Cooking!

[NewCalamity 3,454]

Hello, @@Bunches, just here to inform you that I've gone ahead and merged your thread with the large and already existing cooking thread, as they cover the exact same subject. Never forget the site's nifty search function to double check if a thread already exists or not, thank you!

[Bunches 81]

Hello, @@Bunches, just here to inform you that I've gone ahead and merged your thread with the large and already existing cooking thread, as they cover the exact same subject. Never forget the site's nifty search function to double check if a thread already exists or not, thank you!

 

oh thankyou! yea i went back a few pages but didn't see anything. i guess that's what the search function is for ^^;

[Feather Spiral 1,892]

I baked a pizza, I have photos on my DA as proof.

Nothing can top that swag.

Ohey, did I just make a pun? The swag has been doubled.

[HungryTroll 137]

If someone making cupcakes -

how you making hard sauce?

My always too fluid, so it's loosing shape.

I really need recipe of chocolate hard sauce

[Feather Spiral 1,892]

If someone making cupcakes -

how you making hard sauce?

My always too fluid, so it's loosing shape.

I really need recipe of chocolate hard sauce

 

Google Kitchen is your fr- oh shit, that doesn't exist. Yet.

 

You know, we Turks don't bother with numbers as much as Europeans do. We do express amounts in spoons and glasses, but instructions usually include a description of the mix's texture and/or color - as well as how to adjust the ingredients if it doesn't match.

It always amazes me to see the number of recipes that have "x litres", "x oz", "x grams", "x teaspoons"... and not much help on how the result is supposed to look and/or behave.

 

So you have to think about what's making your sauce so fluid. Is it excess of milk, too much oil, not enough butter...? There are butters specifically made for cooking, which aren't so good for baking since they tend to be soft (they're for frying and stuff).

Edited September 10, 2012 by Feather Spiral

[My Little Mandy 838]

I love to cook!

Here's a recipe for my gooey rich brownies:

• 1 package of Brownie Mix (following the directions on the box)
• 1 table spoon of peanut butter
• 1/2 of dark chocolate chips
• a few squirts of chocolate syrup

Then bake it at the time and heat that it says on the box :3

 

I also have a recipe for Omurice:

• 3 beaten eggs
• white rice (unless you wanna use microwave chicken rice)
• 1 or 2 chicken breasts
• 1/4 edame (soybeans)
• as much ketchup ya wanna mix into it

Cook the rice and mix the ketchup, rice, chicken, and soybean together.

Set aside in a bowl and pour the eggs in a seperate pan.

After letting it cook half way, put your chicken rice on the egg.

Then flip it upside down on a plate and tuck the egg around the rice.

If you want, squirt ketchup on top of you want more flavor.

[HungryTroll 137]

So you have to think about what's making your sauce so fluid. Is it excess of milk, too much oil, not enough butter...? There are butters specifically made for cooking, which aren't so good for baking since they tend to be soft (they're for frying and stuff).

Thought, and tried 6 different versions of recipe I had wrote above, but every time it's gets to weak and cant take a shape, but I lake flavour of this recipe, so want to make it.

[Feather Spiral 1,892]

Thought, and tried 6 different versions of recipe I had wrote above, but every time it's gets to weak and cant take a shape

Cooking is an art, which means you have to explore some things by yourself. So you must consider changing amounts (and even ingredients) that don't work.

Here's what I would do: Prepare half of the actual quantity, for example. Then add a bit of sugar and stir, see what happens. Then try a few more pieces of chocolate, see what that does. Repeat for other ingredients until I get the result I want.

 

Have I told you guys about my first pizza attempt, which was really just a "dough-test" rather than actual pizza? I've made a real pizza this time, with tomato sauce and mozzarella.

Topping also contains salad leaves, bleu (like the test pizza), banana slices and honey.

 

Which got me thinking: who else here likes the combination of salty and sweet? I have a sweet tooth, but my stomach prefers salty and porous (like bread) things.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Feather Spiral

[thegoodhen 698]

I've once cooked tortellini. Forgot to put water there and burned them to ash. I also destroyed the pot in process.

@@Feather Spiral, Heyyyyy, I haven't had chance to talk to you yet, thanks for everything you've done for my new friend Viscra!

Edit: I just reminded myself of this chart: Oh noes xD

Edited September 11, 2012 by thegoodhen

[My Little Mandy 838]

Did anyone like the sounds of my recipes I listed?

(looks around as she drinks her coffee) I also make a good Japanese

style Beef Curry :3

[HungryTroll 137]

Cooking is an art, which means you have to explore some things by yourself. So you must consider changing amounts (and even ingredients) that don't work.

I've said that i did that for six time already, and with other types of sauce I have no troubles, but chocolate one is stubborn. Ok I'll try more times and I think it good idea to search more chocolate recipes.

[Jokuc 8,173]

I really like to cook actually! Not food but like cookies and muffins and brownies and stuff.

But it's been a while I since I did it last time though.

[Feather Spiral 1,892]

Yeeeeea, brownies and muffins aren't food.

They're gardening tools.

jk

 

And HungryTroll, I understand now. When you said "6 variations", I thought you meant 6 variations found on the Net. My bad, sorry.

I've never tried hard sauce, so I wouldn't know. But yes, if the chocolate variant is giving you so much trouble, then it's best to dig even deeper into that one.

 

An addition to the salty+sweet thing: who else here knows how to make a pizza?

[Retro*Derpy 3,185]

I've baked quite a bit of goods, from pasta to seafood to pastries. Though as for cooking itself, I enjoy it occasionally, though dishes are a pain :/

Favorite food to make would be Beans and Franks with cornbread.

[Comet Strike 4]

I love to cook and bake.. I've been experimenting with all kinds of recipes... I think i have gift in it.... cuz I'm the only one buying and cooking ingredients at home... furthermore i'd live up on cooking.. and one of my dreams is to try to cook different dishes from around the world... and hey i can dream can i hehe..

 

Bro Hoof on the cooking /)

[Scootalove 10,689]

Since, I don't know how to cook yet. I would so like to cook Parmesan Chicken, I've heard a lot of good things about it. Pretty much, when I learn how to cook I will experiment with each dish known to man.

[Betez 1,734]

Ugh, I suck at cooking, unless it's something like toast.

 

All in all, I haven't had much experience, and I'm afraid of doing something wrong, and using the oven/microwave.

Edited February 12, 2013 by Betez

[HallowsEve 52]

I like to think that I can cook, buuutttt I really can't. The best thing that I can make is a meatloaf recipe that has been passed down in my family. I'd tell you guys it, but I'd have to kill you all.

[Feather Spiral 1,892]

So in case someone missed it on my DA, I recently made another pizza (actually two) that turned out pretty cool.

 

You know it's usually flour that people use to avoid getting dough on their fingers? Excellent for bread, but in pizzas, that makes the crust too hard and dry, near impossible to eat. Oil is way better, it works just as well when kneading and doesn't cause issues after baking.

Also, when rolling out, better do it directly on the tin tray you're intending to bake it in. At least, that's how it worked for me.

The tomato sauce should be very soft, nearly liquid, so add some water to spread it properly.

 

I also made cake today (cocoa+coffee mozaic) but it burned.

So, a warning to inexperienced cooks like me: be careful when baking sweet cakes. Unlike salty ones, they take much longer to harden inside, and it only takes a couple minutes to go from perfectly baked to externally carbonized.

It took me nearly half an hour to scrape off the burned surface. TnT

[Shanks 10,816]

I love cooking, it is very relaxing, empowering and is a very useful skill to have. My father used to own an Italian restaurant and I come from a family of talented cooks my father taught me nearly everything he knows. I have cooked everything from homemade hash to fritatas, breakfast burritos, tacos, steaks, roasts, sausages, homemade fries, porkchops, fish and several Italian dishes some of which most of you have heard of a few you might not have.

[VelvetDivan 96]

During a 3 year stint of unemployment during the recent recession, I taught myself to cook using mostly Alton Brown's show 'Good Eats.'  (You can find quite a bit of it on youtube, but do consider purchasing it on DVD or whatever.) 

 

His 'pantry-friendly tomato sauce' is the best pasta sauce I've ever tasted, much less prepared myself.   It's a lot of work, but it's worth it, and you can make it in quantity and freeze leftovers to have really fast dinners later.

 

I usually use allrecipes.com when searching for ideas for what to try cooking next.  It's the first site I found that had a recipe box to storing things you wanted to make, and it even lets you change the number of servings, which (usually) auto-adjusts the ingredients for you.  The reviews there are often helpful too, showing you ways to take a so-so recipe and really make it shine.

 

I very recently stumbled across a new-ish site called punchfork, which is basically pinterest, but for recipes.  It's a good way to find popular recipes but also a great way to discover interesting new food blogs, which are steady sources of new recipes and cooking advice.

 

As far as general advice goes, don't try to wing it too soon.  Cook a few dishes similar to what you'd like to make, keeping track of the ingredients used and the amounts.  Try to figure out WHY they're there (much harder for baking than cooking, since baking is much heavier on the chemistry) and you'll have a much better grasp of the framework for that dish, making substitutions dead-easy.

 

Don't be afraid to doctor things you prepare from boxes.  Pasta-roni and hamburger helper mixes can be excellent foundations for casseroles, but you may have to change a few things like the amount of liquid you add and the order you cook and combine things.  Adding vegetables is rarely a bad move, but keep in mind that doing so also increases the moisture you're putting into the dish, as well as its bulk, thus increasing cooking time.  Having extra pasta on-hand you can add will help stretch what's in the boxes to match what you add.  Eventually you may end up ditching the original seasoning packets in favor of your own blends of herbs and seasonings, and that will likely save you from a big load of sodium.

 

Remember how important textures are, when preparing a meal.  Is everything you're putting on the table soft?  Squishy casserole, soft dinner rolls, creamed corn, etc?  Consider swapping out one of those for something crunchier or at least firmer, or even topping one of the softer items with something crunchy.  Nuts can be added to many dishes, fried onions or tortilla strips aren't as healthy but they're dang tasty...  

 

If you wish to try cooking a certain ethnic cuisine, such as Indian or Chinese food, you may find you have to purchase an intimidating number of new spices and sauces you've never heard of.  Here's a tip: do not buy them from your local grocery store.  Find an ethnic grocery store in your area and buy them there.  You'll get your supplies at a fraction of the price, and most likely, in much larger quantities too.  

 

When buying things for your kitchen, beware of what Alton scorns as 'uni-taskers.'  That is, devices that do only one thing.  Olive pitters and strawberry-corers are good examples.  They take up room in your drawers, almost never get used, and save you very little time compared to just doing the task without a highly specialized tool.  A few uni-taskers are necessities of course, like can-openers, so be sensible.  

[My Little Mandy 838]

Besides Japanese dishes, every once in a while I bake sweets.

Be it either cake, brownies, pie, and sometimes mochi. 

I would like to try and make chocolates too sometime or another.

(loves dark chocolate :3)

[Feather Spiral 1,892]

As far as general advice goes, don't try to wing it too soon.  Cook a few dishes similar to what you'd like to make, keeping track of the ingredients used and the amounts.  Try to figure out WHY they're there (much harder for baking than cooking, since baking is much heavier on the chemistry) and you'll have a much better grasp of the framework for that dish, making substitutions dead-easy.

 

[...]

 

Remember how important textures are, when preparing a meal.  Is everything you're putting on the table soft?  Squishy casserole, soft dinner rolls, creamed corn, etc?  Consider swapping out one of those for something crunchier or at least firmer, or even topping one of the softer items with something crunchy.  Nuts can be added to many dishes, fried onions or tortilla strips aren't as healthy but they're dang tasty...

Good lord, yes. Can you imagine the number of people who don't even consider experimenting and don't care for texture?

The latter is one of the reasons I prefer Turkish recipes, they usually detail things like color and texture. From what I've seen, recipes in French ignore that sorta thing for some dishes.

I think this posts needs more attention. Though, in my opinion, people are too busy following your advice to remember brohoofing it.

[Bruno © 125]

I love cooking, when there is no one home to make food for me, i like doing my my own recipes some of them are really good!  But i don't do it very often, sometimes it's not even for being lazy to do it, but it's the mess i make after i do it, and my mom keeps complaining about how i make a mess in her kitchen, but i like cooking from time to time, it's so fun! 

[VelvetDivan 96]

Thanks, Feather Spiral. 

 

Another kind of duh-tip is that it really can be worth it to print out your recipes rather than just keeping them bookmarked and hauling your laptop into the kitchen when you're cooking.  For one, it keeps your laptop/tablet out of splatter-range.  Secondly, having physical copies of the recipes means you can organize them in a 3-ring binder or at least a folder, but perhaps most importantly you can write notes on the recipes so you remember what to change or what you wanted to try next time you prepare the dish.

 

It was too salty?  Write that down.  It took longer than the recipe indicated to bake?  Write it down.  Your oven is different than the recipe author's.  Your water is probably different.  Your elevation may even be different, and these are all factors that will mean some adjustment may be necessary.

 

For those of you who have well water like I do, or just less-than-great tap water, consider buying a filtering pitcher if you don't have one already, to purify water for use in cooking.  You're probably used to the taste of your water, but trust me, it can make a big difference.  I wouldn't bother if you're just using it to boil pasta, though.  Just remember to salt the water,

 

When you're cooking a lot of things at once, for Thanksgiving for instance, you'll save yourself a lot of hair-pulling if you plan ahead.  You need to figure out what dishes will require oven space, stove space, etc. and if you don't have room to pull it off within a reasonable time-frame you'll either have to make some things ahead of time and reheat them (a good idea with some dishes anyways) or even ask a neighbor who isn't cooking up a storm to use their oven on the big day.  I don't know about you, but my oven isn't big enough to accommodate *anything* else when a turkey is in there, but there is a cooling period the bird should endure after leaving the oven, giving you time to pop a couple casseroles in the oven behind it.  (Don't carve into meat as soon as you finish cooking it.  Meat requires time for its juices to redistribute after the abuse of all that heat it's been through.  The bigger the piece of meat, the more time it requires to recover.  Don't just let it sit naked on the counter though; shield it with some foil to keep it from catching a cold.)