LIT Cooks

[destinie21]

Who on the lit loves to cook? I know I do I find it cathartic.
If you are a person who cooks whats your favorite thing to cook?
Personally I love to make desserts but I like to cook regular food as well. Always from scratch.

I tend to like to make Escovich Fish and Jambalaya because they are favorites. As far as desserts I tend to enjoy making Red Velvet Cake, Baptist pound cake, sweet patato pie, pecan pie, and any type of cookies. esp Biscotti con Marmellata






I'm cooking right now

 

[minsue]

I don't cook, but I love to eat. Does that count?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I love to cook.
My favorite thing to cook is fried chicken. Of course it's never as good as granny's was, but it's passable

-Colly

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Colly

I enjoy cooking and it doesn't really make a difference what it is.

Some days, my favorite meal to cook is grilled cheese because of the amazing grin it brings to the toddler's face. Other days, it's my award-winning (among family and friends) chili or any one of several pasta dishes.

My personal favorite to cook and eat is Salmon Steaks on the grill with fresh grilled vegetables and a seafood medley k-bob!

Thanks, Des. Now I'm hungry.

~lucky

 

[pixiesjuice]

I love to make ice-cream... my favourite is white chocolate... served up with a generous portion of whole roasted strawberries in grenadine or brown bread ice-cream or or or *gets excited* heather honey and whiskey ice-cream... warm and cold all at the same time, if you add enough alcohol lol.

If I'm stressed out then I find that making bread helps.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I love to cook too, but hate to clean up afterwards. I do just about everything except baking, which is too rigid for me, although for a while I was making bread from scratch. I like doing stews, which are easy to eat, very forgiving, and great places to experiment with spices. I do a very good carbonnade à la flammade, which is a fancy name for a beef stew made with stout or porter and tons of mushrooms and onions and bay leaves. Very rich and very filling.

I also do a Japanese appetizer made by steaming skewered shrimp and chestnuts over a bed of rock salt sprinkled with pine needles in a clay pot (I use the saucers from big unglazed flowerpots to cook it in.) The shrimp comes out with just a hint of evergreen flavor, and it looks impressive as hell to see the shrimp over the white salt and pine branches.

---dr.M.

 

[Madame Manga]

I love to cook. I have an enormous spice collection--ever since I was a small girl, I have loved to compound mixtures of mysterious, aromatic elements. Luckily, my family likes curry.

International dishes are my forte, but I love American classics as well. One of the best cooking magazines around, Cooks Illustrated, is devoted to American home cooking, and it's the only one I subscribe to these days. My grandfather liked to make Chinese dishes and whole-wheat bread, and I learned a lot of things from him. Yes, kneading bread dough is a cosmic experience as well as a useful activity.

However, I tell Hubby to volunteer to make dinner every so often. He likes my cooking better than his own, but I like cooking much better when someone else does the work once in a while. I think I need to start training my children as sous-chefs--they're old enough to use kitchen knives by now.

MM

 

[destinie21]

I'm cooking for Sunday dinner a family tradition for ages. I always have to start the night before the greens are picked and cleaned the black eyed peas are soaking as are the black beans the Red velver is cooking and the chicken is marinating. Theres still two pies in the oven cooking though. I'm hungry myself

 

[SlickTony]

Oh, hey, Pix, we got an ice cream maker not a long time ago, but it's been so cold we haven't tried it out yet...I mean, eating ice cream can be done any time, but making it is a warm weather activity.

I consider myself to be a serious and competent cook. Right now I really need to get off this computer and go write down recipes for this cookbook my church circle is putting together. They're due on the 1st and I've been putting it off until the last moment. If I could just print out the ones I've got in the computer, it would be a snap but I have to transcribe them into this damn form, and it's a pain in the ass. I scanned it thinking I could type the recipes into text boxes, but have had no success.

 

[kellycummings]

Love to cook.
Faves are Gumbo, jambalya, pizza, chicken parmasean, blackened catfish.....mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[whispering_surrender]

I like to bake. Cookies, pies, etc....but my favorite are breads and rolls. I make a killer braided sesame-wheat bread.....Mmmm, nothing like the smell of bread baking.

Whisp

 

[kellycummings]

Mmmm, nothing like the smell of bread baking.

unless it's the smell of napalm in the morning. That smells like victory.

I just kill myself sometimes. LOL

 

[Liar]

Saefood is my thing. Both to eat and to cook. I make a mean parmesan baked clam. Simple, but gooood.

 

[Guest]

 

[English Lady]

I love to bake the most but i love to cook anything. I love trying out new recipies and I actually find cooking to be a stress release.

My daughter has recently taken to baking with me. We've made scones and sponge buns (cup cakes to the americans i think*L*) and chocolate cornflake cakes. Beth seems to love it as much as I do! (Any child friendly recipre suggestions much appreiciated btw!)



I found a great cook book in a charity shop the other day. it's pretty dated (late 70's i think) but it has osme great family recipies in it. I've made a lovely carrot cake from it already and minced beef dish made with condensed tomato soup which makes a really filling meal with rice from it. I have found lots of other ones in it i want to try too

I make alot o f meals mum used to do for me when iwas little. My daughter's favourite meal is Spaghetti bolognese made form scratch by me Very satisfying to know she doesn't like the mother in laws anywhere near as much *chuckles*

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I love to cook and bake if I have someone to cook for, like a friend coming over, Hubby visiting, family visiting, etc.

Otherwise, I have no motivation. Why spend an hour cooking something to eat by my lonesome, when I can jut make myself a sandwich and stare at the TV, feeling sorry for my lonely ass?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

As to favorites, that's really a tough one, but some are beef borgunion, gumbo's, Bolognese sauce, sticky buns, Carolina Babecued Pulled Pork, Kansas City Ribs, buttermilk biscuits...I'd better stop now the list could go on and on.

Lime, I'be got to ask you how you do your ribs. Do you par-boil them first? Smoke them or grill them?

I par-boil them in vinegar and pepper and bay-leaf first: just bring them to a simmer and turn it off. Then I grill them on the lowest and slowest fire I can manage. They should take 45 minutes to an hour.

It's funny that most men I know aren't that big into desserts. Somewhere I heard that men naturally crave protein and women naturally crave carbohydrates like bread and sweets. Don't know how true it is, but in my case it applies.

---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

 

[English Lady]

Dr M..my dad was never one of cakes and bread himself.

I crave carbohydrate coming up to my period so does my mum and sister....no idea why but we do..that might support your theory a bit*L*

 

[oggbashan]

My daughter has recently taken to baking with me. We've made scones and sponge buns (cup cakes to the americans i think*L*) and chocolate cornflake cakes. Beth seems to love it as much as I do! (Any child friendly recipre suggestions much appreiciated btw!)

I found a great cook book in a charity shop the other day. it's pretty dated (late 70's i think) but it has some great family recipies in it.

Children's recipe:

TEA CAKE:
1 tablespoon butter
half cup sugar
1 egg
half cup milk
one and a half cups self raising flour
pinch of salt

Topping
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon melted butter

WASH HANDS
CLEAN WORK AREA

Prepare 7 inch cake tin by rubbing the inside with buttered paper then sprinkle on a little flour. GET ADULT to turn oven on to 375 degrees F (185C)

CAKE
1. Beat butter and sugar together in a bowl until creamy
2. Break egg into another bowl, beat it, add milk and beat again. Mix this into butter and sugar.
3. Sift flour and salt together 3 times, fold into mixture, the pour cake batter into the prepared tin and GET ADULT to put into oven until cooked, 25-30 minutes. (GET ADULT to test, push a skewer into centre of cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is cooked)
4. GET ADULT to take cake from oven, leave for two minutes, then turn carefully onto a cake rack. While still hot, put on the topping.

TOPPING
Mix sugar and cinnamon together in a cup. Pour melted butter all over top of the cake, smoothing evenly with a knife, and then sprinkle thickly with sugar and cinnamon mixture.

WASH HANDS, CLEAN WORKING AREA, WASH UP.

Serve the cake hot or cold cut into slices, each piece spread with butter.

(Measures
Cup = 8 fluid ounces or 225 ml
Tablespoon = 20 ml
Teaspoon = 5 ml
Spoon measures are level spoonfuls)

A 1970s cook book isn't that old. I have several Mrs Beeton's from before WWI and Francatelli's Modern Cook dated 1873

Og

 

[McKenna]

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[McKenna]

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[Guest]

I wish I could enjoy cooking but I find it stressful, timing everything to get done at the same time. The things I learned to make are what I love though.

Lasagna, beef Burgundy stew (using extra red wine), quiche Lorraine, flan (vs. watery custard), cheesecake (with graham-cracker/butter crust), simple Provencal salad (taught to me by a lady from Provence), tamales (meat and sweet), tostadas and other Mex. basics., pancakes w/corn, lamb Greek style (best thing I took from my last marriage), corned beef w/cabbage and potatoes.

Lady, I love the name 'sponge buns'.

Perdita

 

[A7inchPhildo]

Ok I am not a panzie!

But I love to cook. I don't like to eat sweets and meat is not a big desire of mine either. SO I mainly cook vegtables.

Not the boring type fun festive mixes and unusual stuff. From ginger root to brockley. Most of the time I like to prepare them in a Japenese fasion utilizing my Wok, other times they are fun to play with on the grill. Boiling is reserved for certain vegtables like Turnip but even then if it is sliced properly can be baked or simmered with a roast.

The most important thing o remeber is cutting size keep them all close to the same size and never larger than a bite size. What you flovor with is an open book garlic is always a favorite along with oinion. but in many cases Ranch/russian dressing is a great alternative to boring bland veggies.

Oh when cooking on the grill I generally use seveal layers of aluminum foil.

One of my favorites when having guests over is to wash potatoes, slice them like chips. Add about half the quanity again of oinion. sprinle heavy with garlic and light with balck peper. toss in a bell pepper in chunk dice form. add a bit of mushroom and librally add butter.

Three layers of alum foil one with Pam sprayed on it then the mix of stuff. cover with another and conect then together well by folding the edges. a Third to wrap both sides complety theopposite direction. That keeps it from falling apart when flipeed. On med heat 20 minutes one side 20 min. the other side.

You need to time the other stuff just close to it because at 40 minutes you can throw it up on the upper rack for another hour if you need to or it can be served.

No they do not taste the same cooked in the oven I don't know why. and use a big spatula to flip the vegies get hot so the alum gets hot and it is messy if you break the alum foil.

 

[destinie21]

Re: Re: LIT Cooks

You mentioned sweet potato pie; I had never had that until a few weeks ago at a company party. It's delicious! Maybe you could share a recipe?

I sure will

To make a potato pie, you need:

4 large potatoes
2 cups sugar
1 stick butter
1 pinch cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
1 store-bought pie crust
or your make your own instead (I do)
1/2 cup milk


Boil the potatoes until tender. When you stick a
fork in them it should go in easy but you don't
want them to fall apart.

Let the potatoes cool and then peel them.

Put the potatoes in a large mixing bowl and
mash them thoroughly with a potatoes masher.
Melt the butter and pour it and the other
ingredients in the bowl of potatoes. Stir
until well mixed.

Whether you used a ready made pie crust or
home made, pour the potatoes mixture
into the crust.

Put into an oven preheated to 375 degrees.
Cook for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick
inserted in the center comes out dry.

I like to eat the pie while still hot. It's
good cold too though.