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The " Honey I'm home and I'm bloody starving , what's for dinner " Thread.

Just thought of another thing. Watch any professional on the box and see how much seasoning they use. It’s an eye opener.
 
Always found a stir fry is easy to start with, experiment with flavours and make sauces from scratch.
 
When first experimenting with stir fry, use very finely sliced beef rather than diced chicken. Rare beef if you get the timing off is ace. Raw chicken is anything but ace!
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
Tonight’s (well, your time!) little exchange has got me thinking about this thread. There are clearly massively different levels of cooking ability in our little online group. Maybe those with more experience or skills can pass on useful little tips to save time and improve those with less confidence? Not necessarily recipes but just little helpful things that seem second nature when you know what you are doing but aren’t obvious when you think you can burn water?

I can start with a couple.

Rice. Boiling standard cooking time rice is a piece of piss by the absorption method. This doesn’t work for quick cook rice but the regular stuff.
Twice as much water in the pan as rice. Bring to the boil. Regularly stir to make sure the rice doesn’t stick. When the water is absorbed the rice should be perfectly done.

Dicing an onion. Quick but you need a sharp knife. Peel. Cut it in half going through the root. Lay one half flat on the board. Cut from the top 5mm slices but leave the root intact as you need that to hold on to. Now put your knife blade parallel with the board and make three or four slices through the onion again leaving the root untouched. Turn onion through ninety degrees and slice from the top again in 5mm strips. Instant dice. If you want to make flash brunoise tiny dice then you just reduce the distance between the cuts in all three chops. As long as the root is intact the onion should hold together and it’s easy.
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I find swilling the rice in a collendar with cold water before chucking it in boiling water gets rid of a fair bit of the starch and makes it fluffier.
 
When boiling vegetables…

If it grows below the surface put it into cold water and bring it to the boil. If it grows above the surface, boil the water first and add the veg when it is bubbling. No idea on the science behind that but it seems to hold true.
 
I usually follow instructions I.e. recipes but since I retired and started doing most of the cooking, I've found the key is seasoning and I'm a bit hit and miss with that. Discovered my favourites are paprika, cumin and oregano, also love black pepper. I'm getting better at it but still have the occasional failure, well not so much failure as its not as good as I'd hoped. As with most things it's a little bit of knowledge mixed in with confidence.
 
Re rice:

I use the same water/rice ratio as you Pad, but was always told that you shouldn't stir it. I bring it to the boil, stir once then cover with lid and simmer on a low heat for 15-20 mins or until the water is just about all gone.

Oh and I always wash it first. That helps it not to stick.
 
That’s why asking for salt before tasting a dish in a restaurant is such a silly move.
 
Much inspired by the posts on here have decided it’s time to grow a pair and stick the head above the parapet - tonight will be the last Gousto and free-styling from Monday!

Figured planning is likely to be the key so will set out a simple menu to begin with and get focussed. I think it’s the aimlessly wandering around a supermarket with no plan and no imagination that would be most demoralising so will try and avoid that at all costs.

Will try and keep a notebook of menus as I go written in idiot-speak and hopefully before too long will have a little repertoire of basics to build upon. Not sure creativity will ever be a strong point but a bit of confidence and the ability to follow more adventurous recipes over time will hopefully mean it doesn’t need to be.

One step at a time though, quite looking forward to it.
 
EpsomWolf said:
Much inspired by the posts on here have decided it’s time to grow a pair and stick the head above the parapet - tonight will be the last Gousto and free-styling from Monday!

Figured planning is likely to be the key so will set out a simple menu to begin with and get focussed. I think it’s the aimlessly wandering around a supermarket with no plan and no imagination that would be most demoralising so will try and avoid that at all costs.

Will try and keep a notebook of menus as I go written in idiot-speak and hopefully before too long will have a little repertoire of basics to build upon. Not sure creativity will ever be a strong point but a bit of confidence and the ability to follow more adventurous recipes over time will hopefully mean it doesn’t need to be.

One step at a time though, quite looking forward to it.
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Absolutely the right mindset and literally everyone on here who can cook will have fucked up dozens of times. So what, hoy it in the bin if it's that bad, learn what went wrong and try again. No-one is born and just knows what they're doing immediately.

The satisfaction of doing it well is absolutely worth it. Depending what you make then you can cut out a load of needless spending too - so many meals you can make multiple portions out of and they'll last days in the fridge just to be reheated, let alone getting into proper batch cooking and freezing (we don't do this as we have very little freezer space, but if you do then it's an option).
 
An easy one for you - bacon, spinach and spaghetti. Cut bacon up into 1cm squares, fry in a pan with a little oil, add garlic and chilli flakes to suit. Once the bacon is cooked add half a litre of vegetable stock and cook until the spaghetti is almost done. Add 100g of spinach and a similar weight of halved cherry tomatoes and cook for a further five minutes. Serve with grated parmesan on top and an amount of black pepper to suit. - All done in half an hour in just one pot.
 
Sniffer said:
An easy one for you - bacon, spinach and spaghetti. Cut bacon up into 1cm squares, fry in a pan with a little oil, add garlic and chilli flakes to suit. Once the bacon is cooked add half a litre of vegetable stock and cook until the spaghetti is almost done. Add 100g of spinach and a similar weight of halved cherry tomatoes and cook for a further five minutes. Serve with grated parmesan on top and an amount of black pepper to suit. - All done in half an hour in just one pot.
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Ooo, I like the sound of that. Right up my street and the perfect level of cookery skill required. A great one to get going with.

Thank you.
 
Make a big Spag Bol and freeze half of it. When you come to use the second lot add some chopped chillis and a load of ground cumin and you have a very serviceable chilli. Swap out the cumin for a load of smoked paprika and you are getting pretty close to a goulash
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
Make a big Spag Bol and freeze half of it. When you come to use the second lot add some chopped chillis and a load of ground cumin and you have a very serviceable chilli. Swap out the cumin for a load of smoked paprika and you are getting pretty close to a goulash
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Spag bol is a good option for a new cook, unlikely to be rubbish unless you really go overboard on the seasoning
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
Make a big Spag Bol and freeze half of it. When you come to use the second lot add some chopped chillis and a load of ground cumin and you have a very serviceable chilli. Swap out the cumin for a load of smoked paprika and you are getting pretty close to a goulash
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Yeah, definitely don't get too purist with spag bol either. Within reason, stick what you like in there for bulk.

At various times I've used carrots, leeks, mushrooms (not traditional, oddly!), celery - anything goes.

These days Quorn mince is actually very decent too, I have to use it now and it's light years from the gravel-style crap you got 20 years ago, to the point if I served it and didn't tell you then I doubt you'd know. Healthy too.

The only thing I won't compromise on is having beef stock and a splash of red wine in there, I want depth regardless.
 
Deutsch Wolf said:
Yeah, definitely don't get too purist with spag bol either. Within reason, stick what you like in there for bulk.

At various times I've used carrots, leeks, mushrooms (not traditional, oddly!), celery - anything goes.

These days Quorn mince is actually very decent too, I have to use it now and it's light years from the gravel-style crap you got 20 years ago, to the point if I served it and didn't tell you then I doubt you'd know. Healthy too.

The only thing I won't compromise on is having beef stock and a splash of red wine in there, I want depth regardless.
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Yeah we do that, not celery obviously, that's just fucking weird😄
 
And never ever put cheap vinegar wine in food. It’s shit. You don’t have to cook with a £20 bottle in but the meal deserves something actually drinkable giving it depth.

My Spag Bol is garlic shallots onion mushrooms carrots tinned chopped tomatoes (these are fine), a good load of tomato purée bacon lardons fresh basil, oregano beef stock glass or two of red wine salt pepper. That is pretty much it.
 
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