Cooking/Baking

Anyone really good at cooking and/or baking? Have some favorite recipes or cooking-related stories to share? And so on.

Growing up with a mom who is an average cook but who hates spending any time in the kitchen and a dad who is actually a very good cook but who never had the patience for kids underfoot while doing so, cooking was never something that held my interest until I moved out onto my own and it actually sunk in that I had to do it for myself. XD

But recently, mainly as a productive side effect of boredom, I've really gotten interested in it, especially baking, and have decided to putz about my kitchen and see what happens. I've not tried making much of anything really detailed yet, but I can make some pretty damn good macaroni and cheese (though it's way more expensive than letting Kraft do most of the work), and I've found a recipe for chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake which I have to try soon.

So, anyone else out there have some skills in the kitchen?

 

Red Velvet Cake is another on my "recipes I have to try" list. It's so good.

With a recipe, I don't think cooking is as hard as I always thought it would be. I'm capable of following simple directions, though occasionally I see a cooking term I might not wholly comprehend. What's been more difficult for me so far is finding some of the ingredients, like certain cheeses or spices, because I don't have a whole lot of shopping options in town and it's not worth the time or gas to drive out to a bigger city to shop anywhere better.

But I think cooking is a really helpful skill to have. One of my younger sisters has started getting really into it, too (none of us ever learned much growing up), and she's been getting my nephew involved, which I think is great as long as she doesn't let him wave around any knives.

 

I made Chicken and Gnocchi soup (like the kind they have at Olive Gardens) today, so I'm feeling really proud of myself, since this is something I've been wanting to find out how to make for ages, and it was surprisingly easy. And I also made the cheesecake I mentioned in my first post the other day, and it turned out better than I thought it would, though I realized after I started making it that I had the wrong kind of pan, so cutting it and serving it was pretty awkward. But now I know. It's kind of a relief to know I'm competent at something, lol.

You're right about the unhealthy (and not to mention, it gets boring, unless you live in a large city with a lot of different choices, which I don't), but sometimes if you're cooking for just yourself, I'm not so sure you're really saving a whole lot of money. Of course, I'm just starting out cooking real food (as opposed to like ramen 24/7) and have had to buy a lot of things I didn't have, which I won't have to buy again (like certain sized pans and utensils).

 

Lol. Someone told me when I was like twelve that the Chick-fil-a nearest us had rats in it, and I've never been able to eat at one since. We have quite a few restaurants in my town, but they're all the same. We have 8000 people in my town, so we're small, but besides the typical fast food restaurants, all we seem to have are Mexican restaurants and "southern home-cookin'" restaurants that all serve the same thing.

I've never had store bought cheesecake. I'd never tried it at all until I randomly decided to make it the other day because the picture on the recipe looked yummy. And it was pretty good, though I know now what I'm doing so it'll be better next time. No strawberries, but it had lots of chocolate chips, so there's that. XD

Yeah, don't be a slacker like me and wait until the last minute to learn.

 

The worst thing about cooking is having to wash up afterwards. Anyone else just hate washing dishes? I always hated when my mom made me do the dishes as a kid, and I have absolutely no love for it now, either. It's the worst. My dad makes the hugest mess imaginable every time he cooks. I at least try to tidy up as I go, but ugh. That's the nice thing about eating out.

Seconded.

 

I'm not at that stage yet where I feel comfortable deviating from a recipe or just throwing something together, but I'm hoping to get there eventually.

I've only made ice cream once, and it was a major mess and took forever. Of course, it was a bunch of kids doing it, and we were using a cheap hand crank ice cream maker. XD