#learning to cook

[furiousgoldfish]

Survival skills: Cooking, Cleaning, Laundry, Living space maintenance, and other extra stuff, for those who need the basics because they've never been taught by abusive parents/caretakers! (this post is cooking only, I made another post for the rest)

Cooking

I'm going to assume you know absolutely nothing about cooking, and you're just looking for basic survival meals. There are videos online but it can be overwhelming to watch them without knowing the basics!

One of the first thing people usually learn is to make eggs; this is how you do it:

You find a pan, some eggs, and turn on the stove. You only turn the part of the stove on that you're intending to use. New stoves can be turned on by a click of a button that tells you which heat circle you're about to activate, old gas stoves sometimes need a little lighter, in order for the gas to catch fire! Don't worry; the fire will only be enough to heat up your meal. Once you've successfully turned the heat on, you put a pan on this heated area, and you leave it there for a minute or so, because you want the pan to be hot before you start putting food on it. That way the food will stick less to it too. You pour in about a spoonful of oil, if the pan is heated enough, the oil will easily spill around, then crack an egg directly into that oil, carefully not to splash oil on yourself. You can crack as many eggs as you want in there, depending on how hungry you are. The easiest way to crack it is to do it against a surface, and you're trying to keep any shell from getting into the pan – if you get some shell in, you can fish it out using some utensils.

If your pan has a lid, you can close it to allow the egg to be surrounded with heat on all sides. Some people like to add in a little water to steam the top of the egg, when they close the lid! The water will evaporate (if you add it, you don't have to). You'll see it's done very quickly, when the eggwhite is all in white color, and it gets a little brown on the bottom, you can check with a fork if it's brown yet! You turn the stove off, put the eggs on a plate. You salt it at your preference, and you have a meal.

Pancakes are the second thing I ever learned, it goes like this:

You need a bowl big enough for the pancake mix, a pan that is flat at the bottom, a whisk (or a fork if you have no whisk), a knife or some long flat utensil that can flip pancakes. One or two eggs, milk (can do with water too), flour, sugar, salt. American version uses baking soda or baking powder, in my country we do without that and will sometimes add mineral water. Baking soda and baking powder just make them puff up and make the little air bubbles inside of them, so you can decide if you want flat pancakes or puffed up ones!

You crack the eggs into the bowl, add milk (you add however much you want the mixture to have, there's no hard limits), add a spoon of sugar, pinch of salt, and you mix this up with a whisk or a fork, and then add flour bit by bit, until the mixture becomes a bit thick. It's still supposed to be liquid, you're supposed to be able to pour it out easily, but the consistency is supposed to be thick enough to not be runny, if you drop some on a plate, it should not spill around. If this is confusing, you can try making it with different consistencies and see which one you like best and which one works best for you!

Once you have your pancake batter, you can turn on the stove, put your flat pan on it, and wait for it to heat up, you want it hot before you start. Put about a spoon of oil on the pan, pick it up and angle it around, so the oil covers the entire bottom of the pan – if the oil is hot, it should spill around the pan easily! Then you can grab either a big spoon, or a telugu, or you can just pour directly from the bowl, the pancake batter. If you've added baking soda or baking powder, you want small little puffed-up pancakes, so you add them in little circles and wait for them to be cooked on one side. If you want flat pancakes, you add the mixture to the middle, then grab the pan and angle it around so the batter spills over the entire pan, so it covers the entire bottom of it, like you did with the oil.

It's cooked on one side when it's no longer looking liquid on the top, usually within one minute. At that point you grab your knife, or whatever utensil you have that can flip pancakes, you push it under the pancake, see if the entire pancake is unstuck to the pan, if there's bits sticking, you unstick that first! If you can easily separate the pancake, you try to flip it. Later when you have more confidence, you can flip them just by grabbing the pan, shaking it to unstick, and then snapping it so the pancake snaps up, turns in the air and falls down – it's what I usually do, but you need to be careful to not have a lot of oil under it in that case.

If you mess up the flipping, don't worry, it's still edible even if not cooked perfectly on both sides, it also happens to everyone on the planet, I mess this up regularly, you didn't do anything wrong, pancakes are fickle and don't listen to reason or logic, you can still eat it, it's all good.

Once it's been cooking on the other side for half a minute or so (usually takes less time to cook the other side), you can slide it onto a plate, then cook the rest of your pancakes (usually the first looks the worst and the second one is better), and then you can put whatever toppings you want. We usually use jam, or cocoa, it can work with just sugar, or maple syrup, or honey, or fruit (berries), or some melted chocolate. You can eat it as-is if you don't have anything. In any case you've made something nice tasting that has some protein from the eggs, milk and flour, and you're not going to be hungry after eating them.

Vegetables

I'm going to assume you don't know anything about vegetables, and what you need to know is that there's 2 main differences between veggies: cooking time, and whether they let water out, or soak water in. You can cook any vegetable in water, salt it, and it will become edible, it's not complicated, it's healthy no matter how you do it. If you want to mix different vegetables, you need to know what their cooking time is, so you could add them at different times in your soup/stir fry/whatever you're doing.

All of the legumes (beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, soy beans) will take water in when they're cooked, they usually are soaked about 8 hours before cooking (lentils and fresh peas don't need the soak) and then cooked for about an hour. Soaking just means you put them in a bowl, cover them so there's twice as much water in there as beans, and then just leave that for 8 hours. Afterwards you throw away that water, put them in a pot, pour new fresh water over them, put this on heat until it boils, then reduce the heat so it's not bubbling so violently, it can be a very gentle bubbling, cover it and let it cook for about an hour. Then you can take one out with a spoon, check if it's soft and nice tasting, and if it is, you're done! You can now use your cooked beans for a meal.

Fresh peas you can just cook for 10 minutes and they're done, lentils can take up to half an hour, chickpeas can be an hour and a half of cooking time, you can adjust this to how these taste to you. After you've done your basic cooking of them, you can eat them in a salad (you just add some oil, salt, vinegar, spices and whatever other veggies you have, and you got a salad), or you can additionally bake them, cook them in a pan, use them for other recipes. You can NOT eat these raw, you need to cook them until soft, if you attempt to eat raw legumes, you will get poisoned.

Vegetables like cabbage and asparagus also likes to take in some water, so be sure to never let them cook just on oil for long, they get softer and nicer with some water.

Vegetables that let water out while cooking are: Zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, beets; this means that if you put them in a pan with some oil, the mix will get soggy quickly, they will let out their own juices, which you sometimes might want! Also they will let more juice out more quickly, if you salt them, salt helps take juices out.

Vegetables that don't take water in or out, meaning they can be cooked just on oil and the mix will stay the same: onions, leek, potatoes, green beans, garlic, carrots, pumpkin. You can put any of these in a hot oiled pan, cook them, and you will get a nice stir-fry, that won't get soggy. You can also add the peppers, zuchinni, or any water-letting vegetable in, and then cook it until all the water evaporates, that works as well! This is then a sautee, meaning you're cooking the vegetables in their own juices, which is delicious.

Greens like spinach and swiss chard are usually added to stir-fry mix last because they are done cooking very fast. Okay let's look at some of the cook times (these are in water, oil cooks them all faster):

Cooking times for vegetables

Potatoes: 20 minutes if in big pieces, 10 if cut really small. Cannot be eaten raw, poisonous when raw.

Carrots: Can be eaten raw, you can cook them for any time you want, they'll get soft after 10 minutes, in soups they can be cooked for long time to let the flavor out.

Zucchini: takes only 5 minutes to get soft and start letting water out, you can cook anytime in a soup, it's not poisonous when raw either.

Peppers: will get soft after 5 minutes, can be eaten raw and are full of vitamins.

Pumpkins: 5-10 minutes to get soft, can be cooked in soups for longer.

Onion and leek: 5 minutes, gets soft very quickly, you can cook in soup for any amount of time, this is the main flavor of many meals! Onions and leeks are added to meals specifically to make them flavourful, and so is garlic.

Green beans: 20 minutes, don't eat raw.

Peas: 20 minutes if fresh, longer if they're dry and soaked.

Spinach, swiss chard, other greens: they're done in an instant almost, a minute of cooking is enough.

Broccoli, cauliflower: 5-10 minutes, depends on how small they're cut.

How to make a vegetable soup:

You'll need onions, and other vegetables of your choice, you can decide which ones mix well for you. Where I live it's traditionally onions, parsley, celery, carrots for the base, and then it can be leeks, potatoes, peas, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, zuchinni, peppers, even just one or a few of these ingredients will make an okay soup, you can mix and match them to your liking or according to what you have. The main flavor of the soup usually comes from onions, or garlic if you want to make garlic-tasting soup.

You cut your vegetables first, and the size doesn't really matter, you cut them how you want to eat them, it won't specifically affect the quality, can make the cooking time less if you cut them really small.

You turn on the stove, put a pot on it, let it heat up for a minute or two. Then you add a spoon or two of oil, and you add your onions. You let onions cook for a few minutes while stirring them, this is your main flavor, and the longer you can stir them without them getting burned, the better the soup will taste. When they start browning, you can add other flavor enhancers, like garlic if you have some, salt and spices, and if you're doing potatoes or green beans or leeks, I would add those in sooner too, because oil enhances their flavor. Once these have some good flavor profile, you can add the rest of your cut veggies, and pour water until all of your vegetables are covered. Then you let the water come to boil, reduce the heat, and let it cook until the longest-cooking vegetable is fully cooked.

Soups made of only vegetables are not super filling, so people will usually add some pasta-like stuff in it, I will make a little mixture out of flour, water and salt, with soft consistency, and then add spoonfuls of that in the soup – this is done in the last 5 minutes of cooking, because this only needs a few minutes to cook. That will make your soup more filling!

It's also normal to add some kind of meat to your soup from the start, to enhance flavor and add more nutrients, I can't really write about this because I actually don't consume meat so I am not smart about it, but I know stuff like pieces of meat, or pieces of bone are added to soup, and then soups are cooked much longer in order for the nutrients and the flavor to combine.

If you're feeling super lazy you can just add bunch of vegetables and pasta and whatever to a pot, add water, boil, and it will still be a soup, even if you don't pay attention to how flavours combine and if cooking time is not aligned, this will still turn into something edible if you add salt and you won't be hungry or lacking in nutrients. So if my detailed description sounds intimidating, you can do it in whatever way. Just adding water and heat and salt to vegetables, makes them edible, and you can eat that and be done. It doesn't need to be perfect.

If you want to make a specialized soup, like mushroom soup, tomato soup, pea soup, it's basically the same thing with putting some onions on oil, but then you just add this one thing you want your soup from, like you'll just add tomatoes, garlic and some spices to the onions if you want tomato soup. For mushroom, you just add mushrooms and whatever spice you want, and later you can blend it with together if you want a creamy soup. For peas, you just add peas on top of onions, add water, cook that, smash or blend it to make it creamy. Those are super easy soups, and onions are a base flavor for all of them. And you can even do it without onions and it's fine, they'll still have an okay taste.

Sauces: are very similar to soups, except you add some flour on the oil, mix that to make a roux and then add water to make it thick! You choose whether you want a tomato sauce, mushroom sauce, or whatever else, and you make it a thicker consistency than a soup, and with more concentrated flavor (less water).

Mashed foods: you cook your vegetable in water, cut to any size you want, once the cooking time is over and your vegetable is super soft, you pour the water our (you can reuse it for soups later), add salt, you can add some butter or milk if you like it more creamy, and you mash it with a masher or a fork, until it's all mashed! You can do this with many vegetables, you can make mashed potatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, carrots, peas. You can even mix two veggies, I love mashed potatoes with zucchini mix.

Fried foods: I don't do this a lot, so I am not the best to explain it, but the basics of this is that hot oil cooks the food much quicker, draws out much more flavor, and makes it delicious! It also adds a decent amount of calories so it's great for when you need a lot of energy quickly. I know people like to smash pieces of meat, cut it or grind it into small pieces, then mix it with cut up onion, garlic, spices and herbs, add some flour, and then form it into nice little patties, which they can fry on oil, and it makes for a good sandwich pattie. You can also make this type of pattie out of vegetables, if you mix some cooked beans, soy, lentils, potatoes, cabbage savoy, kale, really anything with some flour, garlic, spices and salt, and form it into a pattie, you can put it on hot oil and make a little burger pattie, or mix it with some mashed potatoes to create a meal.

I'm unable to make detailed instructions for meat as I don't consume it, but I know it's important to cook it thoroughly, and make sure it's never raw in the middle, because it could give you diseases otherwise. I won't go into making bread because this post is already too long, but if you want me to write it out in detail, let me know!

If you want to make more specialized meals, you can find instructions and recipes anywhere, knowing the basics will make it easier to understand any recipe out there. I myself am not good at baking so I won't go into that!

I'm going to write a separate post on cleaning, maintaining space and laundry, because this is already very long and might be overwhelming to read. If anyone wants to write details about non-vegetarian dishes, please do add it in the comments!

[aesethewitch]

Learning to Cook Like a Witch: From Recipe to Spell

Cooking and spellwork have a lot in common. Just as a witch might craft a spell from disparate odds and ends, so too might a cook create a meal. It's not such a jump to consider that any food, no matter how simple, can become a spell.

In my practice, the thing that differentiates a mundane action from a magical action is the doing. If I'm doing something just to do it, it may have a magical effect. But if I do the same thing with the understanding that it may have that magical effect, it will have that effect.

Therefore, to go from recipe to spell is a simple act: Cook with purpose. The particulars are a bit more involved, of course, as most things often are as you become more advanced.

You have to know what your ingredients are for. When cooking, you can't just throw things together and expect them to taste good with no technique or thought. What does a particular ingredient add to the mixture? Is it for flavor? Does it add or change the texture? Does it bind the other ingredients together or provide a base to be added to?

The same idea applies to spellcrafting. You can't just throw random things together and expect it to work. There has to be a pattern, an understanding, a purpose to what you include. If your materials don't apply to your goal, how on earth will they work?

Success in spellwork comes from the intersection of purposeful doing and appropriate material selection -- just like in successful cooking.

The art of taking a recipe and turning it into a spell is rather simple when it comes down to it. It requires two fundamental cooking skills:

Recipe reading and comprehension

Understanding how and when to make substitutions

If you'd like the food you make to still taste good, as well, you have to also understand what various ingredients taste like. Rosemary and mint might both be good for cleansing or purification, but they taste so vastly different that replacing one with the other will wildly alter your food.

You've got to choose wisely and within the bounds of your tastebuds. Cooking up magic is no good if you can't eat what you make!

If you'd like to read the extended version of this post, including an inside look at my method for turning recipes into spells and an exclusive recipe, check out my Ko-Fi! For as low as a one-time contribution of $1, you can get extended and early access to my work.

Or, if you'd like me to take a recipe of your choice and turn it into a spell or write you a recipe spell from scratch, I offer commissions!

[vyncentevelyn]

“Fuck…” Astarion mumbled, putting his hands on his hips, and staring at the ingredients in front of him. What the fuck was he doing? Had he ever actually cooked anything? Certainly not in the last 200 years, but before that…

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was pointless. He should walk away from all of this and count his losses before anyone…

“Oh, hello there.” Gale’s voice sounded behind him, “I didn’t expect to find you here considering your condition.”

“The same could be said about you, Gale.” Astarion sighed, his thoughts flitting through the multitude of excuses he could use as to why he was here but none of them sounded believable.

“Well, I still eat food. Especially since Elminster visited. And aside from that, I always cook.” Gale said.

Astarion could hear Gale approach and just stood there like an idiot. Frozen to the spot staring down at his haphazard ingredients for the recipe he did not know. Gale stood beside him and looked at the tabletop.

“Hmmm.” Gale muttered.

Astarion dropped his shoulders, “What Gale? Just say it.”

“It’s just curious. What were you planning on making with horseradish, a fish head, a carrot, and,” he picked up the last ingredient, “hmm…this is a rock Astarion.”

Astarion’s blood runs cold, naturally, but at this moment it felt as if his blood had caught fire. He blinked as Gale stared back at him; the rock still clutched in his hand. Astarion swallowed and then finally muttered, “I thought it was a potato.”

“I see.” Gale replied, still watching him with those deep brown eyes.

“This!” Astarion hissed throwing his arms up and taking a step away from the table, “This is stupid!”

Gale tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, “There is nothing stupid in wanting to learn a new skill. No, no, no.” He shook his head, “You just need a good teacher, you have the initiative, and that, Astarion, is half the battle. Luckily for you, I happen to be an excellent cook and an even better teacher – if I do say so myself.”

Astarion frowned. A part of him wanted to walk out and ignore the wizard. The other part though wanted to learn…wanted to succeed…

“Now, what were you trying to make?” Gale asked looking back at the ingredients, minus the rock which he tossed over his shoulder.

“I…” Astarion hesitated, “Iseult is sick…and she needs to eat.”

The answer hung heavy between the two men. Gale nodded slowly but his focus remained on the table, “I am aware.”

“I thought it would be nice, since she feeds me, if I fed her given that she is unwell.” Astarion said, hoping his tone sounded as nonchalant as he intended.

“That,” Gale started, his usually pompous cherry tone missing from his voice before he paused but when he started talking again his typical inflection returned, “that is a very nice thing to do. And I think I have a recipe we could make to help achieve this goal.”

Astarion blinked, “You do?”

“I think I do, granted it will not include rocks,” he looked up with a teasing grin on his face, “but it will rock.”

Astarion closed his eyes, “That was terrible Gale.”

“It was fantastic, and you know it.”

“What are we making Gale?”

“Soup.”

Astarion opened his eyes and met Gale’s gaze. Gale winked and picked up the carrot and the horseradish, “Are you ready to learn?”

Astarion sighed and rolled his eyes up to the sky, “Let’s get this over with.”

*

Iseult looked up miserably from her bed roll. Astarion stood in the tent’s doorway carrying a tray.

He studied her with those mesmerizing ruby eyes and let out an exaggerated sigh, “You look like shit.”

Iseult smiled, “Aw, you missed me.”

Astarion said nothing but placed the tray down by her bedroll before sitting cross legged beside her. Iseult sat up slowly and looked at the tray. A bowl of soup, a plate with a chunk of bread, and a glass of water sat on the tray beside a wilting daisy. Iseult looked at the vampire, but he refused to meet her gaze and just gestured to the tray, “You need to eat.”

“You made me soup…” Iseult’s voice was soft.

“I can’t have my favorite vintage killing over.” Astarion offered.

Iseult cradled the bowl in her hand and took a bite of soup. It was spicy and warm, potato and carrot with a hint of something hot. It was delicious. She put the spoon down and looked over at Astarion, “This is delicious. You did a great job.”

“Thank you. I, uh, I just learned how to make it.” He fiddled with the leather strap on the bed roll as he mumbled, “Gale taught me.”

“Really?” Iseult tried to keep the shock out of her tone, but she could tell from Astarion’s face she had failed.

“Yes,” he leaned back on his arms and looked up at the tent’s canvas, “yes. That damn wizard must poke his nose into everything.”

Iseult smiled, “Well, I appreciate you both. Thank you.”

As she took another bite, she noticed Astarion studying her in her peripherals.

“You like it?” He asked.

She nodded as she put the bowl down on the tray. She tore a chunk of bread and dipped it into the soup before popping it into her mouth. Then she turned and looked at him, “You are a magnificent cook.”

That devilish smirk pulled at his mouth, “Magnificent?”

“And clever.” Iseult replied.

“And?” He asked sitting up.

“And sweet.”

“Sweet? I’m not sure that’s the right adjective, darling.”

“You brought me a flower. You made me soup because I’m sick even though you had to work with Gale. You are caring.”

“Mmm.” His voice was hoarse, and he leaned into her space, “Tell me I’m beautiful.”

She leaned forward, dropping her weight onto her left hand so that her neck became bared to him. She whispered in his ear, “You are beautiful, Astarion.”

“And you,” Astarion whispered back, sending chills down Iseult’s spine, “are a damn tease. Put your neck away my dear, I will not be feeding on you while you have a fever.”

He leaned away, a smirk still in play. His eyes flashing between hers and the bare skin of her neck.

“Can you even get sick?” Iseult asked as she sat back. She tore another piece of bread and dipped it into the soup.

“In a sense.” Astarion said, turning his attention to the nails on his left hand.

Iseult swallowed, “Explain.”

He rolled his eyes, “It’s all so boring.”

“Nothing is boring to me when it concerns you.” she said, before taking a drink of water her eyes focused on his face.

He studied her for a second before saying, “If your blood is tainted with like poison or if you’re drugged or drunk, that could affect me. But I can’t catch your cold.”

“Then I can still feed you, if you want.” Iseult shrugged.

He leaned forward and looked her dead in the eyes, “I’m not making you worse. You’re keeping your blood until you are better.”

Iseult nodded; her eyes wide as she stared back at Astarion.

He returned to his original position, “Good. Now eat. I’ll be sure to make up for our lost time together once you are better.”

Iseult looked down quickly, but she was certain he noticed the blush painting her face. She finished her meal in relative silence. She lowered the empty water glass back down to the tray and picked up the daisy. She smiled down at the wrinkled petals, he must have picked the flower earlier in the day.

She looked back up at him. She wanted to ask him so many things. She wanted to learn everything about him. Instead, she smiled and let the longing to read all the stories buried deep in those bright red eyes stay buried.

Astarion nodded then and said, “Get some rest darling.”

He stood up and grabbed the tray before slipping out of the tent. Iseult laid back in her bed rolls and let out a sigh. She rolled onto her side. Goodnight, Astarion.

*

Astarion set the tray down on the riverbank and knelt into the wet earth beside Gale. He started washing the bowl, ignoring the wizard’s quizzical gaze.

“She said thank you.” Astarion offered when Gale had finally looked back at the dishes he was washing.

“Oh.” Gale nodded, “Well she is most welcome.”

Astarion bit his lip and then released it, “Thank you, Gale.”

Gale sat up and looked at Astarion, “Not a problem." Then he added, "I have more dishes I think you’d enjoy learning.”

Astarion finally met his dark eyes, “What?”

“You are not that good of a cook, but I feel hopeful for you.” Gale smiled, “Plus, I don’t mind having company.”

Astarion let out a chuckle. He rinsed the water cup and sighed, “On occasion, I suppose I could help you.”

Gale’s own laughter echoed out across the dark river, “Only if you feel like it, but the invitation is there.”

“I am certain the novelty of it will run out quickly. You’ll be retracting that invitation the moment I down a quart of pig’s blood.”

“That sounds fascinating. How much blood can you consume? Like in one sitting?”

“I…” Astarion paused and looked up at Gale, “I actually don’t know. Before the whole tadpole,” he gestured to his head, “I fed on what I could, but it was never enough. Recently though, I have fed on Iseult and then drained a whole bear in one night.”

“A whole bear!” Gale exclaimed, his eyes wide with wonder instead of judgement. “I’d wager that’s got to be at least 60 liters.”

“How do you even know that, Gale?”

“Ah. A wizard has to know a great deal of information, and I may have needed some bear blood for an experiment of sorts once.”

“Of course.”

“You sound like you don’t believe me, Astarion.”

Astarion shook his head, “I’m just impressed you killed a bear.”

“It took me month to recover,” Gale admitted.

Astarion bent over in laughter.

“Keep laughing Astarion, but at least I know the difference between rocks and potatoes.”

“Fair.”

[writerofstuff]

You write today? If so, what? If not, what was the last delicious thing you ate? Describe it vividly but don't say what it was. I want to be confused.

Today I learnt how to press slabs of baked flour over gentle heat and roll around liquid sunshine in a pan till I had a picture, a breakfast, and the beginnings of new love. I am learning how to cook and thank you for asking me to write about it on the first day of everything.

[m-b1z]

guys look I made cool ramen

[cooking2live]

Homemade hamburger helper

For when you don't have it or don't like the brands flavor

Ingredients:

Macaroni and cheese

Ground meat (does not matter what kind.)

Steak seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Or taco seasoning. Or any seasoning that you think will taste good.

Extra cheese. Velveeta or off brand.

How to cook it:

Cook the macaroni and cheese. Follow the instructions on the box. This takes the longest.

Season the macaroni with whatever you want.

Brown the meat.

Drain the meat and rinse.

Season the meat.

Mix the meat and macaroni and cheese. Add the melting cheese at this point.

Use the seasoning. It's not a waste if you enjoy it. Have flavor and enjoy your food.

[inconsistently--consistent]

Recipe Review Taylor Swift's Chai Cookies

I liked them. I didn't use chai tea but a chai latte mix and so I think they came out extra crumbly but I like it. Maybe I'll remake them with the correct chai mix. The people who helped me eat them were mixed on whether the crumbling ruined it and on whether they like chai at all.

[graymeadows]

Breakfast 9/11

Sometimes, pudding for breakfast is self care. I made this pudding last night to use as emotional support for the Presidential Debate. ESP (Emotional Support Pud) consists of two (2) boxes of chocolate instant pudding, four (4) cups of extra creamy oat milk, and as many crushed and whole Double Stuff Oreos as your conscience will allow. Mine allows for nearly half a family size container. I set it in the freezer for 30 minutes, then moved it to the fridge for two or three hours to allow the Oreos to soften. This is really rich, so I'm going to try freezing some of the leftovers.

As an emotional analgesic, I give this pudding a 3/10. It was tasty but very rich, so it's not something I could eat half of in a single sitting, and that's usually what I want from comfort food.

As a breakfast food, I enjoyed it for its novelty but I would not suggest running a marathon on it! 4/10

I would definitely eat it again as a dessert though! I wonder how I might cut some of the sweetness with something deeper/darker like coffee-ish maybe?

Eh *gestures broadly at sky*

[i-speak-for-the-star-child]

I know it’s all ready a week into the New Year but i have finally come up with my resolution (technically less of a “Resolution” and more of a goal) i want to learn how to make various Asian foods before my birthday (August) so ill have the skills to Cook a whole Buffet with my family

For my first dish I’ll be making Cream Cheese/Crab Rangoons

So far i have a small list of dishes but I’m open to suggestions or alternative recipes

[megdocx]

Easter Menu:

Coffee

Charcuterie (honey-roasted peanuts, dried cranberries, monterey jack cheese, local-sourced cheddar, strawberry preserves, malt eggs)

Rice-Paper Roast "Beef"

Za'atar Carrots au gratin

Roasted Asparagus

Mashed Potatoes

Spring Onion Buttermilk Biscuits

Tea and chocolate truffles from a local store :)

[aesethewitch]

A fun and quick little cooking tip I've picked up for if you want to add a new seasoning to a sauce, dressing, gravy, or even spice blend, but you aren't sure what to add or how it'll change the taste:

I'll use a sauce as an example. Make a batch of the sauce as you normally would. Pour out a small amount of sauce into a bowl or onto a plate (or just scoop some out with a clean spoon). Season the portion using a fraction of the amount you'd use in the full recipe. Give it a stir and taste.

If it sucks, congrats! You've avoided ruining a whole batch of sauce, and you can try something else instead. And if it's great, scale up the amount and season the whole pot of sauce! Hooray!

It's fun to do this with several spices side by side. Spoon out little portions and see how more salt would affect it. What about pepper? What if it was spicier? What's the difference between red chili flakes and chipotle chili powder? How do different herbs change the taste? And so on and so on.

Doing this kind of taste testing helped me learn how similar spices change a dish in different ways. It also means I can pick out particular flavors within a dish with relative accuracy, allowing me to duplicate recipes or figure out how to improve them by knowing what's missing (or what has too much) by taste.

(And the same principles apply to testing ingredients in spells! Learning to cook by trial and error forms a good portion of my witchcraft foundations. (: )

[addicted2coke-theothercoke]

Me and my Dad leaned how to make steak

Only like 4oz practice pieces but it went well, here's the picture of one I did by myself

[historynerdj2]

Some further suggestions

Andy Cooks: New Zealand cook, who has videos and shorts for both beginner and more advanced dishes.

Nigel Ng/Uncle Roger: Very much on the comedic tone, but can be used to help learn many forms of Asian cuisine through osmosis, if nothing else, by seeing how not to do it.

And of course, someone mentioned above, but Life of Boris, very humorous, and very good to learn Slavic/Russian cuisine.

i am not joking we need to force teach cooking in schools. like. it is an essential thing for survival. do you know how easy it is to make things if you know even the bare bones shit about how cooking works. we need to teach teenagers how far you can take an onion and some other veggies it''s sad that people grow up not knowing how to prepare literally anything. and i'm not talking about oh this home ed class taught me how to make chicken nuggets at home i'm talking about learning the balancing of sweetness and acidity and saltiness and bitterness and shit like that and techniques and oil temperatures and how meats cook. it needs to be taught because it's literally not even that difficult and it matters so much

[graymeadows]

Tuesday Breakfast 9/10

Breakfast burritos with refried black beans, eggs, pico de Gallo, guacamole, field greens and sausage. This was my first ever attempt to fold them properly and seal them with the hot pan. It's not perfect, but I'm satisfied:)

I ate two of them and I'm going to see how the third fares in the freezer. Homemade frozen breakfast burritos sound like a nice prep for quick breakfasts if they don't break down during reheating.

[Wrapped in parchment and sealed in freezer bag. Will update after attempting to reheat]

Next time I think I'll try using chorizo instead of American style breakfast sausage.

Tea is Orange Turmeric Ginger again.

Pretty tasty. Fun and easy to make. Room for improvement. 5/10

[ghoulpepperv]

Thank you for all of these! I already love Smitten Kitchen and I can't wait to check out the other suggestions.

I hope you don't mind me jumping in with some suggestions.

Sally's Baking Addiction: This is great if you love to bake like I do. She has some non-baking recipes, too. Every one I've made so far has been a home run for me.

The Loopy Whisk: For the bakers who have dietary restrictions or need substitutions. I have a lot of friends who have dietary needs that I do my best to meet. It can be a great way to learn about how foods interact with each other, too.

Gluten Free Cuppa Tea: I learned about Becky Excell via her book How To Bake Anything Gluten Free. I picked it up after a friend of mine was put on a gluten-free diet. It broke down gluten free baking for me in a way that was easy to understand. I made my first successful gluten free pie thanks to her. If you have a gluten free diet, she's a great guide so you can keep eating your favorites.

Supercook: Do you have a bunch of random ingredients in your cupboards and need help finding possible recipes? This has helped me before in the past. It's not perfect, but it's good overall.

I'm a visual learner so I also really benefit from YouTube channels, too.

Food Wishes: He breaks down recipes into easy digest instructions, and he has a website with everything written down. He's the one who has emboldened me to make Russian honey cake. (Wish me luck!)

The Vegetarian Club: Great meatless meals if you're vegetarian or are buying less meat for any reason. She also has a lot of Indian recipes as part of the channel.

Beryl Shereshewsky: She asks people from all over the world to submit recipes from their home countries that they love to eat. They're usually very simple, staple foods, like toast or one pot meals. I seriously had no idea how many ways you could make toast before I found this channel. She's also very positive when trying stuff without being dishonest.

Brian Lagerstrom: He's another very straightforward cooking channel. He will explain what he's doing and why. If he's making something from scratch that you could just buy pre-made, sometimes he'll give a brand suggestion and also recommend how much of it you should buy instead. I.E. When he made enchilada sauce, he showed how to make it from scratch, he also told people they could buy it pre-made. He gave a brand suggestion and recommended how many jars to buy of that brand.

Pasta Grannies: Do you wanna watch old ladies make pasta? Well, that's basically this channel. My grandma didn't teach me squat about cooking so this channel made me feel like a grandma is teaching me to cook. Even if you don't make your own pasta, they break down how different flavors complement each other, and they share recipes you can follow with store bought pasta.

Tasting History with Max Miller: This is really if you want to know more about food history and where your food comes from. He does make the recipes, but sometimes I just wanna know what our ancestors were up to. I feel like Senshi would be subscribed to this.

The Dungeon Meshi renaissance is making me want to share the resources that taught me how to cook.

Don’t forget, you can check out cookbooks from the library!

Smitten Kitchen: The rare recipe blog where the blog part is genuinely good & engaging, but more important: this is a home cook who writes for home cooks. If Deb recommends you do something with an extra step, it’s because it’s worth it. Her recipes are reliable & have descriptive instructions that walk you through processes. Her three cookbooks are mostly recipes not already on the site, & there are treasures in each of them.

Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables by Joshua McFadden: This is a great guide to seasonal produce & vegetable-forward cooking, and in addition to introducing me to new-to-me vegetables (and how to select them) it quietly taught me a number of things like ‘how to make a tasty and interesting puréed soup of any root veggie’ and ‘how to make grain salads’ and ‘how to make condiments’.

Grains for Every Season: Rethinking Our Way With Grains by Joshua McFadden: in addition to infodumping in grains, this codifies some of the formulas I picked up unconsciously just by cooking a lot from the previous book. I get a lot of mileage out of the grain bowl mix-and-match formulas (he’s not lying, you can do a citrus vinaigrette and a ranch dressing dupe made with yogurt, onion powder, and garlic powder IN THE SAME DISH and it’s great.)

SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT by Samin Nosrat: An education in cooking theory & specific techniques. I came to it late but I think it would be a good intro book for people who like to front-load on theory. It taught me how to roast a whole chicken and now I can just, like, do that.

I Dream Of Dinner (so you don’t have to) by Ali Slagle: Ok, look, an important part of learning to cook & cooking regularly is getting kinda burned out and just wanting someone else to tell you what to make. These dinners work well as written and are also great tweakable bases you can use as a starting place.

If you have books or other resources that taught you to cook or that you find indispensable, add ‘em on a reblog.