Food and Cooking

[Wriste13]

Weird as it may be to say, I don't think I started to truly respect myself until I started cooking for myself. I went into college with the determination not to live on peanut butter, ramen, and Chic-fil-a (even though those are all delicious). This forced me to learn how to cook a bunch of different things, although I've become especially fond of frying foods. Chicken parm is awesome, and frying pork cutlets is a great way to go for me.

Most of the things I cook are super simple. One of my favorite foods to cook is probably pork shoulder, easiest thing in the world. Just season it, throw it in a crock pot with stock of your choice (I use chicken), and cook it on low overnight. Comes out falling apart and makes great barbecue sandwiches.

Any go-to dishes y'all have? If you do, please share them. I'm curious as to what folks eat, and I'm always looking for a new dish to try.

[Wee Man]

I've been cooking since I was a kid, my absolute favourite thing to cook is any kind of meat. Slow cooking is nice but I always find it not as nice as roasted meat, I prefer to slow cook things like stews or something with a sauce.

I'm also a baker so making things like Pizza/Bread/Cakes is always going to be a go to for me. I make a delicious focaccia although it's not exactly the usual kind since I treat it like a pizza with cheese and any number of toppings. Traditional focaccia is usually just salt and olive oil and it tends to be crispy and thin rather than fluffy and thick like the ones I make.

Here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focaccia

[Wriste13]

I've been cooking since I was a kid, my absolute favourite thing to cook is any kind of meat. Slow cooking is nice but I always find it not as nice as roasted meat, I prefer to slow cook things like stews or something with a sauce.

I'm also a baker so making things like Pizza/Bread/Cakes is always going to be a go to for me. I make a delicious focaccia although it's not exactly the usual kind since I treat it like a pizza with cheese and any number of toppings. Traditional focaccia is usually just salt and olive oil and it tends to be crispy and thin rather than fluffy and thick like the ones I make.

Here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focaccia

Oh, nice. Never heard of focaccia. I've tried bread, I'm okay with it - I have the patience to make it when I have the patience. When I don't I just don't make it lol.

Is there a particular recipe you use?

[Wee Man]

Oh, nice. Never heard of focaccia. I've tried bread, I'm okay with it - I have the patience to make it when I have the patience. When I don't I just don't make it lol.

Is there a particular recipe you use?

Most bread is made from pretty much the same four ingredients (flour, water, salt and yeast) just in varying quantities and using various techniques. When I first started baking I just played around with adding extra ingredients to a basic bread dough recipe and seeing how it came out (Cheese and Onion were my personal favourite additions).

I find home baking to be a lot more fun and rewarding than what I make at work but it's definitely time consuming and does require a lot of patience and motivation. If you ever wanted a bit of a challenge I'd recommend trying to make sourdough bread. You ferment a mixture of flour and water (sometimes adding milk/yogurt/tops of certain fruits like plums) over the course of a few days and use that instead of traditional bakers yeast which gives the bread a slightly sour taste and a much longer shelf life. It also happens to taste amazing.

Sourdough Starter (the fermented mixture) Recipe: https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/sourdough_starter_22976
Sourdough Bread recipe: https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/how_to_make_sourdough_08213

[Wriste13]

I've found that, when making potato chips, using a potato peeler instead of a knife or mandolin works a bit better. Of course, my mandolin isn't that good. But a peeler gets the slices thin - surprised it took me this long to notice this was the way to go, honestly.

[Wee Man]

I've found that, when making potato chips, using a potato peeler instead of a knife or mandolin works a bit better. Of course, my mandolin isn't that good. But a peeler gets the slices thin - surprised it took me this long to notice this was the way to go, honestly.

I've never thought to make them in all honesty. I might have to give that a try.

[Wriste13]

I'm super uncomplicated. Just slice/shave them, throw 'em in some water for a few minutes, then fry and salt them. I'm a simple man - I have fried potatoes, I eat them.

[W13]

For me, the easiest by far is stir fry. Just chop stuff up, throw it all in the wok, squirt some oil, along with other random Asian stuff like packets of seasoning, fish/prawn oil, sesame seeds, and whatever else like chunks of fruit even. That with some coconut rice is dinner. Hell you can even dump the rice into the wok and now you got fried rice. You're an Asian master chef.

[Bactine]

allrecipes.com has all sorts of cool things to make give them a look

[Murdoc]

I'd highly recommend following Gordon Ramsay's YouTube recipes. All of them are quick and easy to do. Personally, I'm partial to his crispy salmon and new potato crab salad.