[nabs-l] Cooking Questions

Fri Jun 4 23:55:38 UTC 2010

I'd never really thought about telling doneness when grilling. I knew a
blind person could use a grill with relative ease, as I remember doing so
under sleep shades at a student seminar once in Baltimore but I forgot how
we determined how much the meat had cooked.

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 7:43 PM, V Nork <ginisd at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Karen, Thanks  so much for your thoughts, cooking is really  such  an
> individual thing, and it is easy to get into a rut.   I used to love
> gourmet
> cooking but I am a bit rusty since my eyesight deteriorated  in the last
> five years from partial to very limited vision.  But I am rethinking things
> so as to adapt.  One question is, is the toaster oven difficult to clean
> without sighted help?   I think it can be a crumb magnet.  Also, do you or
> anyone else have a link to a blind cooks list?  Thanks, Ginny
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf
> Of Karen Anderson
> Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 6:27 AM
> To: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nabs-l] Cooking Questions
>
> Hi All,
>
> These are all good questions, and there isn't one thing that works for
> everyone. I recently graduated from the Louisiana Center for the
> Blind, and I think getting good training is one of the best things a
> blind person can do. But I realize that it isn't always the right time
> for training, so here are some of my suggestions in the mean time.
>
> To start out, there are lots of meals that can be made in the
> microwave. Frozen dinners only require that you take the plastic tray
> out of the box, peel back the plastic a little way, and cook it until
> all of the food is hot. There are also single serving packages of Mac
> and cheese and hamburger helper, along with things like mini pizzas
> and pizza roles, that can be cooked in the microwave. And let's not
> forget our childhood friend spaghetios. These aren't particularly
> amazing, but they work.
>
> As someone who lives alone, I love my little toaster oven mostly
> because i don't see the need to heat up a big oven when I'm just
> cooking for myself. Anything that can be baked in a standard oven can,
> in theory, be cooked in a toaster oven. I've even gone so far as to
> buy buckets of frozen cookie dough and make cookies one or 2 at a time
> so I can have fresh cookies whenever I want them. Frozen chicken
> nuggets, French fries, tater tots and the like are also good in the
> oven. It is fine to ask the person helping you shop to read the
> directions on things, and with things like chicken nuggets if you
> can't remember the directions you can cook them until you hear them
> sizzling and they feel crispy to the touch. You can use a fork to
> touch the item, and if the top of the chicken nugget feels rough and
> crunchy under the fork it is usually done. You can also carefully
> touch the food with the tip of your finger. If you take the food out,
> bite into it, and decide it is still cold in the middle you can always
> put it back in the oven for a few minutes.
> If your oven is already marked, like I think you said yours is Kerri,
> then you can ask a sighted friend or neighbor to come and tell you
> which dot marks which temperature. Hopefully it is marked in a logical
> way so that 1 dot is at 250 degrees, the next at 300, 350, and so
> forth. The temperature gets higher the farther to the right you turn
> the dial.
>
> the stove may be a little more intimidating, but with practice you can
> become comfortable with it, too.
> To brown hamburger, place the defrosted meat into a frying pan. Turn
> the stove onto medium heat, which means the dial is pointed at what
> would be 5 or 6 o'clock. Hold the handle of the pan with one hand and
> take a spatula in the other. Find the meat with the spatula, and use
> it to chop the meat into little pieces by pressing down on the meat,
> then finding the big chunk of meat again and repeating the process.
> Once the meat has been chopped into pieces, use the spatula to
> continue stirring. While the meat is cooking it will be sizzling, and
> it will feel sort of wet and slippery under the spatula. When it is
> done the sizzling will slow down and get much softer, and the meat
> will feel coarse when you stir it with the spatula.
>
> To scramble eggs, crack them into a bowl and add a little milk and
> seasoning. Then beat them with a fork until they feel all liquidy,
> rather than being able to feel the yolk in with the liquid. Then put a
> frying pan on the stove and turn it to medium heat. Put just a little
> butter in the bottom of the pan, and once it is melted pour the eggs
> into the pan. Take a spatula and stir the eggs continuously until they
> start to feel thicker and almost chunky. Then, take the pan off the
> stove, put your eggs on a plate, and enjoy them.
>
> Keep in mind that you are probably going to make mistakes while you
> are learning, and not everything is going to come out perfectly the
> first time. The best thing to do is to keep trying and learn from your
> mistakes. If you burn the meat one time, the next time you cook it
> take it off the heat a little sooner. And remember that sighted people
> burn things, too, so it isn't just because you are blind. The hardest
> part of all of this is getting up the nerve to try it for the first
> time.
>
> I hope this helps. If you have more questions, feel free to ask.
>
> Karen
>
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> nabs-l:
>
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/ginisd%40sbcglobal.n
> et
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> nabs-l:
>
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/blackbyrdfly%40gmail.com
>