Can you cook? Share your recipes!

[DeadnightWarrior]

A tech enthusiast still has to eat!
Can you cook or you'd rather have someone else doing it?
Are you willing to share your favourite recipes?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i cook probably 3-4 nights a week but i don't normally follow any specific recipes.

it's always funny though at the grocery store;
checkout girls see me(a middle aged adult guy shopping) with lots of produce, fresh meat, etc.
and almost always comment, "oh wow, you actually cook? i don't know anybody that cooks anymore!".

one recipe i found a decade ago and still make a few times a year:

 

[punkncat]

I enjoy cooking, but rarely do anything by recipe any more...just pretty much look in the fridge and see what fresh vegi and meat (if) I have available and just cook something. I would say among my favorites to cook are various types of stir fry or pasta dishes/casseroles. My wife is typically the one for most of the casserole type stuff. She does an amazing chicken pot pie. The cheeseburger pie above is awesome as well!

Unfortunately, a food allergy keeps us from having some of the really good bready stuff unless we cook separate dishes.

One of my favorite items is chicken marsala, which is really just a fancy way of saying Italian chicken fingers with Marsala wine gravy, lol. I home make the alfredo sauce in a double boiler...stir, stir, stir...The chicken fingers in a bath of egg and Italian breadcrumbs. Taste better if you fry in butter, but better for you if you fry in olive oil. Goes well with a nice fresh salad. The great part with doing this dish is that people get the impression it is hard. The only real difficult part is having the patience to continually stir the alfredo. Start it first and start it early so it will be smooth.

Tonight, I am doing fried eggplant parm on angel hair in a sausage red sauce. Should be pretty tasty. I did cheat and get the bottled sauce due to time constraints.

 

[rrht568tug457]

one recipe i found a decade ago and still make a few times a year:

Isn't that called a lasagna?

 

[rrht568tug457]

You should know how to make good tacos.

Make them every friday and try to improve over time. Look up highly voted recipes that are written by mexicans, people who actually know from home/childhood the recipe, not Andy's vacation-food-blog.

Can't make them wrong, as it is Fill-Tortilla/DIY once done/everything is in front of you.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

Isn't that called a lasagna?

guess you don't know what lasagna is?

there is no pasta whatsoever in my included recipe,
no mozzarella cheese(though still good with some added),
no ricotta,
no tomato sauce, etc...

You should know how to make good tacos.
..Can't make them wrong, as it is Fill-Tortilla

you're already making them wrong;

"taco" ingredients are contained within a hard shell.
tortilla is a flat soft corn-based pancake.

and even if you are eating your ingredients in a tortilla rather than a toasted taco shell,
you're suggestion left out heating/searing the tortillas.

i'm guessing you aren't much of a cook?

 

[punkncat]

Isn't that called a lasagna?

SHAME!! SHAME!!

You go -1 Interwebz for that comment.

 

[rrht568tug457]

guess you don't know what lasagna is?

there is no pasta whatsoever in my included recipe,
no mozzarella cheese(though still good with some added),
no ricotta,
no tomato sauce, etc...

you're already making them wrong;

"taco" ingredients are contained within a hard shell.
tortilla is a flat soft corn-based pancake.

and even if you are eating your ingredients in a tortilla rather than a toasted taco shell,
you're suggestion left out heating/searing the tortillas.

i'm guessing you aren't much of a cook?

What the heck am I supposed to see from a dish called "Impossible cheeburger pie" which has nothing to do with burgers and a picture that could very well be part of a lasagne, with how much is being shown.

Second of all, you're wrong. Anyone eating tacos with a hard shell does not deserve to eat tacos ever again. IT'S FALSE. You use authentic tortillas, period. If you disagree with that then I am sorry for you.

Obviously you heat the tortilla, what do you also want me to tell you to heat your beef-meat and make sure to wash yourself?
By the way, you're -> your.

I expected at least some ground level of competence. Recipes will always tell you to heat up the tortilla as well, if not then it is expected.
If you buy tortilla wraps instead of making them yourself, the packaging says it as well. There is literally no scenario here except user-error....

 

[ARCADDER]

you're already making them wrong;

"taco" ingredients are contained within a hard shell.
tortilla is a flat soft corn-based pancake.

and even if you are eating your ingredients in a tortilla rather than a toasted taco shell,
you're suggestion left out heating/searing the tortillas.

i'm guessing you aren't much of a cook?

Dang, you Americans are crazy. Tacos, are tortillas with ingredients, in the same way a pizza is bread with ingredients.

There are tacos:​

These abominations are not:

Seriously... What you guys call "taco" is more like a bent tostada with poor ingredients that aren't even Tex-Mex... No one in Mexico knows "Chilli con carne", nor anyone would ever dare to add cheese, let alone Cheddar and Monterrey Jack, on a taco, (exception being "flautas" with Queso Fresco/Manchego), and then with the cherry on top being a literal Roman Salad drenched in Ranch/Tabasco/Siracha dressing as part of the taco. 🙄

As rrht568tug457 said, look up for authentic recipes, otherwise your "tacos" are the equivalent of what Mac and Cheese or Lunchables are forAi Quattro Formaggi or Pizza respectively. Yikes...

 

[ARCADDER]

And to not derail this thread into a discussion, let me share an actual recipe for Red Mexican Rice.
It's super simple, and you don't need any exotic ingredients. Also, if you do it correctly, I'm almost certain you'll love it.

So, ingredients...

For the sauce:

• 2 or 3 medium-sized tomatoes.
• 1 garlic clove.
• 3/4 of a medium-sized white onion.
• 1 tablespoon of salt. If you have access to smoked salt with pepper, use half of it (or less if the pepper is strong) and 3/4 of a tablespoon of regular salt.
• 1/2 cup of chicken broth. You can instead use a Knorr chicken broth cube... crappier and unhealthy, but it gets the job done in an emergency.
• The juice of half a small lemon (I think they're called limes in the US).

Put everything in a blender and blend until you have a homogeneous liquid. This will be your sauce.

For the rice:

• 2 cups of rice (I use "super extra" type rice which is sold by La Merced, Valle Verde or just the local one).
• 100g of peas.
• 100g of minced carrots.
• 100g of minced potatoes.
• 1/4 of minced white onion.
• Oil.

The procedure:

1. Wash the rice until the water is clear. If the rice is chunky, and you know it needs longer cooking times, leave it in water for an hour.
2. Spread the rice in a towel and leave there it until it's completely dry. You can leave it in direct sunlight.
3. Once it's completely dry, in a wide, big pan, pour a decent amount of canola oil or whatever you have around as long as it's not olive oil. Turn on the heat to the maximum and wait a couple of minutes. Throw a rice in the oil... if it sizzles, it's time to toss all the rice in there. Make sure every bit is shinny and covered in oil and keep moving it until every rice grain looks slightly golden... avoid burning them or leaving them pale.
4. Toss the peas, carrots, potatoes and onion in there and keep moving.
5. Once the onion looks clear, toss 70% of your sauce and move the rice around. Every grain of rice should be covered in the sauce.
6. Keep doing this until the rice soaks up the liquid of the sauce.
7. Add water and/or chicken broth to your blender cup (which should still have the remaining 30% of the sauce) until you reach the 4 cup mark. Turn it on so you have a uniform liquid again.
8. Toss this mixture to your rice and with a fork, move it around, making sure you don't have clumps and the rice is evenly spread across the pan. Once you achieve this, DON'T move the rice anymore.
9. When you see boiling bubbles form, turn the heat to the minimum, put the lid on the pan, and set a timer for 12 minutes.
10. Once the timer ends, DON'T you dare open the lid or move the pan around. Set another timer for at least 15 minutes more.
11. Open the lid and, with a fork, gently "comb" the rice around. It should be fluffy, separated and well cooked.

¡Listo! You'll end up with something like this:

 

[USAFRet]

That looks good!

But...

The juice of half a small lemon (I think they're called limes in the US).

We have both..
Limes are green, lemons are yellow.
Which?

 

[COLGeek]

And to not derail this thread into a discussion, let me share an actual recipe for Red Mexican Rice.
It's super simple, and you don't need any exotic ingredients. Also, if you do it correctly, I'm almost certain you'll love it.

So, ingredients...

For the sauce:

• 2 or 3 medium-sized tomatoes.
• 1 garlic clove.
• 3/4 of a medium-sized white onion.
• 1 tablespoon of salt. If you have access to smoked salt with pepper, use half of it (or less if the pepper is strong) and 3/4 of a tablespoon of regular salt.
• 1/2 cup of chicken broth. You can instead use a Knorr chicken broth cube... crappier and unhealthy, but it gets the job done in an emergency.
• The juice of half a small lemon (I think they're called limes in the US).

Put everything in a blender and blend until you have a homogeneous liquid. This will be your sauce.

For the rice:

• 2 cups of rice (I use "super extra" type rice which is sold by La Merced, Valle Verde or just the local one).
• 100g of peas.
• 100g of minced carrots.
• 100g of minced potatoes.
• 1/4 of minced white onion.
• Oil.

The procedure:

1. Wash the rice until the water is clear. If the rice is chunky, and you know it needs longer cooking times, leave it in water for an hour.
2. Spread the rice in a towel and leave there it until it's completely dry. You can leave it in direct sunlight.
3. Once it's completely dry, in a wide, big pan, pour a decent amount of canola oil or whatever you have around as long as it's not olive oil. Turn on the heat to the maximum and wait a couple of minutes. Throw a rice in the oil... if it sizzles, it's time to toss all the rice in there. Make sure every bit is shinny and covered in oil and keep moving it until every rice grain looks slightly golden... avoid burning them or leaving them pale.
4. Toss the peas, carrots, potatoes and onion in there and keep moving.
5. Once the onion looks clear, toss 70% of your sauce and move the rice around. Every grain of rice should be covered in the sauce.
6. Keep doing this until the rice soaks up the liquid of the sauce.
7. Add water and/or chicken broth to your blender cup (which should still have the remaining 30% of the sauce) until you reach the 4 cup mark. Turn it on so you have a uniform liquid again.
8. Toss this mixture to your rice and with a fork, move it around, making sure you don't have clumps and the rice is evenly spread across the pan. Once you achieve this, DON'T move the rice anymore.
9. When you see boiling bubbles form, turn the heat to the minimum, put the lid on the pan, and set a timer for 12 minutes.
10. Once the timer ends, DON'T you dare open the lid or move the pan around. Set another timer for at least 15 minutes more.
11. Open the lid and, with a fork, gently "comb" the rice around. It should be fluffy, separated and well cooked.

¡Listo! You'll end up with something like this:

I am going to try this soon. Will only make one small change. Vegetable broth vice chicken.

 

[ARCADDER]

That looks good!

But...

We have both..
Limes are green, lemons are yellow.
Which?

The answer is the green one, so Lime. 😁

We call "limón" to the green ones, which sounds closer to "lemon", and "lima" to the yellow ones, which sounds closer to "lime", but I just googled it, and it seems there's no consensus in Spanish. I don't know if it's the same in English, but yeah, lime it is!

 

[ARCADDER]

I am going to try this soon. Will only make one small change. Vegetable broth vice chicken.

Nice! Yeah, for sure! Let us know how it went if you do. Which vegetables do you regularly use for chicken broth substitute?

I've done it a ton of times without chicken broth and while the flavour difference is noticeable but not a dealbreaker, the broth's fat helps to avoid clumpy or fragile rice, but it's not the end of the world if that happens... plus it's healthier without broth!

 

[COLGeek]

Nice! Yeah, for sure! Let us know how it went if you do. Which vegetables do you regularly use for chicken broth substitute?

I've done it a ton of times without chicken broth and while the flavour difference is noticeable but not a dealbreaker, the broth's fat helps to avoid clumpy or fragile rice, but it's not the end of the world if that happens... plus it's healthier without broth!

I'm lazy and buy a store bought brand. Use in all recipes needing broth. May not be the best, but I like it.

 

[grantorinounforgiven]

Here's an improvised version of a Greek dish I had last year. They use beef, but it works just fine with pork too. It's super simple - chop whatever meat you want to use, small/medium chunks, add lots of water, and boil at a low temperature. I like it very tender so I do it for 2-3 hours. At the time you add spices, you should have meat covered with water, more or less. Of course, add water during the process if needed. When you have the meat as soft as you want it, add cinnamon, pepper, 1 bay leaf, cumin, oregano, dill - depending on the quantity, a pinch or two of each. Salt per taste. Add 3-4 spoons of tomato paste. Stir well, let it boil for 10 more minutes. That's it. Sorry the recipe is so loose, but trust me - that's all you need. My favorite side dish with meat made this way - mashed potatoes. Other options - any pasta/rice.

 

[kira-faye]

Nope, but my friend can - he's a chef at one of the best restaurants in Toronto!

Here's his latest Imgur post about dealing with an unexpectedly large beef roast:

https://imgur.com/a/p1QAq2K

View: https://imgur.com/gallery/p1QAq2K