I am looking for ideas of what to add to this newly created community. Cooking a popular topic, areas to cover many. Any suggestions on where I should start? How about your favourite meal, along with the recipe. We can then make a recipe list for favourites.
I’d like to learn how to make a fancy-looking, but easy to make desert.
Right now, when guests come over, we usually just do the berries-with-ice-cream-and-liquor-in-a-bowl thing.
Oh I’d love to learn some easy to make chicken and beef dishes that I will still have the energy to cook up when I get home from work.
On that end, I’d also like to learn to cook some really fancy, super tasty dishes that will impress the pants of my girlfriend. Though my cooking experience extends to Chicken and Veggies.
I’d like to learn how to make a fancy-looking, but easy to make desert.
Right now, when guests come over, we usually just do the berries-with-ice-cream-and-liquor-in-a-bowl thing.
I’ve got an awesome reciepe for chocolate lava cake that is super easy to make and has always really impressed people. I’ll dig it up later tonight and post it!
Okay, I’m in. Am vegetarian and always like to try new food.
@John: on the fruit and liqueur front; frozen grapes are nice—purchase firm seedless grapes, wash, drain, and de-stem. Cover a baking sheet (not a baking pan, a sheet is larger with short sides; about 3/4 of an inch high) with the grapes and freeze, shaking the sheet to roll the grapes a few times in the first three hours. Serve in martini glasses drizzled with choice of liqueur (di Sarono, Grand Marnier, Triple Sec, Frangellico).
@le Chuck: On that end, I’d also like to learn to cook some really fancy, super tasty dishes that will impress the pants of my girlfriend. We can only give you the receipes big guy, the rest is your department. Next time you do chicken: cook squash and pototoes in oven—purchase baking potaoes, russets are fine and so are white or purple baking potatoes. If you have a self-cleaning oven, scrub potatoes with a nail brush ( available at dollar store), prick potatoes with fork, heat oven to 350 F and place on middle rack of oven. If you have to clean oven yourself, wrap potatoes in tinfoil first, shiny side in. Take medium acorn squash and cut in two (I suggest using a cutting board), take out seeds with spoon and prick outside with the same fork you used on the potatoes. Place squash halves inside a baking pan, cut sides down, (taller sides than a baking sheet) and place in oven on same rack as potatoes. If serving red wine, now is a nice time to uncork and let breathe.
Warm a non-stick pan to medium. But in some olive oil and roll pan to cover bottom and sides. (Just a little of the sides.) Place two-four chicken breasts in the warmed pan. Brown both sides. Cover, check heat and let cook. Don’t let pan get to hot or chicken will dry out. You should be able to hear it sizzle.
Core (take out the core while leaving the apple body intact) two large apples, I like spys for this. Place in a small (it has to fit on the same rack as the squash and potatoes) cassarole which has a lid. Find the lid, make sure it fits and is clean before commiting the apples. Take a little (just a little) olive oil on your fingers and rub the bottom and sides of the cassarole before placing cored apples inside. Take an apple peeler and peel a thin strip of skin off of the apples and put them back inside the cassarole. Like if the top was the north pole, take off a strip round the equator. In a small bowl, mix a handful of raisins, Lexia are best, or thompson are second best, sultanas if that is what you have; with a handful of chopped nuts, walnuts or almonds. Some brown sugar or maple syrup to coat and some spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom. Mixture should not be runny at this point. Place inside apple core hollows and put excess mixture round the base of the apples. Place lid on cassarole and place beside oven. After squash and potatoes have been in oven half an hour, place apples in as well.
Back to the chicken, take off cover, ensure chicken breasts are rounded side up and pour half to three quarters of a jar of low-sugar apricot jam over the chicken. Lower the heat to between medium and low. Replace the lid and make sure it fits well.
Check again, is it time to put in the apples?
For salad, wash and chop some celery 5-6 ribs depending on size of stalk. Place in bowl. Halve, core and chop two apples, I like Macs for this, and place in bowl with celery. Add a sprinkle of lemon juice and toss to coat. Add some mayonnaise, I am a Hellman’s fan, and stir. Add some of the same chopped nuts and raisins to the salad (if using lexia raisins, might I suggest lightly chopping them before adding to the salad). Don’t over do it with the fruit in the salad. It is just there as a teaser for dessert. Keep her curious.
Check the chicken, you want to ensure the sugar in the jam isn’t burning. If the jam is starting to get dark brown, lower the heat, and keep the lid on to let the steam keep cooking the chicken.
Refrigerate salad. Set table. Light candles. Fluff the cut flower arrangement. Set music volume. Squash, potatoes, chicken, and dessert should all be done about now. If they are done and she hasn’t yet arrived, turn off the oven and the stove and enjoy a glass of wine.
Entree and salad are fairly straightforward to serve. The apples, kept warm in the turned-off oven, are fine by themselves or with whipped cream or ice cream.
To whip cream. Buy some whipping cream at least the day before the dinner. The smallest container you can find at the grocers. Keep it in the fridge overnight so it is good and cold. The best is one of those hand mixers you can put in tall, narrow containers. Pour the cream in a tall, narrow plasitic container like a former yogurt container. Place mixer in the container, to the bottom, and turn it on (start with low if you have the option). This takes a few minutes and a good eye, so do it in good light and don’t get distracted. The cream will start to thicken and the waves will stay on the surface. Now move the mixer up and down a bit but don’t come above the top of the cream. When it starts to look thicker, shut off the mixer and remove it from the cream. Do the peaks stay where they are and hold their shape? If so, you are done. If not, more mixing. Now be careful and don’t go too far. If the cream starts to lose that smooth appearance and starts to look chunky, you have gone too far. So stop and when you serve the cream make sure the lights are low. The flavour will be the same. You can refrigerate the cream for several hours so perhaps do it late afternoon so you have the time to work with it. Also you can start with some of the cream in the container and whip it and then whip the rest in a different container and go with the one that turned out the best. Serve the best for her and save the other for yourself. It won’t look as good the next day, but it is still real whipped cream.
That was fun. Thanks.
@wmoxam: yes halfway through I wondered if this way venue appropriate. But I was having such fun I had to finish it. I will consider how to create a lesson out of it. And if anyone who has never whipped real cream before follows my instructions, please share your feedback. It’s one thing to know how to do something and an entirely different skill to explain in in a way that is useful for someone who has never done it before. Let me know how I did.
Thanks.
