I love cooking and it has gotten some kind of hobby- always looking for recipes, doing proper shopping tours trough supermarkets, weekly markets and exotik food stores :D I find cooking very relaxing!
Anyone else with this preference?

Hi E!

I LOOOOVE to cook! I'm always trying out new recipes and especially love trying to recreate particular dishes from restaurants (love the callenge!) Italian and Mexican are my favorite....Mmmmmmm! http://pages.prodigy.net/indianahawkeye/newpage21/15.gif


One-pot meals are best around my house because there's 6 of us and it's hard to get everyone together at once. :rolleyes:

So what kind of "exotic" meals do you prepare?

I love Italian and Mexcan food too and always try to recreate dishes I have eaten or sometimes only seen (like my salad of olives, feta and peppers). I have to try *everything* :D Indian, Chinese, and my alltime favourite: Middle Eastern food! It´s healthy, it´s much vegetable and less meat, not expansive and the allday dishes are easy to prepare.
We are 6 too and it´s not only difficult to get together but to find a dish everyone likes *big sigh* My sister and brother only want to eat German food :evil:

We are 6 too and it´s not only difficult to get together but to find a dish everyone likes *big sigh*

Big *sigh* here, too.

Son doesn't like anything with mushrooms or cream cheese...
Daughter doesn't like anything spicy...
Hubby doesn't like peas or raisins...
Mother doesn't like spinach...
FIL doesn't like brocolli, mushrooms, sour cream (and of course, his diabetic/renal diet exludes MANY items also)
Myself, I don't eat pork.

So you can see how tough MY job is as a cook! :D

So you can see how touch MY job is as a cook! :D

Poor thing! I can feel with you because I see my mom getting desperate because of this abundance of special wishes :shock: I don´t get upset anymore- who doesn´t like my food has to stay hungry or eat a sandwich :twisted:

I love to cook :)
I especially like getting a new cookbook and going through it for recipes.

cheryl

ME!

I love to cook. I have my whole life.
It's my only hobby besides hair and Lush. I don't know if those count as hobbies.

I am a Food TV addict. I have to make everything I see that sounds good. I have a whole binder full of recipes that I've printed and made from the Food Network.

This week I am going to make bracole as I saw on Good Eats with Alton Brown.

Love cooking!

Absolutely love cooking!!! My ex was a chef who bashed my cooking for 3 years, but after dumping his sorry butt I discovered that I actually do a damn decent job in the kitchen & love trying new recipes & techniques.

MissKim, here's one that may work for you. I usually serve it over chicken & herb couscous. Some elements may need modification for your FIL, but could be workable.

Chicken with Pear, Sage, and Cheese
Ingredients
2  large skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (about 10 oz.)
2  teaspoons olive oil
2  thin slices Emmentaler or Gruyere cheese (about 1-1/2 oz.)
1  small pear, cored and cut into thin slices
1/4  cup apple juice or apple cider
1  tablespoon finely shredded fresh sage
 
Directions:
1. Place each chicken piece, boned side up, between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Working from the center to the edges, pound lightly with the flat side of a meat mallet to 1/4-inch thickness. Remove plastic wrap. Sprinkle chicken with salt and black pepper.
2. Heat oil over medium heat in a medium nonstick skillet. Add chicken; cook for 4 to 6 minutes or until chicken is tender and no longer pink, turning once. Transfer to 2 dinner plates; top with cheese. Cover and keep warm.
3. Cook and stir pear slices in the same skillet for 2 to 3 minutes or just until tender. Add apple juice and sage. Bring to boiling, scraping up any crusty browned bits from bottom of skillet. To serve, spoon the pear mixture over chicken. Makes 2 servings.

I especially like getting a new cookbook and going through it for recipes.


I have two shelves of cookbooks :oops: After harit toys my second collection :D I love buying new ones 8)

I have a whole binder full of recipes that I've printed and made from the Food Network.

I have three :oops: Not made from Cook TV that is not very spread in Germany but from women´s magazines a.s.o.

Chicken with Pear, Sage, and Cheese
Ingredients
2  large skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (about 10 oz.)
2  teaspoons olive oil
2  thin slices Emmentaler or Gruyere cheese (about 1-1/2 oz.)
1  small pear, cored and cut into thin slices
1/4  cup apple juice or apple cider
1  tablespoon finely shredded fresh sage
 
Directions:
1. Place each chicken piece, boned side up, between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Working from the center to the edges, pound lightly with the flat side of a meat mallet to 1/4-inch thickness. Remove plastic wrap. Sprinkle chicken with salt and black pepper.
2. Heat oil over medium heat in a medium nonstick skillet. Add chicken; cook for 4 to 6 minutes or until chicken is tender and no longer pink, turning once. Transfer to 2 dinner plates; top with cheese. Cover and keep warm.
3. Cook and stir pear slices in the same skillet for 2 to 3 minutes or just until tender. Add apple juice and sage. Bring to boiling, scraping up any crusty browned bits from bottom of skillet. To serve, spoon the pear mixture over chicken. Makes 2 servings.

Thanks! What about sharing our favourite recipes as Roux did? When I get home I´ll think about it :-)

Here's a super easy weeknight meal that my husband loves.

chicken breasts
boiled in water with an onion until just done

top with premade teriyaki sauce and a slice of muenster cheese.
broil until cheese melts.

delicious and so easy.

weeknight meals i don't like to measure and fart around. just throw in and good until it tastes right.

I'm a cook, but I rarely follow recipes (although I might use them for inspiration and ideas sometimes). I much prefer to make things up myself, and I'll cook almost anything - Italian, Chinese, Thai, French, Mexican, South American, Caribbean, Indian, North African, Middle Eastern, Greek, Spanish, traditional British - I've travelled a lot and I love to try and recreate things I've eaten whilst abroad, and I love to experiment with new and unusual ingredients.
I don't have any particular speciality either - I'll do main course based on meat, poultry, fish and vegetarian, I love to bake desserts, cakes, bread... Seriously, I just love to cook, anything and everything :D

I like to look at the recipe, then "personalize" it. I don't know how many cookbooks I have, but it covers the top of the china cabinet, and I have a few others on another bookshelf (I'm a book fanatic.) I have all my printouts and clippings of recipes in a loose green hanging folder which just sits on top of the other cookbooks. It was over 9" thick at last glance. :oops: I keep saying I need to put it in better order, but I never do.

My favorite are the easy recipes. hehe. Easy to me means I can put it in the oven/crockpot/stockpot and forget about it. I don't mind large amounts of prepwork, but I hate continously standing over someting stirring it. Lol. I'd rather make chicken cordon blue than scrambled eggs.

I also like things you make ahead of time: polenta, lentil stew, etc.

cheryl

I like to look at the recipe, then "personalize" it. I don't know how many cookbooks I have, but it covers the top of the china cabinet, and I have a few others on another bookshelf (I'm a book fanatic.) I have all my printouts and clippings of recipes in a loose green hanging folder which just sits on top of the other cookbooks. It was over 9" thick at last glance. :oops: I keep saying I need to put it in better order, but I never do.

My favorite are the easy recipes. hehe. Easy to me means I can put it in the oven/crockpot/stockpot and forget about it. I don't mind large amounts of prepwork, but I hate continously standing over someting stirring it. Lol. I'd rather make chicken cordon blue than scrambled eggs.

I also like things you make ahead of time: polenta, lentil stew, etc.

cheryl

A girl after my own heart! :heartbeat: :D I like the easy recipes, too.

Cheryl, I keep all my recipes in a photo album (one with the "magnetic pages" ), whether they're handwritten from a friend, typed by me, or clipped from a magazine. It's pretty nifty!

Also, I wanted to share my VERY favorite online recipe source, it's allrecipes.com! Many people leave their reviews and variations for each recipe they try. It's a neat little site!

(I'm a book fanatic.)

Call me amazon´s best customer :oops: Ok, not *that* bad. But bad enough ;-)

E.
I will confess that I could single handedly support the romance industry. :oops: Closely followed by sci-fi and horror--esque books. What do you like?

cheryl

I love to cook! (And I love books too, my wish list is almost 200 items long!)

I make dinner for my family a lot. For my birthday, I got a LOT of cookbooks! I also had a subscription to Cooking Light for a long time.. that is my FAVORITE magazine! It has exercise tips in it too.. and I never worry that a recipe is unhealthy if it comes out of there.

It's a challenge at my house to cook too.. my mom has a lot of foods she cant' eat, my brother doesn't like mushrooms, and my dad... well, he's not picky.

I like to invent recpies too.

Here's one of my favorite invented recipes:
4 chicken breasts
olive oil
orange juice
dry white wine
rosemary
orange peel
salt and pepper

coat a medium skillet with olive oil, and put the chicken in the pan
add a few tbsp each of white wine and orange juice
sprinkle spices to taste. cook over medium heat until the center of the chicken is a shell pink. (It's cooked through, but just barely)

This is the juiciest yummiest chicken ever!

I'm sorry my recipe isn't very specific, like I said, I just invented it. It's what I make if I can't think of anything to make. :)

I also like to either make and freeze or buy foods that can be used in a variety of ways:

Iw breaded chicken patties: buy in freezer section, or make a whole bunch and freeze. They can be chicken parmesan, chicken sandwiches (ranch, BBQ, buffalo, mustard & mayo,) chicken fried chicken, cut up for chicken fingers or diced for salads or cassaroles. And they are already pre-cooked. You can nuke em, or have them in and out of the oven or toaster oven in a flash :)

We like "pizza on bread"
Whatever bread is handy : white bread, bagles, onion rolls, etc.
Spread with whatever sauce is handy: tomato, alfredo, oil, tapenade, cream cheese etc.
Add whatever toppings are on hand: roasted red pepper, pimento, olives, cooked sausage, pepporoni, apple slices, grapes, shredded carrot.
Top with cheese if desired.
Cook if ingreadinets need it.

This way everyone can have what they want:
2 cream cheese and strawberry on cressont raw
1 alfredo, carrot and oilve on bagel cooked
3 tapenade, red pepper and mushroom on white bread cooked
1 peanut butter and bannanna with candy chips raw

Hehe. Is it a considence, that most of my recipes start out with : whatever meat/veggie/etc. is onhand? lol

cheryl

E.
I will confess that I could single handedly support the romance industry. :oops: Closely followed by sci-fi and horror--esque books. What do you like?


Cookbooks, novels (little bit exotic is appreciated), sci-fi and fantasy, illustrated books (especially home&lifestyle). I just discovered Terry Pratchett and his disc world- absolutely amusing :D

(And I love books too, my wish list is almost 200 items long!)


Mine is about 600... :oops:

Ok, here´re my 2 pence (it was the only recipe without units of measurement- didn´t want to convert them :oops: )- this salad is healthy, simple, delicious and good to prepare!

1 big cucumber, peeled, pits removed and cut into little cubes
5-6 tomatoes, pits removed and cut into little cubes
1 Onion, chopped
1 can tuna, picked to pieces
optional: 1/2 bunch of parsley, chopped
juice of a lemon
3 table spoons oil (olive oil is the best for this dish)
salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients together, spice with salt and pepper and let it stand on a cool place for at least one hour and enjoy ;-) This makes a good side dish as well as a whole meal when served with bread (pita bread would be great).

(And I love books too, my wish list is almost 200 items long!)


Mine is about 600... :oops:


hehe. mine is only about 15 itmes long b/c my wallet is empty from buying the rest.

cheryl

Food and books, I have found the right thread! :D

Our mailman is always surprised when he DOESN'T bring us a box each day from amazon.com. Though honestly, Mr. Heidi is much worse than I am at compulsive book-buying! I discovered Powells.com, but they don't have a wishlist!

Here's a link for bibliophiles: http://bibliomania.net/

I love to cook, but now that I live with someone with bizarro food tastes (he eats like a 10-year-old) I only cook for myself. So I don't try out new things as often as I did when I lived with a chef-in-training. I did pull out my cookbooks again the other day and made some Tunisian soup (yummy!) to eat all week.

I don't really watch television anymore, so I don't have cable, but when I did, the Food Channel was always on! I think I had a crush on Alton Brown--I'm a sucker for geeks. ;)

I'm more of a hobby baker--I'm about to go bake some bread now. I like to grind my own grains and mix them together to get interesting textures, or perfect my French and Italian breads. Hmmm...what to make this morning?

sorry for reopening the thread - i just couldnt help answering it :)

i love cooking - yes! and i enjoy it.. have quite a lot of cookbooks and newspaper magazine clippings of yummy recipes (two bagsful!) and three handwritten recipe books that i wrote down the recipes from my fav. cookshows..

thanks misskim for a exellent idea to organize those clippings. i was thinking of copying them down in a nice notebook (yeah right! :face: )

one of my inventions: serves 1

one chicken breast - cut into cubes and nuked for 7-8 minutes till 3/4rth done in a microwave safe bowl covered with a papertowel
1 onion - chopped

heat 1-2 tbsp oil in a saute pan, add onions, saute till they brown, 2 tbsp tomato sauce/ketchup, 1/2 tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp red chilli powder or paprika or cayenne or black pepper, salt, the chicken pieces ..saute for somemore time and add a little water. goes with roti - indian bread or rice.. or whole wheat bread.. i make so many variations depeding on what i have at hand.. sometimes coconut milk... sometimes black pepper, or teriyaki sauce or ginger garlic paste or coriander powder or cummin powder or a mixture of all these :D

i have promised myself not to buy another cookbook till i tried atleast one reipe from each book i have. the newspaper clippings can wait ;)

I love love cooking and eating and all things food. I read cookbooks like people read novels. My best friend also loves to cook and all things food. Once during one of her visits, we went to 4 grocery stores and 5 restaurants in ONE DAY. (don't hate us, but she's all of 98 pounds and I'm about 140 at 5'8"...thank goodness for an amazing metabolism). We are always discussing food, what we ate, what recipes we have and trading them. I usually cook from memory or "what looks good" and eyeballing all ingredients. I have also created some fantastic cakes in my time.

Food is a wonderful and simple pleasure in life. :) It is to be enjoyed!

Keep posting recipes. I'm drooling as is!

I do see Cooking as a hobby.

I love to look though cookbooks my Grandma has collected over the years then passed on to my Mom.
Pretty much everyone in my family cooks. Mom doesn't so much anymore because she stated 'she has done her duty' lol.
I am not much of a warm weather cooker. When the weather cools in Sept I begin thinking of dinners and baking cookies and candy for the Holidays..

Love browsing markets for things to buy and make. It's like going hunting but with a list :deal:

Angel Hugs and Love

my turn to reopen this thread due to an irresistible urge... :oops:

i do love to cook. since starting to work fulltime, i've learned what a stress reliever it is to get home and make a really good dinner. odd, you'd think having to make dinner would be more stressful, but it's not; i feel more "me" afterwards.

i use recipes sometimes, usually modified to my preference. more often, i'll just invent something. last night's dinner was inspired by bruschetta:

slice a deli roll in half. mix olive oil with black pepper, brush the mixture on the crust of the deli roll and broil until toasted. flip the bread so the cut side faces up and brush it with the olive oil mixture. top with sliced tomatoes, salt, oregano, garlic, a bit of grated cheddar and parmesan, and return to the oven. broil until edges of bread are toasted.

it was good. :wink: