Hey There!
We're Steve and Andrea.
From the Here's What You Do (Atlanta) and Tablescape Times Three, you know we cook. A lot. We also review recipes, cooking classes, restaurants, bars, signature cocktails, and anything with, "soirée," in the title just for good measure.
But there is something pretty unique we do at home that we haven't introduced on our other sites. We have created a specific recipe planning method for managing a gourmet household.
We call it the HWYD BIG DISH system.
(pronounced H Wid)
Here's how it works.
Every week, we have an HWYD Big Dish. That dish is THE dish we build around for the week. We use it one of three ways:
- We actually just make a large portion of a HWYD Big Dish that we rework throughout the week, adding gourmet twists that make it practically unrecognizable from one meal to the next, or...
- We make a HWYD Big Dish that morphs into different phases throughout the week. A chicken for a meal which becomes a broth which makes a tomato soup which creates a sauce, or...
- We make HWYD Big Dish components that come together in different ways throughout the week leading to the main attraction.
We are careful about the initial preparation in terms of ingredients and manner of preparation, taking the rest of the week into consideration. Dishes emerge that we would have never even thought of much less tried. We have found that with maintaining a robust list of pantry staples and honing our basic cooking skills, the flexibility of turning quality leftovers into epicurean marvels takes only about twenty minutes of preparation on any given night.
We really enjoy recipes that emerge from scratch this way. We simply use what we have on hand and cater to the tastes and moods of our family and friends while adjusting for budget and milieu. We don't come up with endless lists of recipes that require carefully composed grocery lists. We don't search websites and magazines for something new and creative for less that 20$ that we can prepare in a half hour. Dinner preparation is no longer frantic. We often end up with several choices on the table on any given night so that all of the children and any of our guests have something they can really savor. Dining should augment your life, allowing you time to focus on one another.
Our cooking method is highly organic, both literally and figuratively, and preparing a meal at the end of a tiring day becomes a relaxed endeavor, best while sampling a new wine, rather than a harried effort to get something new and edible on the table.
You might think that the dish is usually a main dish, like a meat. But that is really not the case. Just as often, it might be a homemade bread or salad.
So what makes the HWYD Big Dish system a good plan?
- You save money.
- You save time.
- You reduce your reliance on processed food.
- You increase the fresh factor.
- You have the chance to sample new flavors and methods in small increments.
- You can be creative.
- You expand your cooking and entertaining prowess.
- You develop confidence in your own cooking preferences rather than relying on a step-by-step recipe for everything exotic you cook.
We are SUPER excited to start sharing our cooking and entertaining strategies. In our travels and tasting adventures, we have some pretty interesting finds to share, too. We will definitely credit our sources of inspiration, noting great dishes and libations anywhere we find them.
Here's What You Do (Gourmet)
No cuisine is off the table. We explore the ubiquitous and rare and everything in between. We like shortcut methods and tedious processes when parsed down to manageable steps. We will share our great restaurant, foodstuffs stores, and beverage shop finds.
