Anyone Got That Cookin' Bug?

[Ares]

I've always had the policy that anything you have to do you should not only do it right, but do it well.

Due to my family's schedule I've become the defacto cook and this last year I decided that I actually love doing it and wanted to get not just good, but great at it.

I've worked in food & beverage most of my life and know what good eatin' is, but really learning it and doing it has giving me such a deeper appreciation for it. It's as much art as science and I'm turning into a total food dork, minus the posh foodie lifestyle, just a family man that likes to feed his tribe good food.

I think fine cuisine is really is a testament to civilization, and if there's anything worth enjoying and fighting for, shoot...good cooking is worth it for me.

Anyone else catch the food bug and find that the Food Network is on about as much as Sports Center?

[BBQTJ]

Yes, I borrow many ideas from food network.

I love to cook and my friends love to be test subjects. Since it's summer I've been mainly smoking meats and grilling, but come winter I'll whip up something in the kitchen.

[yoni]

I had a mentor that was a british officer in WW2 and he believed a proper gentleman must be a great cook.

So I cook middle eastern, chinese, and smoke meat, chicken and fish.

When I am in Africa my workers all try to get an invite to my house for dinner.

[9711]

I'm a pretty good cook myself. I take a lot of pleasure in the "light" in some of the wifes friends eyes when I'm serving something especially good from the grill, or a desert of particular decadence. Food network/sports center are interchangable. I also like cooks.com for some good ideas.

[ordinarysaint]

When we're camping Im usually the breakfast cook.Everybody likes the bfast burrito.
Just thinking about this has got me thinkin about throwing beans in the crock pot.Usually I toss a couple cans of kidney,butter and lima beans and whatever kind of bean looks interesting at the time.Some chopped onion,ground beef,Jack Daniels,tomato paste and bbq sauce and a couple spices.Yup,Im getting hungry.

[Mike Erwin]

I enjoy Food Network and make it a habit to try different recipes. Ask my wife and she will tell you that I am a very good cook; for her birthday I cooked her a brownie pie. The recipe came from Barefoot Contessa. Yep, it was great.

Mike

[JB326]

I am the chief cook at my house too. I took quite a liking to it when I was young, and I still love it today. I have no formal cooking education, but I like good food. I am perfectly happy with simple meals like hamburger steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes, but I want them to be GOOD steaks, beans, and taters. I love the Food Network as well, and typically will take it over ESPN. I like sports as much as the next guy, but sports have absolutely no bearing over my life (nor will they cook me a meal!).

[foxmeadow]

When we're camping Im usually the breakfast cook.Everybody likes the bfast burrito.
Just thinking about this has got me thinkin about throwing beans in the crock pot.Usually I toss a couple cans of kidney,butter and lima beans and whatever kind of bean looks interesting at the time.Some chopped onion,ground beef,Jack Daniels,tomato paste and bbq sauce and a couple spices.Yup,Im getting hungry.

Bacon goes great with that.

[Ares]

I had a mentor that was a british officer in WW2 and he believed a proper gentleman must be a great cook.



I wholeheartedly agree. Sadly, the women-folk in my life are, bless their the hearts, miserable in the kitchen, but I've got a slew of uncles, none of them formally trained, who are wizards in the kitchen and the grille. I've been greatly inspired by their magic and the ability to make something for other's pleasure is a pure delight.

It's pretty cool to be talking about steaks, sauces, beer, and wine as easily with these guys as guns and gals; what a time we live in.

[choirboy]

I too am a good cook. Sometimes I scare folks at our picnics because I do cook young coon and woodchucks. I do the occasional Timber Rattler if it is found too close my house or livestock. I got the family liking the crawdads from my pond. Of course they come for our homegrown beef.

Choirboy

[ordinarysaint]

QUOTE]Bacon goes great with that[/QUOTE]

Bacon goes great with anything!:thumbsup:

[jmac_52]

I too am a good cook. Sometimes I scare folks at our picnics because I do cook young coon and woodchucks. I do the occasional Timber Rattler if it is found too close my house or livestock. I got the family liking the crawdads from my pond. Of course they come for our homegrown beef.

Choirboy


I was taught almost 50 years ago by my mother how to cook Cajun. That's one of my specialties, including gumbo, chicken fricassee, lots of other things that most people probably wouldn't think of eating.

It's been a good while since a stirred up a batch of rabbit and squirrel sauce picante. :naughty:

I'm not at all deficiant in the area of grilling either. The first wife really enjoyed that, because anything she tried to cook came out unfit for consumption by man or beast.....dogs don't often walk away from food. :unsure:

This one didn't believe me until the day she attempted gumbo, then didn't know how to start. I gently pushed her aside and took over. She loves the cooking, but hates the fact that the style of cooking I enjoy so much isn't low calorie at all. And...it's tough to eat in moderation. :blushing:

[Craig R]

Bacon goes great with that


Bacon would make an old shoe taste good. My wife cooks mostly during the week as I need to get up at 1AM to go to work.
Besides the normal fare on the grill in summer steaks and burgers, I'll do swordfish, last weekend we had sea scallops with butter/garlic sauce. One of my wifes favorites is this, http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/cooking-mussels/detail.aspx.

I hang out on allrecipes.com to get ideas but usually end up winging it, last night I made mashed potatoes which are typically a bit boring but along with butter I added 5 cloves of minced garlic, and a bit of curry and red pepper, 3 different people said it was the best mashed they ever had. Careful with the curry though.:finger:

[BigEd63]

Yes I can cook some.

Some dishes I refuse to do anymore until I get my weight down. For example my 100% home made pizza has been extinct for quit awhile.

[Mike Erwin]

Craig, you are right about curry. I make a very good curried butternut squash soup and one batch I made had too much curry and, while still good, it did taste a little strong. Curry in moderation is great.

Mike

[JLE]

Just did some great stuffed peppers last night. The Marconi peppers where already huge so we picked 6 of them. Cooked up a little ground venison, onions, garlic, smoked cummin, chili powder and tomato paste. Added a little provolone and thinly sliced some jalapenos from the garden (man the heat here has brought out the heat in them) to the top. Then instead of baking them, we put them on the grill to char up the peppers just right. May try blanching the peppers first next time since they were still very crunchy, but other then that they were good.

I have two more in my lunch today and just writing this is upping the odds of an early lunch.

JLE

[TaxPhd]

I'm not at all deficiant in the area of grilling either. The first wife really enjoyed that, because anything she tried to cook came out unfit for consumption by man or beast.....dogs don't often walk away from food. :unsure:

This one didn't believe me until the day she attempted gumbo, then didn't know how to start. I gently pushed her aside and took over. She loves the cooking, but hates the fact that the style of cooking I enjoy so much isn't low calorie at all. And...it's tough to eat in moderation. :blushing:

Three questions to ask a prospective spouse:

1) Who's your Momma?
2) Are you Catholic (or insert religion of choice)?

And the most important. . .

3) Can you make a roux?

[jmac_52]

Three questions to ask a prospective spouse:

1) Who's your Momma?
2) Are you Catholic (or insert religion of choice)?

And the most important. . .

3) Can you make a roux?

Those are great questions to ask....and I could have used those in my first marriage.

I can say that it doesn't matter who your mom is....as long as she knows how to cook.

Religion is optional....although my mother raised me Catholic, I don't adhere to all their oddities.

And, for #3.....I can absolutely make a roux!!! Better than the crap you can buy in any store!

If she can't answer these.....you may want to reconsider. :wink:

[Foxpup]

I LOVE food network, and I love cooking. I absolutely love that something as simple as a good dinner can bring people together, de-stress them, and reconnect us all. That and I get the pleasure of just cooking. It's like chemistry to me.
I rarely measure, except for the ingredients you can't get away with that with and I have many of my staple family recipes memorized. I love to play with my recipes and my poor husband is always the guinea pig but he doesn't seem to take issue with that! :)

While I love to cook in the kitchen, my Dad has been discovering and teaching me dutch oven cooking on the campfire. That is an art in itself!

[jmac_52]

While I love to cook in the kitchen, my Dad has been discovering and teaching me dutch oven cooking on the campfire. That is an art in itself!

I believe a person should be able to cook in any environment. You never know when all you may have is a gas grill, camp stove, campfire. Keep the possibilities open and explore at will!

[s4141]

Been cooking since my college days. Great fun to me and my son is in a culinary program now.

This coming week I will be smoking some briskets, then tuna at a girls camp. Supposed to be showing the girls cooking skills. But I've never smoked brisket at 7000 feet though in cooler temps so it wil be a challenge.

[bae]

I do most of the cooking in our household, everything from Mac & Cheese from a box to lunatic banquets that would make a Roman Emperor blush.

I received Myhrvold's "Modernist Cuisine" cookbook/tome as an unexpected gift this winter, and have been experimenting with cooking involving liquid nitrogen, vapor evaporators, sous vide/water baths, and particle accelerators, great fun.

But my wife & kid are away at a play this evening, so I'm throwing a bison steak on the grill, and calling it dinner.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-T7_URVe83oQ/TZ4y9ByxyWI/AAAAAAAACi0/KAHo7DKGmYo/s720/img_2094.jpg

[AlexSpartan]

The Joy of Cooking has been indispensable for me. Just the other day I made wild japanese scallops in a spicy feta cream sauce with green beans served over brown rice pilaf. Delicious.

Grilling is especially awesome to know how to do properly, as cooking everything over a fire taps into our primal side. For most people grilling consists of cheap beef and hot dogs served on plain buns with ketchup and mustard. I grill asparagus, beans, fish, and lots and lots of veggies. Grilled pineapple is divine, as well. Vegetables are the basis of every meal for me, followed by meats, so veggies get the priority on my grill.

[lightfighter]

Sous vide some pork belly until its like some kind of glorious butter or gelatin and then sear off the fat side in a hot iron skillet until it's crispy.

Serve it on it's own or as lardon in a Thai or Vietnamese salad with a zappy dressing

Friggen amazing

[AlexSpartan]

I even cook some types of fish with just lemon juice!! Its called Ceviche in many places. Delicious!! ( Apparently lemon/Lime Juice Acidity cooks or cures the fish!) Either way, i never got sick and actually usually grabbed me some after dinner delight with Mrs C. Could it hold aphrodisiac properties?? Hmmm. I don,t know, but i like believeing it does! ;-)

Oh, man, ceviche is definitely a favorite of mine. It's so easy. I like mixing mine with more lime than lemon juice, and corn, diced peppers, onions, and chopped shrimp and white fish. Let sit in the fridge for a day or so, and voila, delicious healthy goodness.

[lightfighter]

No need to let it sit for a day - 20 minutes will do - and the texture will be better

[AlexSpartan]

20 minutes? Do you cook it first? I mix it in raw and let it cure overnight, generally.

Another awesome food I've had was something I had in Greece on my honeymoon. I had it at a restaurant early on, and I would refuse to eat anywhere if they didn't have it. It's called xorta - pronounced "horta". Basically it's boiled wild greens (any greens will do as long as they aren't red, red doesn't work well), cooked just long enough to make them tender but not mushy (a couple minutes at the most), with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. That's it. And it's amazing, and super, super healthy.

[lightfighter]

No cooking necessary. Like C said the acid in the lime or lemon 'cooks' the fish - even in that short period of time.

Even if it were raw it wouldn't hurt you. Think of all the sushi or sashimi that is eaten

I eat plenty of raw beef in dishes like steak tartar or carpaccio and eat my pork medium rare.

None of this is a problem if you're buying fresh stuff from a reputable source like a dedicated butcher shop or fish monger.

[Dr_Dave]

heck last time I made something I killed my dog. I stay out of the kitchen.

[Dr_Dave]

bae are those books any good?

[bae]

bae are those books any good?

They are:

- highly informative from a technical outlook
- insanely-well produced, from photography to printing to recipe testing
- well-supported - the author and his team personally respond to questions
- challenging - this is not your grandmother's cookbook.
- fun - if you are looking to expand your horizons, or just get some zany ideas
- epic in scope - it's ~2400 pages
- reasonably priced - bear with me here, compared to buying Ferran Adria's El Bulli books.
- important - this pretty much sets the standard for this style of cooking, and I think will be a historically-significant work
- dangerous - you may find yourself tempted to set up a kitchen that looks like something out of Dr. Science. This is expensive and painful.

Summary: I'd find a friend with a set, and borrow/look through them, and offer to help him cook through it, on his dime. I think this was the plan of the "friend" who gave me this set though :-)

Here's a link to the website for the book, I don't think they compete with One Source much yet :-):


http://modernistcuisine.com/

[WVShooter]

There has been many the time my wife was hesitant to try what I cooked but when she did she loved it.
Cooking can be a chore at times but more often not.
A lot of the things I learned to cook were from other guys at the firehouse.

[kabar]

I don't cook all that often these days but will get on a sourdough bread baking kick on occasion. Nothing better than a loaf of Chiabatta or a Pain au Levain and a bowl of fruity olive oil and some sweet cream butter. A couple of years ago I was baking the stuff most every week but had to cut back as it we were eating way to much of the stuff.

16614

My favorite cookbook is one called The Medeteraean Diet as it's got a lot of tasty and authentic yet simple recipies of the sort that people in the region cooked at home a generation ago.

My least impressive (read yucky) attempts at cooking have consistently been Indian dishes.

[5thShock]

That photo makes me smell it, good job.

[s4141]

Ceviche is great! Usually put some serrano peppers in it for some heat.

Some nice caribbean salsa goes great with tuna steaks, yellowtail, ....


Pan seared tuna, blackened tuna....

Wahoo is great if you can get it. Soak it in coconut milk overnight. Dip it in flour, then beaten egg, then coconut mixed with fresh garlic and basil then fry it a few minutes on each side.

Nice looking bread.

[NoBucks]

My wife has been at her mother's in Wyoming for two weeks, so I've been on my own with cooking. I declared this The Summer of Steak and have been cooking on the grill every night. Usually, it's been steak and a piece of toast, maybe some rice.

Every now and then I get inspired and do something awesome, though. Here's what I had this evening!

16618

[lightfighter]

Amazing crust Kabar. There are pros that would be envious of that

[lightfighter]

I personally found 40-45 minutes suitable to my taste..........but agree overkill ruins it. What fish do you use?? Haddock?

Most of the time I use diver scallops, the big ones, sliced about 1/4 inch thick or so but I've also used grouper, monkfish or snapper.

I think any salt water white fish will do.

[NedMan]

I'll take any of you to the mat with my:

Baked Beans
Challah
Pot Roast
Fish Chowder
Carne Guisada

[NoBucks]

This is what my daughter cooked this evening! Yes, it's a hot dog cooked in bacon grease and wrapped in bacon! Yeah, yeah, it's a hotdog, but don't tell me she doesn't understand the good life! She has the mindset! I told her the only way to improve on it would have been to use a bratwurst.

16627

I suppose things are going to change when Mrs. Nobucks gets home, but until then, we eat what we want!

[Steve Paulson]

When I was in seminary I lovingly referred to the food network as my other professor. Learned a lot, experimented a lot. My favorite stuff involved produce from my own garden (which I miss...been 3 years without a garden. :sad: )

I am the primary cook in the house. My wife is capable, but she prefers to let me. My passion for food contributes to the location where I can hide my spare mag...horizontally at 11:00, under a bit of an overhang. :ouch:

As I type I've got a smoker nearly full of quick 'n dirty experiments (flash frozen stuff that I just tossed in, essentially). But the star of the show is some fresh Canadian Sockeye that's been marinating since last night in soy sauce, maple syrup, garlic, salt & pepper. Gotta go check my temp...

[bae]

bae are those books any good?

My daughter is preparing for the County Fair this week. One of the competitions is for "table setting" (yes, this is still a real Home Economics kind of place.) The kids set a 2 place setting, with silverware, napkins, centerpiece, glassware, and so on that are suitable for a sample menu that they also provide with their entry.

Sharper than a serpent's tooth is the mockery of the menu she composed yesterday after browsing through the books and doing a little thinking/researching on her own.... (She assures me this could in theory be produced in The Lab.)

~ Modernist Cuisine for Two ~

To Drink:

(In Order of Corresponding Course)

- Tomatillo Margaritas & Cryogenically poached Jalapeño pearls
- Green Tea Dusted Echinacea-Honey Sake
- Essence-of-Lychee Infused Rosé

Appetizers:

- Cherry-Chili Leather Wrapped Frozen Foie Gras Over A Nest of Freeze-Dried Sweet Pea Tendrils
- Passion Fruit-Carrot Foam Atop Seaweed Glazed Citrus-Sea Urchin Gel
- Compressed Scallop-Squid Sphere with Blueberry Puffs, Extruded Heirloom Tomato Tapenade & Stir-Fried Fiddlehead Ferns


Main Course:

- Sous Vide Pigeon Over Bed of Deep Fried Apple Crisps & Miso-Mushroom-Polenta Cakes with Centrifuged Aubergine-Honey Sauce & Lark Tongue-Cheddar Crackers

Dessert:
- Chestnut Meringue & Caramelized Coconut-Espresso Swirls with Frozen Oporto Drops
- Crispy Tarragon Soufflé Stuffed with Star Fruit-Rosewater Sorbet& Iced Violet Petals
- Almond-Apricot-Tangerine Foam Over Cocoa Nib Crème Brulee with Marzipan Fairies

[mmullins2000]

QUOTE]Bacon goes great with that

Bacon goes great with anything!:thumbsup:[/QUOTE]

Especially this kind of bacon! http://bacontoday.com/why-choose-bacon-or-steak-when-you-can-have-bacon-steaks/

M

[AlexSpartan]

17567

Salmon burger with tomato, onion, and goat chese on Asiago Peppercorn bread. Big Wedge of lettuce with a bit of blue cheese and a pomegranate blueberry vinaigrette. And the rest of the tomato.

And of course, Apothic.

[bae]

Thumbs-up on the Apothic recommendations in this thread. I'd never heard of it before, good value.

[Yooper75]

I love to cook I just don't get to do it very often because of my work schedule. I get to cook at camp and I am responsible for breakfast and snacks and let me tell you we eat well at camp between splitting cooking duties with my dad, his friend, and my self. I love cooking a hearty camp breakfast consisting of two to three dozen scrambled eggs, 3lbs of bacon, sausage, deep fried tatter tots, and toast. Cooking on the grill is my favorite thing to do all year round although it get's a little challenging trying to cook on the grill when it's -15* outside.