Two things I'd like to do in particular are learning how to brown
>> hamburger properly on the stove, and fixing eggs but I am afraid to
>> just begin messing with the stove because without it being labeled
>> properly and not knowing what I'm doing I could easily start a fire.
>>
>> For the oven, I use one of those small small toaster ovens. It has a
>> dial and I put dots beside the knob to tell the temperature but since
>> the dots are just dots I often can't tell which temperature I am
>> actually setting the oven to. I have my own apartment and it has one
>> of those huge ovens but my parents won't allow me to label it. It's
>> electric, not gas so there are no flames but I can't get them to see
>> it my way. They refuse to teach me how to fix even the simplest things
>> on the stove because they do not want to be responsible for me burning
>> my fingers or having grease splatter on me.
>>
>> Do any of you have any suggestions?
>>
>> What things can I buy that you can fix in the oven? I've been told
>> things like chicken nuggets, tator tots...
>>
>> Where can I find good recipes to begin trying to cook other things?
>>
>> Can many of you cook well or is this the level you are on?
>>
>> Is there any way to learn to fix eggs or brown hamburger without
>> having another blind person teach me?
>>
>> How do you have your ovens/stoves labeled?
>>
>> How do you find out directions on packages? I've tried looking up the
>> directions for things like hamburger helper on the internet but I get
>> results such as "how to make home made hamburger helper," and all I
>> want is the oven time/temperature on the package.
>>
>> Can I fix hamburger helper by cooking the hamburger meat in the
>> microwave, then fixing the noodles/sauce in the microwave and mixing
>> it all together?
>>
>> When I go grocery shopping, is it appropriate to ask the shopping
>> assistant to read me the package directions (at least the cooking time
>> and oven temperature) and jot it down?
>>
>> When grocery shopping, how do you make sure to get the best prices on
>> your items? Is it appropriate to ask the shopping assistant to look in
>> one of those sales papers to see any of the items on the list is on
>> sale? If so, are they usually willing to do these extra things?
>>
>>
>> I am going to training eventually, but in the mean time it frustrates
>> me not being able to fix hardly anything!
>>
>> When I stay at my parents house (they live really really close so I
>> can come to their house often) they fix real dinners that taste so
>> good and it makes me not want to go back to my apartment because I
>> hate my cooking because I don't really fix things properly. My parents
>> are not that good at cooking themselves, but they fry their food and
>> it's cooked right so it tastes good whereas I'm trying to brown
>> hamburger in the microwave for example which isn't really how your
>> supposed to do it.
>>
>> Thanks so much for any help!
>>
>> Kerri
>>
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