the joy of cooking

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Libragirl67

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Does anyone really enjoy making homemade meals? I do not have the energy to do it all the time. But sometimes I love getting out the recipe books and pretending to be a chef. It is fun to create a great meal. Does anyone else love to cook?
 
I love it :)

The night before I made grilled monkfish seasoned with tumeric, a dash of cayenne pepper, black pepper and a bit of sea salt topped with a coconut-mint chutney (You can search on Food Network for the recipe, it's one of Bobby Flay's, though he doesn't grill his). I paired it with sauteed mixed mushrooms (Portobella, shitake, oyster and morels) along with spinach that I cooked with minced garlic, an herb blend from Penzey's called "Mural of Flavor", freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt.

Tonight we're having oven-baked baby back ribs that have been rubbed with a mix of brown sugar, paprika, cayenne, chipotle powder, black pepper and sea salt. I think I'm going to pair it with some steamed asparagus since I have some in the fridge and need to use it up before it goes bad. We eat a LOT of asparagus this time f year as it's in season and relatively cheap ($1.98 a pound here, though the Sprout's ad for California where they're headquartered had it at 88 cents!).

Once I clear out some room in the fridge I'm going to make a fruit salad with grapefruit, oranges, tangerines, and possibly some kiwi and blueberries that I can just scoop some out of instead of having to peel fruit every time I want a bit of fruit. I'd add in the strawberries I have, but then they'd macerate with all that citrus.
 
I love cooking. I always try new stuffs but they do not always turn out to be good. Once I remember I tried to make thai food but it turned out horrible and in the end i ended up eating Mc Do :( Do anyone of you have a concrete and solid recipe of a thai food? (anything will do) I love thai food!
 
I love making homemade meals. Sometimes I follow a recipe, but other times it is fun to create as I go along. I like mixing vegtables together in stir-frys and baking homemade sweets. By making them I can control what is in them and keep the amount of sugar low.

Today I made a blackberry pie, but used store broughten crust and was disappointed with the results as far as the edges of the crust. It was baked but tougher than I like the crust to be. Next time it will be all homemade, with a lighter flaky crust. I like homemade muffins as well.
If you want good recipies look for things you like on line. If you don't have a certain ingredient just use something else. Experiment with easy recipies first and maybe get a recipe book for teens. They often go into more detail on the how to do each part.

Sula, You are very luck to be living in TX, cause if you were closer I might show up for supper. lol Sounds to me like your a very good cook.
 
Schizo - I just bught a Thai cookbook. I'll let you know how it turns out :) I plan on making some Tom Yum soup later in the week. I'm not sure, yet, what I'll have with it.

1sweed - *laughs* Thank you :) Re pie crust - do you have a food processor? I found that a food processor takes a LOT of the work out of making a pie crust. That said, I've actually given up on "traditional" pie crust and went for a (slightly!) healthier option that I found in Cooking Light. It's an oatmeal crust.

If you do a google search for "Oat-Crusted Pecan Pie with Fresh Cranberry Sauce", it'll be the first one that pops up from myrecipes.com (where Cooking Light lists their recipes). I actually substitute Splenda for the sugar, and am considering seeing if I can substitute in stevia instead. It's super easy because instead of rolling out a crust you just use the bottom of a glass (or your fingers) and press it into the pie pan.

I'm not sure how it'd work for a blueberry pie. Even though you cook the pie crust first, the top layer of the oats do soak up some of the liquid and make a bit of a gooey layer (which works for pecan pie just fine). I'm honestly not sure why this recipe got so many unhappy results, I haven't had any problems with it other than the very typical problem of trying to get the first slice out!
 
I absolutly hate cooking, always have, but prefer homecooked meals to prepackaged full of useless rubbish foods.
I do by some highliner fish products and there is a box of mini chicken pies at my local supermarket I buy just for standbys.
I'm lucky to have a hubby that enjoys cooking fresh bread and cookies and lots of other goodies so if I want a nice piece of meat he is usually in charge of that.
I'm not a bad cook even though I don't like doing it. I think it that I'm very slow doing the prep work and end up hurting too much.
Every now and again I set aside some time and do big batches of my one pan cooking. Like chicken and mushroom in a creamy white wine sauce , sweet and sour pork, or a nice chicken curry. Then I make up single portions and into the freezer they go and I don't have to cook much for ages and they are good for work lunches too. All I have to do is whip up some rice.
 
twiztc - have you considered doing bulk prep? I know that a lot of recipes that I will do for the week will contain, say, minced onion, so I'll take all the onions I think I'll use and cut them up all at once and put them in a plastic container in the fridge. Then I can just go in and scoop out what I'll need. That way I only have to peel, cut, and clean up all those flakes of onion skin ONCE.

I've also pretty much given up on fresh minced garlic and traded it for the stuff that comes pre-minced in a jar. I no longer mince/grate ginger, either, and have gone to the paste you can buy in a jar.

If I'm going to need carrots or celery for something, I try and do it in bulk like I do my onions. I've tried doing them in a food processor but I've decided that it cuts them too thin. I'm considering getting one of those mandolin slicers that you can just slide the food back and forth since the thickness is adjustable but I've not bought one yet.

If I know that I'm going to have a couple of meals in the same week that use either cubed, browned, boneless-skinless chicken breast I'll go ahead and cut it all up at once and brown it in two batches so I can just take the other half out the next day or so and toss it in the pan, already ahead of the game. Same with browned ground beef if I plan on some sort of one-pot meal and a taco salad or whatnot.

I can't always take advantage of this, mind you. Sometimes I don't know what I'll be cooking two days from now, but I do try to have some idea so that I can plan in advance as much as possible. Often as not, what I'm going to cook on Wed-Saturday is based around one store's sales while Sunday-Tuesday are based around a different store's sales, or what I have in the freezer.
 
This is absolutely my very favorite thing to do. It's been a hobby of mine for as long as I can remember. I have a cookbook collection but I've switched over to looking for new recipes online for the past few years... there are *so* many great recipes available on the 'Net!

I'm lucky in that my family doesn't mind trying new things and being my guinea pigs for these recipe experiments. I can usually tell what everyone will like, but once in a while I'll hit one that brings a scrunched up nose or two. :)
 
I use to cook from scratch when my kids where little, but anymore it's just too much to try and do for 1 person. I do however cook w/my granddaughter when I'm at my daughters house. At holiday times however I have to make my sweet potato crunch, it's a request from my grandkids. Only Nannie can make it right. LOL.
 
I really enjoy cooking as well. My favorite meal at the moment is pan-fried trout in olive oil with parsley and garlic persillade and potatoes in a pesto sauce with fresh tomato salad. Where I live, there's a large market where we can get the freshest seafood. I buy most of my ingredients fresh from the market.
 
Just reading this thread makes me hungry. I usually cook small meals such as soup, make some lasagna. I am not talented enough to cook those meals you see in restaurants. Well, at least my cooking satisfies my hunger :)
 
I really enjoy cooking as well. My favorite meal at the moment is pan-fried trout in olive oil with parsley and garlic persillade and potatoes in a pesto sauce with fresh tomato salad. Where I live, there's a large market where we can get the freshest seafood. I buy most of my ingredients fresh from the market.

Sounds like a nice meal, BrianWolfe... I've not had much good luck with fresh fish. Do you ever catch your own and then cook it, or do you strictly buy it at a fish market? I've tried freshly caught fish and it was a total disaster so I stick to fish that other people catch now. :lol:
 
I will be making one of my very favorite soups this evening. Well it actually is already cooking in the slow cooker. My kids and everyone else that has tried it simply loves it. It is called "slow cooker buffalo hot wing soup." If you like a soup that is slighly spicy this is very good. And it actually does taste like hot wings. It is one of those soups that does not need anything to go with it. It is a filling meal all in itself. Here is the recipe if anyone would like to try it. 6 cups milk, 3 cans cream of chicken soup (undiluted) 1 cup sour cream, 1/4 cup ot pepper sauce, 3 cups cooked and shredded chicken (1lb). Combine all ingredients in slow cooker then cover and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours.
 
Cooking is great when I have time. I wish I had more time to cook but no such luck. The meals everyone has posted all look delicious and are making me hungry! Thank you all for sharing.
 
We rejoined our CSA, just at a half share rather than a full. And it's a good thing, too! It's $425 for 10 weeks, so $42.50 a week. This week we got:

Herbs, 1 bunch each:
Cilantro,Garlic Chives, Sage, Curly Parsley, Mint, Onion Blossoms (use flowers in salads and soups, on baked potatoes, w/butter over steak, in eggs - chives can be used the same ways)

Vegetables:
4 Spring Onions, 5 Radishes, 1 small 1/2 pound bunch of REAL baby Carrots (vs. grocery store carrots that have been shaved down), 1 head Green Cabbage, 3 or 4 Beets with Greens

Leafy Greens: 1 bag (butter?) Lettuce, 1 bunch Swiss Chard, 1 bunch Kale

Fruit: 2 Oranges from the Valley

Protein: 1 dozen organic eggs from pastured hens (which is different from "free range" in that they spend the vast majority of their time in a fenced green area, and 1 pound of grass-fed beef cutlets. The eggs are THE largest eggs I have ever seen! They're at least 1.5 times the size of my local grocery's "Large" eggs. These aren't even "extra large" these are JUMBO eggs. We'll definitely be having some omelettes and/or scrambled eggs for dinner this week.

We also bought an add-on of grass fed beef liver, so one night we'll be having liver and spring onions. The farmer that runs the CSA scrounged up a recipe for "Beef Cutlets with Lemon and Sage" which looks pretty darn tasty!

I had about a quart and a half of my raw milk start to go sour. Thankfully, unlike pasteurized milk, when it goes sour it's not done for! Due to its natural healthy bacteria you can just put it in a jar, leave it on the counter and have it clabber, then strain off the whey and you have a semi-tart cream cheese! I haven't done this before, and I'm quite interested to see how it turns out. I'll probably add in some of the garlic chives that I got in my CSA, Yum!
 
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