“...no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.”

[Mercy]

It gives me a sad whenever I hear about an adult that cannot cook. Eating is a basic necessity in life and being able to feed oneself should be a well-honed skill set for anyone old enough to enter into a binding contract. Opening a cardboard or plastic package and punching some buttons on a microwave are not cooking. Cooking is not rocket science, unless you want to get into molecular gastronomy, and can be as complex or simple as one wants.

I started learning to cook as soon as I was old enough to stir a pot and am always looking to expand my culinary knowledge and abilities. It is something that K. and I share, which is good since we spend at least a couple hours a day in the kitchen together. Eating out usually results in conversation about how much better we could have eaten if we had spent the less money at the grocer's or fishmonger's and cooked ourselves so we rarely eat out any more. Except for raw oysters or sushi; it is not as cost effective or easy to get the variety of sushi grade fish to make our own at home usually and oysters are better if someone else opens them. Take-away is for those rare times when we have a lot going on in a day and do not have time to take a pause for cooking. We stopped ordering in Chinese food when it became nigh impossible to get decent shrimp toast so we learned to make our favorite dishes ourselves.

[CJC]

I make a wicked grilled cheese. I can also cook corned beef hash. Both involve a hot plate.

So essentially, I am a hot plate chef.

[rock_nog]

I've been cooking a lot less since having to move back in with my parents, but I used to cook all the time. I didn't really learn to cook much until college, though. My first year having an apartment, I didn't really know how to cook a whole lot, and I was terrified of meat because I was afraid I'd undercook it and get food poisoning. That summer, though, I had a whole lot of free time and not a lot to do so I really hunkered down and taught myself the ropes. I will say, I do still tend to cook eggs for breakfast most days, so I've got that going for me. I'm actually thinking of cooking more as a way of passing the time here in purgatory.

[firebug]

I make a mean shepherds pie :)

[Ventus]

Once a week on Tuesday I make a big pot of spaghetti that's quite meaty and saucy. I don't claim to be a chef or anything but I can cook what my father or mother can't cook like shrimp and I also I love baking, I can make some really good brownies.
And I can also make some nice cheese cake :3

[GrantGreif]

The first step of the only soup recipe I know is, "Pour contents into microwave-safe bowl."

[mrz84]

I'm not a good cook, but I still do when the situation calls fori t. Otherwise my roommate (and real life brother and AGN Forum member who stopped coming here for whatever reason) Dragon Omega makes all our dinner meals.

[Tim]

i cook random concoctions on the weekends for some food fun. Last week I made a stuffed meatloaf stuffed with sfuffed shells.

[mrz84]

i cook random concoctions on the weekends for some food fun. Last week I made a stuffed meatloaf stuffed with sfuffed shells.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess the stuffed shells had...stuffing...in them? :sweat:

[Goriya]

I can cook Dirty Rice really well. That's about it though. :<

[Tim]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess the stuffed shells had...stuffing...in them? :sweat:

I actually made the cheese mix myself to stuff the shells with.

[rock_nog]

You know, I kinda got to thinking... Maybe we should create a new thread to act as a sort of recipe exchange. I mean, it's all cool to see everyone's level of cooking expertise, but I think it'd be even more fun to share our favorite recipes and/or give cooking pointers. You know, turn this into an educational experience or something.

[Mercy]

You know, I kinda got to thinking... Maybe we should create a new thread to act as a sort of recipe exchange. I mean, it's all cool to see everyone's level of cooking expertise, but I think it'd be even more fun to share our favorite recipes and/or give cooking pointers. You know, turn this into an educational experience or something.
When we were discussing adding more sub-forums, EaTS or something similar was one of the topics discussed. Since none of that went anywhere, I decided to gauge interest by reviving the polls. A recipe thread sounds like a good idea since a lot of members seem to have at least a dish or two up their sleeves. It would help me get back in the habit of measuring as I tend to be a scratch cook with a dash of this and two splashes of that. Baking requires more exact measuring but my oven is currently broken so no baking.

Stuffed shells is a great dish that can be simple or complex yet always appears well-polished. I usually splurge on a good, hard cheese, asiago is my favourite, which makes up for whatever ricotta I bought because it was on sale that week And lots of garlic and fresh, dried oregano. Lately I have gotten lazy and tend to make lasagna rolls instead which is basically the same thing with a different pasta form.

[Liliith]

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