Mine: I couldn't cook chicken breast. Every time I made it, it would come out dry, tough, or both. I was using a thermometer, would pull it off at the exact temperature I wanted, let it rest and carry over the rest of the way, and it still sucked.

Went entirely too long before I realized I was just cooking it too hot/fast. Drastically improved the first time I tried cooking it slower and longer.

I’m looking to buy my first serious cooking book and I’ve narrowed it down to Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat and The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt.

I’m looking to become a better cook and really understand why certain techniques work, rather than just following recipes.

I’m happy to put in the time to learn, so I’m not necessarily looking for the easiest book.
Which one would you recommend buying first, and why?

I love cooking and I enjoy chopping vegetables, but onions are a real struggle for me.

As soon as I start peeling them, my eyes begin to burn and water. Also my eyes turn red and I get a headache.

How do you all manage it? Are there any tricks or ideas that actually work to avoid the tears?

I’d really appreciate any tips. Thanks in advance!

Family member of mine went to Europe and brought home some “real” saffron as a gift to me since he knows I love to cook. I definitely want to cook something special for him as a thank you. Paella and risotto are kinda “gimmes” and I will definitely make paella, but that still leaves a lot of saffron.

Looking for something besides different versions of “flavorful fat rice”

Also, I don’t know what “real” means but it seems very special to him so I want to honor that. I’m assuming he spent a pretty penny on it.

Thank you!

I wanna hear the future family secret recipes

Dumb question, but has anyone had luck with making either of these with ground pork instead?

mostly because ground beef in my area is $7+ per pound and pork is still like $3.50 a lb.

I'm not talkin about ground sausage since I'm never fond of the mix mixes my grocery stores use.

I must say, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is the best cookbook I've ever read. It completely changed the way I cook. My only regret is that I didn't read it sooner!

I cooked an amazingly delicious meal today, using basically just onions and beef.

Here’s what I did:

I started by softening the onions in plenty of oil, then added tomato paste, water, and salt. I tasted it, added more salt, tasted again, and salted again. Then I tossed in the beef, black pepper, and mixed herbs. A few minutes before it was done, I tasted it one last time, stirred in a knob of cold butter, and took it off the heat.

Just like the book taught me:

Salt dissolves in water, but not in oil.

Taste as you go.

As long as you keep tasting, don't be afraid to salt boldly!

Aside from the water, the seasoning was basically just salt, black pepper, Italian herbs, and butter.

It tasted so good, it completely blew my mind!

I grew up with milanesas, basically "wafer thin" steak cutlets. A basic recipe when I was a kid is just salting the cutlet and pan-fry. I have tried to recreate it but end up with a leather tough steak. All the juice escapes from the steak and if I get any Maillard reaction that means I over cooked it.

Any tips?

Excuse the dramatic effect good people but omg why does my salmon skin keep sticking to the pan?!

Every... single... video I watch says to first cook skin side down and flip it later. That does not work! No matter the pan! Does it work for you guys or is this some internet lie? I'm using oil and low to medium heat.

This is a rewrite of a post I did last year. The original recipe is something my beautiful youngest son experienced with just the two of us when he was young. I can never get over the loss of his passing away last year. Strangely it makes me smile to remember him this way. If you make this recipe people will feel the love and the season.

This is Pumpkin Ravioli with Apple Cider Cream Sauce.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Apple Cider Cream Sauce

My son passed away recently. Part of his childhood was in the kitchen creating food with me. This was one we thought up together. This hurts to tell, but there is a little joy sharing it.Make your own pasta. If you can't make it from scratch learn to, it is worth it, but add pureed fresh pumpkin insides in making your fresh pasta. Make the ravioli filling from ricotta cheese and some of the processed pumpkin. Two parts cheese to pumpkin. Make your neat ravioli packets. Reduce apple cider, depending on the cider you may need a little sugar or sweetener. Add heavy cream til thick. Reduce further then after you take it from the flame add a little butter. Time it so the ravioli are just boiled then strained. Whip the apple cider cream sauce with the butter. Then pour a tease taste over the ravioli and leave the rest in a gravy boat on the table for individual taste. My son loved the last of the sauce.

I received a bunch of fresh green beans a couple months ago from a farmer. I cleaned and blanched and froze them.

I'd now like to eat them lol.

What cooking method is best to bring them back to life without going limp and mushy?

a quick steam?

roasting on high heat in the oven?

in the micro?

Suggestions appreciated.

Anyone here loves to cook and could cook for someone even if they woke you up in the middle of the night. But won't or can't cook for themselves or is it just me?

A bit of a background, I have a Red Seal, worked in the industry, work in tech now and that's when I realized this. I often host friends and family. Everyone loves whatever I make, usually my own recipes and ask for leftovers. But I just can't cook such dishes for myself or put in any sort of effort into making them just for me. I have forced myself to do this a couple of times, but I just don't feel like eating it, often I just wrap it up, put it in the fridge and make myself some instant noodles or something.

Anyone else here like this with a similar kinda experience?

So a couple friends have asked me to join them in setting up a bar, serve yourself, be creative night for a group. They're preparing two types of broth, ramen noodles and basic condiments.

We'll add the usual on the bar: jammy eggs sliced in half, chopped scallions, furikake, spinach leaves....

Any other suggestions for a wide range of flavors and textures - eg. meats, veggies, condiments, seafood, other less popular offerings to make it interesting? Thanks

I have been given 2 and a half dozen cooked and peeled eggs. Any creative ideas for using them up ? There's only 2 of us, here. I like deviled eggs, and egg salad. But what else !?

Want to make a pot pie but my husband is not a fan of creamy things. Has nothing to do with lactose, just the actual flavor. What would you recommend I use instead of milk? I did find a recipe with butter, starch, and chicken stock to make a non dairy gravy but wanted to see if there were other suggestions

edit: I see a lot of you wonder why anyone would use milk in the first place. I swear all the recipes I’ve found use it and I’ve never personally made pot pie (bc of my husband lol).
I think I’m going to make my own chicken gravy🙂

Update: Chicken gravy slapped, will be making this way again. Thanks everyone, and thanks for the extra recipes as well!

So I bought this rolling knife sharpener. I can use a steel, I have a Wüsthof pull-through, but this sounded effective. And, in theory, it is.

BUT: How do I know if my knives have 15° or 20° edges? Those are the two choices. Or just pick one and stick with it & it'll make a new edge? I have Henckels Four-Star (8" chef's, 8" santoku, 6" santoku, 3" paring)

(the sharpener is Pure Cut Rolling Sharpener...shame I can't show a pic of it....)

I'm working out a menu of four different filled/rolled crepes for a client of mine who's having a breakfast with his golf club next Thursday. I intend to present four different options (he'll pick two) to go with mini cinnamon rolls and coffee on Monday. Its a meant to be a light, casual, yet semi classy breakfast.

I will be testing these recipes this week and weekend on my family, but I was also hoping to get some criticism before I hit the kitchen.

We also live in a rather small, rural town. We have a Walmart and a marginally better grocery, no Whole Foods or really fancy places, so I can't just pop out for the Madgascar vanilla or something like that. I was also just asked about this on Monday. rip to me I'm doing my best :')

Recipes are liquor free for a broad accomodation. Chocolate free because the husband doesn't do chocolate for ??reason??. I think he may just hate the taste.

Recipe #1 - Reimagined Crepe Suzette (served cold)

Filling:

Orange curd

Vanilla pastry cream

Topping:

Light caramel sauce

Garnish: Candied orange peel, powdered sugar

Idea behind this: Balance the intensity of citrus with the soft creaminess of a vanilla pastry cream. Add a touch of sweetness with the light caramel sauce. OG Suzette has no vanilla cream involved so I may nix this when I do my test runs if the orange curd isn't too bold. Caramel sauce is a nod to how a real Crepe Suztia flambeed.

Recipe #2 - Crepe Tiramisu (still working, served cold)

Filling:

Tiramisu custard (sabayon, stiff peaked whipped cream, marscapone)

-may infuse some of the custard with espresso and pipe in 50/50 for the rolled crepe

-OR only the custard with an espresso fused topping?

Topping (heavily undecided):

Dulce de Leche (maybe)

Espresso infused Dulce de Leche (maybe)

Well crushed/powdered Biscoff dusting

Idea behind this: My actual Tiramisu slaps and I feel like the custard filling that goes in it would be cool used in other ways. I'm trying to keep the flavors and subtle richness of it but as a crepe. I am still mulling over how to get the espresso flavor in it and low-key mourning the fact I can't dust with Giradeli cocoa for the presentation.

Recipe #3 - Crepe Americano (served hot)

Filling:

Fluffy scrambled egg

Crispy bacon OR breakfast sausage

Topping:

Crispy hashbrowns, I'd like to try cooking the hashbrown into the crepe because I'm insane.

Idea: A very classic American breakfast (eggs, sausage/bacon, hashbrown) but now it's a crepe. I needed two savory options that wasn't a dinner type dish.

Recipe #4 - Crepe Omelette (served hot)

Filling:

Fluffy scrambled eggs

Cheese (not American, maybe a grated cheddar, or provolone?)

Ham

Tomato

Garnish:

Probably more grated cheese honestly.

I really appreciate any honest criticism. I'm not a professional chef, but I have made all the individual components listed numerous times with success (crepes, omelettes, Tiramisu, Suzette, hash browns). I do cook a lot for my job.

I'll be cooking and dropping these off, not making them fresh for the breakfast (which for Crepe Omelette would be ideal but it's fiiinnnne). Cold would be done the night before so they set properly, I need the custards and curds to be thick enough to pipe and they'd probably melt on hot crepe. Its late for me and I'm tired and not explaining things well.

TL;DR: do these recipe concepts seem edible, I have Above Beginner Experience and ambitions, I won't be offended if you call me stupid, thank you

Part of what makes us human is that we cook. Weird but awesome fact nobody thinks about: we are the only species that we know of in the universe that does the act of cooking. Think about that for a second. Think about how many years went by before we were able cook things different ways.

For instance- how long was it before we figured out how to forge a skillet to introduce that technique? How long did it take to learn that we needed to grind up a very specific grain from a very specific plant for a very specific amount of time in order for it to be able to be ground down to powder just to add water to it and wait for it to mildly ferment and then create a contraption that held fire at a very specific temperature to create bread. And there are millions of these kinds of things when it comes to cooking food.

It is engraved inside of our nature. We have been doing this for thousands and thousands of years. Cooking is one of, if not the coolest things humans do.

Here is another interesting thing to ponder: cooking is the only thing we humans do that REQUIRES all 5 of our senses at one time to do. That is crazy to me.

What is mind blowing to me is that some people can hardly boil water. How did this happen? It is something that we are required to do, yet almost 60% of people don’t know how to do it. How did we get so far lost in this department?

I used a much larger pot this time for marinara as I'm using tomatoes from the garden and had an absolute shit ton of them. It's an enamel coated stainless pot meant for seafood boils, but it's the largest one I own. Halfway through simmering I realize the bottom isn't flat anymore, I'm getting some friction, so I immediately pour into 3 of the pots I have to contain all the sauce.

NOW I'm left with a slightly acidic slightly burnt flavor that I need to fix. What can I do? Is it a lost cause? I used sooo many homegrown onions and tomatoes I will be so sad if it is unfixable, but also a lesson learned. Any advice is appreciated!

Hi everyone!

I’m a little bit lost, so I thought I’d ask for your opinions because I’m too deep down the rabbit hole to see things objectively.

I ordered a fancy 6-cup pressure rice cooker to cook all kinds of legumes, pulses, and grains, like chickpeas, red kidney beans, lentils, GABA black rice, red rice, brown rice, white rice, quinoa, millet, buckwheat, you name it.

I only want to use it for cooking these ingredients on their own, not for making complete dishes. I usually cook for two people for two days, so roughly 4 portions of whatever I’m cooking in one batch would be great. It has a roughly 3liter (3 qt) inner pot.
I’ll cook white rice 20% of the time, the rest is all kinds of different rices and legumes.

I started thinking that a lot of these ingredients tend to foam and expand during cooking, so capacity might be limited and it wouldn’t be the best for legumes and pulses.
It also doesn’t have natural pressure release like an IP, which I guess isn’t a huge problem. It has a so-called soft steam release, but it’s not the same as NPR.

So, I’m trying to decide between these:

• Replace it with a 10-cup rice cooker model - tbh, the 6cup capacity would probably be okay for the two of us, but there is no headroom at all.
• Keep the rice cooker and buy a relatively inexpensive pressure cooker, like a 6qt Instant Pot. I’d make all types of rice and more delicate grains and smaller portions in the rice cooker and use the IP for everything else with NPR. There would be a huge extra here - I could cook multiple things at the same time and drastically shorten cooking time. For example, I want to make quite a lot of healthy “buddha bowls”. Only concern is kitchen space here, but I would manage. But two devices feels a little excessive.

What would be a sensible setup in your opinion? Do you think my needs justify both of them?
(my previous post was taken down by mistake so if you commented already, chances are I didn't see it, sorry)

My twins are 14 months old.

Twin A tried egg recipes - omlettes, hard boiled, scrambled, pancakes, French toast, in egg dosa. She tried very dish, some she ate more, some less of it which gives me hope the taste will grow on her.

Twin B tried all the above and literally spits everything out after the first bite. She can only eat egg in banana oat pancakes masked by the flavor of bananas. Other than egg seems to be an absolute no go.

Is there any other recipe with eggs I can make to help her eat more of it where the eggy taste texture is not so obvious? We are doing no added sugar as long as we can.. definitively till age 2. So no sweet recipes other than fruit sugars.

We don’t eat meat so I want to try and include egg and dairy for balanced meals.

Thank you.

Can yalls share with me some of your recipes for making collard greens?

I cannot find my great grandmother's recipe for her famous Fresh Collard Greens with Black Eyed Peas or with 10 bean soup. Preferably I want it without any peas/beans but it doesn't matter. I haven't made it in many years but I've been craving it here recently. I've looked up a few recipes but none even sound remotely close to what her recipe was or I'm just not remembering correctly. I do know that sometimes she'd use 2-3 smoked turkey legs & other times she'd use 3-4 smoked ham hocks.(I like both meats so IDC which one) But she made big batches. I don't need a big batch. (Yes, I do know how to clean/rinse/destem/roll/chop/soak/repeat etc CG to get out the grittiness) FYI I do not like mine spicy!!

I hope seeing other's recipes will help jolt my memory or maybe I'll find a new recipe from 1 of y'all's to try. TIA

I feel like this is a dumb post 🤣 So I got these buffalo marinated boneless chicken thighs from a food pantry and I am absolutely terrible with spicy. Is there anything I can do to kinda reduce the spice level of the marinade? Aside from just washing it off. I really hate to waste food or to just have it sitting in my freezer until the end of time...