Ive Taken Up Cooking

So to save money and to try and eat slightly healthier I've taken up cooking. Currently I cook soups and chili and then tacos and stuff, but I am looking to branch out. I tried to cook curry yesterday, but it turned out to be absolute shit. I couldn't get my hands on any plain yogurt, so I got plain greek yogurt and it was gritty and pretty nasty in the end. I am looking into branching out and trying some more stuff. I really like soups, I want to try to cook some asian food (sadly I live in a pretty rural place so it is hard to get my hands on authentic asian ingredients without traveling 1 - 2 hours), and I just want some tasty, cheap, and fairly easy stuff to make.

Anyone got any recipes?

 

I say try and make some steak fajitas. Nothing too special for a recipe. Just get a skillet, spices, steak slices, peppers, and other such vegetables and throw it all together.

 

I cook quite often.

burgers
soups
chicken
pasta and pasta sauces
waffles
crepes
etc etc...

One thing i suck at is baking. Mainly brownies. They always come out a cake like texture. (puke)

 

Please make me Brownies, I need some, god damn.

 

I cook for First Watch restaurants and we have a variety of gourmet breakfast/lunch foods.

My personal favorite is a roast beef on thick bread.

Butter your breads with a thick butter whip, or some use pam. Sprinkling cheeses to melt on your breads makes them much tastier, such as parmesan.

Mess around with different ingredients, vegetables and peppers especially. My favorites are jalapenos and banana peppers, very juicy and packed with flavor. Avacados add a fresh taste to sandwiches and salad.

Breakfasts are great when you add some variety to normal meals. I'm absolutely in love with this pancake. While the pancake is fresh on the skillet drop cheddar cheese and bacon into it. Let it sink a little and when you flop it over the pancake will cook around it and leave you with a nice surprise in the middle.

Also use gourmet ingredients. Instead of buying the normal ingredients purchase some variety. For example with sausage, instead of pork try apple smoked sausage. A little flavor goes a long way in satisfying your eating experience.

 

Not entirely sure what kind of curry you were cooking with yogurt but to each his own. My curry doesn't have any yogurt that's for sure. Some personal favorites are ribs, signapore noodles (delicious and super cheap to make), stuffed peppers (essentially sausage, rice, some spiceyness stuffed inside a boiled pepper then put into the oven) it's delicious. Spaghetti is always great. Pm me if any of this shit seems like it's up your alley I'll give you some recipes.

 

If I make curry (which has been pretty rare) I used to just use coconut milk, not yogurt.

What sorts of food do you enjoy? Savory? Sweet? Salty?

 

The reason your curry was gritty was because you don't use yogurt in curry... Depending on the curry your making you can use coconut milk.

 

Try to get really into breakfast. I like cooking vine tomatoes with scrambled eggs and steak in the morning.

 

I've made curry with yogurt before and it turned out marvelous.

 

Definately one of the tastiest breakfast's you can have.

Cracked pepper on the tomatoes as well is just fucking tasty.

 

I always eat a light snack but when making food, I always suggest eating tofu whith rice. Overall its cheap and has proteins!

 

A lot of curry recipes call for yogurt.

I cooked some ginger chicken noodle soup last night and it was nasty as shit. I followed the recipe to a tee and it must have just been a bad recipe or it might have just been that I didn't like it.

 

If you want to cook simple asian-like stir fry's.

Cook rice in a rice cooker.
Cut chicken breast into cubes.
Prepare celary, eggplant, capsicum, and baby corn.
Cook chicken for 5 minutes, then place on plate (should still be raw on the inside).
Put celary in for 5 minutes, then put the rest of the ingredients in (including chicken). Pour sauce in; go to any asian grocery store, and buy black bean or black pepper, or any of the sauces really, it should last for dozens of serves.
Done. The only 'hard' part is cooking/marinading the chicken properly, but that's the general recipe.

 

Dude, slow cooker all the way.

I make island curry chicken with shredded coconut, served over rice. Found it in a recipe book. I can give if you want. Its more of a curry flavor and thin sauce to put over the rice than a traditional curry.

Another super easy one is making meatballs (you can use frozen). There are a shit ton of ingredients you can slow cook with the meatballs and it'll get infused with the flavor.

Most of the recipes only take a few minutes to prepare in the morning, then in the afternoon you'll have dinner and plenty of left overs.