Cooking for n00bs

[Master_Craig]

It doesn't look that grand, but it smells and tasted really nice. I'm getting a lot better at cooking these meals.

There's a couple of differences this time around:

-With the chicken, I've began to use low fat/sugar/carb curry pastes. In this case, I'm using a green curry paste. It's mildly spicy but I quite like it (I'm not normally good with spice). I throw about a quarter or half a jar's worth of the curry and I lightly marinade all my chicken in it.

-I've switched the basmali white rice out for brown rice just for something different. Brown rice is supposed to be better in terms of fibre, it also tastes different too which is nice. I also add two table spoons worth of a low salt soy sauce over the rice.

-Veggies is nothing new. I hate cauliflower, so I'm using veggies that don't have it. The veggie satchels I use either have broccoli, carrots and corn, or beans, sugar peas and broccoli.

-Starting to experiment with different herbs and spices. This time I've used a mild chicken spice as well as some Italian herbs.

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

Because I'm a horrible person, I did this:

Dill pickle ice cubes with strong whiskey. Who's coming over?

On the cooking front (shoulda took a picture) I cut whole purple carrots in half and pan seared them in black pepper and honey. Turned out alright.

 

[used44]

Sunday I made my wife some honey custard french toast with some "apple fritter" bread I found (which basically just tasted like cinnamon bread) with a blackberry-maple compote. It was delicious but waaaaaay sweet. Served it with some bacon and scrambled eggs.

 

[Master_Craig]

That sounds pretty bad ass, used. Nice work man.

 

[Paradox]

My girlfriend cooked us Cordon Bleu tonight with Swiss, cheddar, Parmesan, Panko crumbs and bacon instead of ham. It was exquisite.

 

[Master_Craig]

Hot damn. That looks awesome!

 

[UghRochester]

Eyebrows, that ice cube shit is disgusting.

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

Eyebrows, that ice cube shit is disgusting.

Dont knock it til you try it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickleback

 

[Master_Craig]

We've been asked to cook once a week in our house hold, so now I cook for the family on Monday nights. Here's what I made everyone:

Honestly, this is just what I have for lunch everyday due to my specialised meal plan, but I thought it would work as a nice, healthy dinner. My mum loved it, my brother thought it was okay (not a brown rice fan) and my girlfriend enjoyed it too, although she's not used to spicy food. I'd probably say this is a mild to medium spicy dish.

It's lightly curried roast chicken breast served with brown rice and mixed vegetables.

Here's how to do your own

You will need:

-Chicken breast(s)
-Cutting board
-Decent knife
-Brown rice (white if you want)
-Rice cooker
-Alfoil
-Baking tray
-Microwave/Oven
-Frozen vegetables (fresh if you want)
-Soy sauce
-Green curry paste (in this case, I used Kan Tong Thai Green Curry)
-Chicken salt
-Italian herbs
-Chicken seasoning
-Table spoon
-Steel bowl
-Set of tongs

1 - Depending on how many people you're feeding, put in enough brown rice into your rice cooker and the right amount of water (so for four people, I used four cups of rice and six cups of water). Set to cook.

2 - Get your baking tray and cover the entire bottom with alfoil. Use enough afoil so it comes out of the tray and folds around the edges.

3 - Get your chicken breast(s) and cut them up into nice, bite sized cubes, or rectangles... just nice bite sizes. Depending on how many people you're feeding, you might use up to one chicken breast or two. I used two breasts which was about 1 kg of chicken (2.2 Ibs) but only my brother and I finished our meals, my mum and girlfriend got full. Anyway, cut 'em up and put it all in the baking tray.

4 - At this stage, I'd suggest getting out your veggies (if they're frozen) and letting them defrost. I used small satchels of frozen veggies.

5 - Get out your steel bowl and pour your green curry into the bowl. Depending on how many people you're feeding will determine how much curry you'll need. For me it was four people, so I used the entire jar.

6 - Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius (about 356 fahrenheit), we'll be cooking the chicken for about 35 minutes once it's pre heated.

7 - Get your chicken and pretty much throw it into the steel bowl of curry, lightly marinading your chicken. Once it's all nicely covered, put your chicken back into the baking tray. Add in whatever herbs/spices you'd like (in this case I used chicken salt, chicken seasoning and Italian herbs), then use your hands to mix it into the chicken. Cover the entire baking tray top with alfoil, sealing the chicken inside.

8 - Put the tray in the oven and cook for 35 minutes. Now go play a game for a while and come back later.

9 - Once it's cooked, take the tray out of the oven with some mitten gloves and place somewhere safe. Let it sit there sealed.

10 - Put your frozen satchel sealed veggies in the microwave/oven and set to cook on high for 5 minutes.

11 - Put whatever servings of rice you'd like in a bowl. Once the veggies are done, add the veggies to the rice and mix. Use a table spoon and add two spoons of soy sauce to the rice/veggies.

12 - Unseal the baking tray and use a set of tongs to serve the chicken on the rice.

Healthy dinner.

 

[Master_Craig]

Reviving this thread.

Found a lovely recipe online for a delicious fettuccine carbonara. Tried it last night and it was great. I'd like to share with you. I can't remember where we got the recipe though, probably Google.

Ingredients you'll need:

-fettuccine (however much you need, 375g is enough to feed four people)
-175g worth of bacon rashes, chopped up into tiny bacon bits
-2 eggs
-half a cup of light, thickened cooking cream
-two cloves of garlic, crushed
-one third of a cup of finely grated, parmesan cheese
-20g (about one table spoon) of butter
-2 teaspoons worth of fresh rosemary, finely chopped up
-salt and pepper
-optional: mushrooms (however many you want)
-water

Tools you'll need:

-A pot for the pasta
-A pot (or pan) for cooking ingredients
-A bowl for whisking eggs/cream
-A wooden spoon for stirring
-Tongs for pasta
-Appropriate cooking knives
-Cutting board
-Stove

Prep time: 5 - 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 - 15 minutes
Total time: About 20 minutes

1 - Cook the fettuccine as directed by the packaging (honestly, boil it in a pot of boiling hot water for ten to fifteen minutes, I usually have the stove on high for this to make it quicker).

2 - Break open two eggs into a bowl. Add your light, thickened cooking cream and your grated cheese into the bowl. Whisk it all together until it gets creamy. Add some salt and pepper into the mix and whisk again. Leave to rest once done.

3 - While the pasta is cooking, you can prepare the other ingredients. With another pan on the stove, throw your butter on the pan and fry at a medium heat. Spread the butter around as its melting. Throw on your bacon bits and cook for four to five minutes. If you have sliced mushrooms, you can throw them on at the same time as your bacon. Keep ingredients moving to avoid burning.

4 - Take your rosemary and chop it up very finely. The sharper your knife, the easier this'll be. You can also crush your garlic cloves, too. Peel off the skin of your garlic, take out two cloves, place them flat on your cutting board. Using the side of your knife as well as your palm, push the side of your knife down firmly on the garlic to crush 'em.

5 - Add your crushed garlic and chopped rosemary with your bacon/mushrooms. Stir for about one minute.

6 - Once the pasta is cooked, drain all the water out of it and return the same pasta pot to the stove, but reduce the heat to a lower heat. Throw your ingredients (bacon ,mushrooms, garlic, rosemary) in with the pasta, and then throw your whisked eggs/cream into the pasta as well.

7 - Stir and toss the pasta for about one minute, or until the sauce thickens and coats the pasta. This dish won't be a "saucy" dish, but it should at least cover and flavour all the pasta noodles.

8 - Turn stoves off and serve pasta. Add more cheese if you'd like.

 

[StudioTan]

This looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing, sir! Well, what did you make for the holidays?

 

[Master_Craig]

Honestly, I made bugger all! Haha. I've only just been cooking dinners.

We were lucky enough to go to Christmas events this year where people kindly cooked delicious food for us.

 

[FrozenBacon]

I would think I am pretty decent at cooking. Everyone who eats usually loves it. Here are a few foods that are easy as fuck to make yet everyone will think you are a cooking god when they eat it:

Hot Wings
Deviled Eggs
Chicken Parmesan
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Pizza (seriously learn how to cook pizza, it is easy as hell to make and a shitty homemade pizza beats ordering out. A pizza stone is required hardware for a decent pizza, though)
Most Pasta

Fresh herbs and spices makes all the difference in the world when it comes to deliciousness. Screw that freeze dried trash that you put in spice racks. Get your spices from the produce section, the stuff that comes in bags or little plastic boxes. You have to chop up the leaves yourselves, but that literally takes less than a minute if you are making a meal for one or two. The optimal solution is to get some seeds and grow the herbs in your kitchen, but for many people that isn't practical.

 

[Master_Craig]

^ I agree. Chopping up your own herbs/spices is so much better than buying the pre-done stuff in jars.

I made the pasta cabonara again last night. The recipe is exactly the same as above but this time I made two slight adjustments.

My partner asked me if the cabonara could be "creamier", so easy done, I used one full cup of light, thickened cooking cream instead of the recipe's originally stated half a cup. I also added in fresh broccoli, cut up into smaller pieces. I'm a firm believer that every meal you eat should have some fiber in it.

 

[Master_Craig]

I'm attempting to go back on my diet now, which includes a lot of meal preparation. If anyone is interested in a healthy, chicken dish, you could try this. This tastes really good when it's fresh... if it's been frozen or left in the fridge over night, not so much. I'll write down this recipe as if cooking dinner for four people, not a week's worth of meal prep.

Baked paprika chicken

Ingredients:

-1kg (2.2 Ibs) of skinless chicken breast
-250g of your favourite fresh vegetables (I like beans, broccoli and mushroom)
-250g of rice (white or brown, doesn't matter)
-70g of smoked paprika spice/seasoning
-Some thyme leaves
-Olive oil
-2 teaspoon of salt
-2 teaspoon of pepper
-2 teaspoons of Moroccan spice
-2 eggs
-250ml of almond milk (regular milk if you want)
-Water

Tools:

-A bowl to mix your spices/seasoning
-A bowl to mix eggs/milk
-A baking tray
-An oven
-A rice cooker (or a means to cook your rice)
-Knives
-Cutting boards
-A large bowl to hold all chicken
-Spoons
-Cooking foil
-Paper towel

1 - First we're going to brine the chicken. To do this, put all your chicken breasts as they are into a bowl large enough to hold all of them. We're then going to fill the bowl up with warm water, then sprinkle some salt in the water. The chicken is to be left alone for at least half an hour, giving you time to work on your other ingredients. To brine the chicken means it'll hold more moisture, so it won't taste "dry" after you cook it.

2 - Collect one of your bowls and crack two eggs into it. Fill the bowl with 250ml of almond milk. Use a spoon to beat the liquids together until it's mostly yellow and you can't see any of the egg yolks. Leave this alone for a while.

3 - Start your rice cooker. Should know how to do that. Fill up your rice cooker with the appropriate amount of rice and water needed, turn it on. Yay. When ever your rice cooker is done, just turn it off and leave it until the end.

4 - Collect all your gathered spices/seasoning and place the appropriate amounts into a separate bowl (excluding thyme leaves). Set aside.

5 - Using a cutting board and a knife, cut up your chosen veggies accordingly. You can lightly drizzle olive oil onto your vegetables and then sprinkle some thyme leaves on them. Place all your veggies into the baking tray.

6 - Your chicken should be ready to cut up by now. Take the chicken out of the salted water container and rinse under running cold water in the sink, use a paper towel to pad dry each piece of chicken. Using a new cutting board and a new knife, cut up your chicken breasts. Try to cut the breasts in half and then in quarters if you can. You don't want the pieces too small (over cooks) or too big (may under cook). Aim for a medium size.

7 - Take each piece of cut chicken breast and dunk it into the bowl of beaten eggs/almond milk, then dunk it into the bowl of your chosen spices/seasoning. Insure both sides are covered well, it'll essentially look like a dark red chicken.

8 - Place all the spice covered chickens into the baking tray with your veggies, cover the top of the baking tray with cooking foil. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius (roughly 356 Fahrenheit) for 40 minutes cooking time.

9 - Once ready, serve the chicken and veggies together with your rice.

 

[NinJew]

Too bad I can't post pics from mobile. Got loads of stuff. My masterpiece is probably my brie stuffed pork tenderloin marinated in apple sauce, apple cider, and winter jack Daniels, in a bacon weave sprinkled with dried cranberries and sliced almonds, marinated with liquid smoke and applesauce as she cooked on the BBQ.

Yeah, she was alright lol.

 

[Master_Craig]

^ Sounds awesome!

 

[Master_Craig]

I was inspired by the fettuccine cabonara dish, so I decided to try spaghetti bolognese, slightly different though.

This one will unfortunately take some time.

Serving: Up to four people
Time to make: Probably an hour and a half (90 minutes), including prep and cooking

Ingredients:

-500g - 1kg of minced beef (depends on how many you're serving)
-400g of spaghetti
-200g of bacon rashes
-Mushrooms
-3 garloc gloves
-Fresh rosemary
-Water
-2 cans of crushed tomatoes, 800-ishg each
-Olive oil

Tools:

-Pot for the spaghetti
-Pot for the sauce
-Cutting boards
-Knives
-Tongs
-Stove
-Wooden spoon for stirring
-Spaghetti drainer

1 - Boil your water and prepare your spaghetti in it. I usually boil water with the stove on high. Once it starts bubbling/boiling, throw in your spaghetti and have it there for about ten minutes. Fifteen minutes tops.

2 - While the spaghetti (or water, to begin with) is boiling, you can prepare your ingredients.

3 - Using a cutting board and a knife, cut up your bacon into small squares. You can then also dice up your mushrooms and the rosemary leaves.

4 - Unpeel three cloves of garlic, insure that they are fully unpeeled so the garlic is exposed. Use your cutting board, the flat side of your knife and your palm to completely crush up the garlic cloves.

5 - Your spaghetti should be done by now. Put a lid on top of the pot and remove pot from the stove. You can now put your second pot/pan on the stove. Keep the stove set to high and insure your second pot/pan has some oil on it.

6 - Throw on all of your minced meat, use a wooden spoon to stir it all up. Insure all the meat is cooked so that it's all brown and you can't see any traces of pink. Should only take a few minutes. Once that's done, throw your meat into a separate bowl.

7 - Throw all your bacon onto your pot/pan, cooking the pieces until they reach golden brown. Use a wooden spoon to keep them moving, to prevent them from burning. Half way through, throw in your crushed garlic, your mushrooms and rosemary leaves. Cook for a few minutes, the mushrooms will slowly turn brown.

8 - Throw all of your minced meat back into the pot/pan, with the bacon/mushrooms/garlic/rosemary, and stir for a bit. Soon, you'll want to reduce the heat down to a low, or medium heat.

9 - Open your cans of crushed tomatoes and pour them all into the pot/pan with your other ingredients. Now, here's the part that sucks... you're going to want to keep it all in there, simmering, for at least half an hour (an hour is best) so that the sauce thickens. You'll need to occasionally stir it.

10 - Once the time is up, pour all of your spaghetti into the spaghetti drainer, then once it stops dripping, return the spaghetti into the original pot it came from.

11 - Pour all of the sauce into the spaghetti pot. Put it over the stove on a low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon.

12 - Serve.

 

[FrozenBacon]

I made pizza today. It was delicious.

 

[Colin_B]

Nothing special. Rack of lamb. Potatoes with thyme & rosemary. I made my own dressing with olive oil, red wine, pepper and basil but the wine separated. I don't think I shook it hard enough. Oh well. It was good. I'd make it again.