Blog + Website + Facebook
Website started: 11 December 2018
Blog started: 20 December 2018
Schedules
Weekly Blog: The Blog will be written every week, released generally on Fridays. Join up via my website and receive a weekly notice and link to the current blog. Too see what I have been writing since 2018 click on [Blog Index].
Monthly Recipes: I release my own cooked recipes on a monthly basis, available through the website. Click on [Recipes] or [Cuisines] for access to those pages.
Facebook – PattyCooks: I post the blog on this site, and share links to food-related topics that I find fascinating or thought provoking. This is updated several times a week.
Blog Topics
Using an international viewpoint, I will cover all food-related topics from soil to waste, from harvest to plate, and from logistics to public health.
- Topics for my posts are pulled from:
- the agricultural and general global news;
- specialty newsletters and statistics that I have signed up to receive from various organizations and governmental agencies;
- my own personal experience working on farms, as a seasonal farm laborer, working at grocery stores, restaurants, and in professional and teaching kitchens;
- as well as from teaching cooking techniques, and my apprenticeships to Chefs in Europe and USA.
- A Global Viewpoint is critical to my posts. Although currently living in the USA, I have traveled and lived in many parts of the world. So I keep an eye on international activities and events, cuisine, shifting cultural norms, and global food issues.
- Politics: Controlling many agricultural topics I cover, is the action of governmental agencies. I cover their policy impact on agriculture, economies, public health, etc. So I speak to those as well, with a realistic yet hopeful outlook of a pragmatist.
Nutrient Count
I am slowly moving to an automatic calorie counter, but many older recipes still use my older notations, which I still use in by blog.
| Symbol | Item |
| #, oz, g, T, t, C | Pound, ounce, gram, tablespoon, teaspoon, cup |
| c | Calorie |
| k | Carb |
| p | Protein |
| Sa | Salt |
| Su | Sugar |
| f | Fiber |
Nearly all “one off” nutrient measurements are taken from two wonderful sites called fatsecret.com or nutritionix. The only exception is when I name a particular brand where I might also use the manufacturers counts.
Remember I am not an expert, but I do want to help you calculate nutritional totals where they matter. Importantly, if it matters to your health, then verify what I post and let me know if anything is wrong.
Recipe Measurements
I generally use American measurements, since my kitchen is setup for that and many of the recipes I try are in those terms. However, occasionally I will switch to liter/grams when using an international recipe or need to use more specific weights. In my kitchen I have the standard tools used for measuring in every kitchen. In fact, I have even written a post about these tools: [Measuring Tools].
With all things related to cooking, remember even if I test my recipe a hundred times, the conditions in your kitchen are different. Your oven does not have the same temperature as mine, your water will be different, as will be the measuring tools we each use. So recipes are meant as guidelines to get you close to the dish I make. Always feel free to play with amounts and ingredients to make what you think is tasty.
For cooking when I write “~10 minutes” it should be read as around 10 minutes, give or take for each of us have slightly different cooking conditions, so at the 10 minute mark check the food and decide to continue to cook or not.
Baking bread and pastries is more of a science and I am not a baker. I am a cook and only bake cook’s items like cornbread, quick breads, cookies, muffins, and scones are the hardest thing I will make.
Diet Types
Every recipe on this site will have a diet preface section to indicate the diet the particular dish falls under and what needs to be done to meet those restrictions.
[x] Flexitarian + Omnivore
[x] Vegan (5)
[x] Vegetarian (1) substitution
[x] Pescatarian
[x] Weight Maint: (2) assumption
[O] Keto Diet: (3) reference
[x] Mediterranean (5)
[x] Lactose Avoidance
[x] Gluten Avoidance
[O] Lectin Avoidance: (4) information
[x] Oxalate Avoidance
[x] Purine Avoidance
Diet Chart: In these cases, “X” means yes and “O” means no.
(1) Substitutes: I will either call a dish Vegan, or will mark it Vegan with a note on substitutions. That way the recipe can be easily converted into the diet you follow. However, some dishes just cannot be converted (or I have not yet figured out how to make a tasty version), and I mark those with a bolded O.
(2) Assumption: A meal qualifies for people monitoring their weight if the meal serving is =<400 calories assuming a 1400 calorie day (e.g., 400c breakfast, 400c lunch, 400c dinner, 200 snack).
(3) Reference: Some specialty diets will only be marked that, if the dish or meal appears on any posted Keto-specific diet plan, or the dish equals <50k/day which I break out 17k breakfast, 17k lunch, 16k dinner).
(4) Medical Diets: I try to identify the specific ingredient that may be the reason why the dish should not be eaten. Thus, you may be able to change the recipe up, and perhaps switch out ingredients, to make your own version. But always follow your dietitian, nutritionist, or doctor in what you should or should not eat.
- I will note Lectin, Lactose (milk + products), Oxalate (kidney stones), Gluten (celiac disease, wheat allergies), and Purine (gout).
- There are medically recommended [HMR/Ketosis diets] out there but other than posting about my experience I will not note that with recipes.
(5) Lifestyle Not Diets: There are diets that are complete lifestyle choices, not just diets. I am not commenting on the lifestyles in my recipes, but do in my blog posts involving the foods or this lifestyle: Vegan and [Mediterranean].
Nutrition + Diet Caution
I am not a dietitian, nutritionist, nurse, doctor, or Chef
just an experienced home cook.
If it matters, please evaluate the ingredients and
calculate the nutritional numbers yourself.
Do not rely on others to do it for you.
The substitutes and avoidance information I provide are
my best effort, but are intended only as a guide.
Reference Sources
Reference sites are chosen carefully, for there are a lot of misinformation and outright propaganda or lies out in the internet wilds. To counter this, I try to to always take the following steps:
- Link to actual studies, rather than commentary about the studies.
- Defer to credible and credentialed experts and link to their sites.
- Quote or footnote experts to back up food or nutritional ideas or recommendations.
- I quote Chefs, Cooks, farmers, and others with longer experience than I have in their field.
Advertisements
The intent behind this site is not to make money, but I do provide affiliated links to products I favor and keep in my kitchen. The idea is to cover my blog costs, and improve the site.
Patty Cooks selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.
Summary
With that overview, welcome to my kitchen and let us start cooking and learning about all aspects of our food.
–Patty
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