Sheets of Armor

The most important tools a home kitchen should have are baking sheets.These can handle everything from roasting vegetables to handling a deboned chicken. They are necessary in creating a one pan meal.They can help in creating easy baked meals from breakfast to dinner. Melissa Clark wrote about their importance in today's New York Times Dining section.She dedicated her entire column,A Good Appetite to them.Sheet pans are vital in creating a variety of different pan roasted dishes.thanks to their generous dimensions.A home cook and even a restaurant chef can cook an entire meal on one.Don't confuse these with cookie sheets which don't have rims , made to allow for quick baking. Also don't use a jelly roll pan either.It would be tempting but this is quite flimsy and should only be used for making sponge cakes.Buy one or two good ones, if you don't have one already.Prices range from around $20 and they will last a good ten to fifteen years, even with a lot of use. Once you have your sheet pans, then start thinking about making a pan meal with it.Ms.Clark has excellent ideas,regarding this.She first uses the pan for cooking winter roots veggies with olive oil.She starts with potatoes, celeriac,rutabagas ,turnips and parsnips along with broccoli rabe.As this is cooking you can prepare the meat.Ms. Clark uses chicken drumsticks coated with mustard butter but you can also try pork or lamb chops or even a small rack of ribs.As one dish starts to cook, the others can be removed from the pan. You can also employ this for breakfast using the roasting pan for bacon or sausage(surprisingly yes) while the other part of the pan can hold ramekins full of baked or shirred eggs. The most important tool in any kitchen should be the sheet pans.These are versatile and can create a tasty meal without all the fuss.They make an oven roasted meal a snap to create without all the fuss and bother!