[nabs-l] living skills, unsupportive family and negative words

[Ashley Bramlett]

Hi Kaiti,
I think we have some similarities in our parents. Again, I liked hearing 
your story and tips without some of the judgements coming from others.
My mom does get impatient too. I suppose she is sort of helpful because she 
did help me relabel the microwave as its labels fell off. they had stuck on 
for years and years.

thanks for your advice. Can you suggest some basic recipes or do you just 
follow packaged directions?

It seems to me most recipes I read online use words assuming you know 
things; okay; I understand terms bake and preheat.
But some baking recipies say things like sift this or cream that.
What do you do about measuring? how do you differientiate the measuring 
utensils?

I'll just copy your text in and respond after it.

About stoves:
Of course, some stove and oven controls are
better than others, and that was certainly the case between my home
and apartment stoves (my apartment stove actually has dials for the
burners with a tactile marking already on them, and they click into
the different places so it works well without any modification).


I respond:
Oh, which type of stove? I did not realize they still made stoves with dials 
that clicked into places for the temperatures. We have a flat electric 
stove. I use it for canned food but its hard to center pans and I want one 
like you described. So, if you know its type, let me know. We use GE 
appliances.


About the boiling:
Rice, pasta, and hard boiling eggs are very simple.  You just put them
in a pot of water.  Rice and pasta you add once the water is boiling,
but if you make eggs make sure you put eggs in before boiling water,
because obviously the water will be hot once you turn the burner on.

I respond,
do you just feel it to know when its cooked through and then drain it?
I love pasta.  Yeah, its easy to cook, good point. But how do you keep it 
from boiling over then if you add the noodles to already boiling water? Do 
you turn the heat down? To add stuff to pasta, all you'd need is spaghetti 
or manera sauce.
Easy to fix. Does the pre formed meatballs have directions on the package 
for cooking them? Yeah, all you'd need to do is add sauce and possibly meat 
balls. So, how much sauce. Do you simply pour some, maybe half a jar into a 
dish and heat it up?

The cool thing is now a days they make some fancy sauces with lots of good 
tastes so you can have quite a variety of options for sauces.
I know potatoes are easy to make. Do you put them in cold water or after its 
boiling? You have to cut them first I know. Then they can be eaten as slices 
or mashed with adding some items like butter and milk.

I've often wanted to make roasted potatoes. All I know is you throw them on 
a greased sheet at 350 but I don't know the specifics of what spices to add 
and if you have to peel them. Maybe I'll look up scalloped potato recipes 
and see if I understand that.

Meats are harder as you have to clean the meat and determine doneness.
Even a pretty competent lady at our nfb chapter says she is not as confident 
in cooking of the blindness skills she has because she doesn't trust her 
judgement on meats. She is younger than me but lived on her own for several 
years.

True you can time the meats; like chicken is 30 minutes. but still it can 
vary due to your oven, and unlike baking, there's no toothpick test.

I'm glad  to hear your cooking adventures are going well.

Ashley