Who else loves to cook?

[whitelop]

For me, food is a huge part of life. It brings people together for happy times and helps them get through tough times. Food is always a good conversation starter and a relationship builder. A good meal is something that commits to memory for all of those involved.

I LOVE to cook. I am an apron wearing, cook every night with a rabbit by my feet kind of woman. I cook gourmet meals some nights, but other nights I cook simple but good dinners. I'm one of those people that will get up at 4am to put a pork butt on the smoker just for a Sunday family dinner. I love to cook for other people, I love to have my family and friends over for dinner.

I make my own breads, whether it be loaves of sandwich bread for my husband to take to work or loaves of heavy, hearty dinner breads.

I try to cook healthy, but I also like fried food like fried chicken, fried squash, fried green tomatoes. (What? I'm from the south y'all. You know we love to fry our food!)

Winter time is the best time to cook because you can pull out the hearty meals that in the summer would be to heavy.
I love making rich soups and stews. I make roasts a lot, pork or beef. I love a good roast with either mashed potatoes or rice.

My favorite thing to cook would probably be chicken and dumplings, thats if I had to choose a favorite meal. I have mastered that recipe and its sooo good!

I also love to make desserts! I will go nuts on a dessert recipe and make difficult things, which are usually the best!

If anyone would like recipes, I'm not stingy. I love to share good recipes with other people!

So who else loves to cook? Share your favorite meals to cook, your families favorite meals. Or things that you just make for your kids. Anything you want to share!

 

[agnesthelion]

I love to cook too!!!

I agree that winter is a better cooking time than summer. It's such a great feeling to have something simmering or baking so the house warms up and smells great.

My hubby's fave recipe of mine is a chicken dish with teriyaki sauce, ranch, green onions and cheese. Fattening but ohnso yummy.

I also like cooking Mexican dishes like enchiladas, dips, and burritos.

Pasta/Italian dishes are a favorite of mine too. I like comfort foods like homemade Mac n cheese and loaded mashed potatoes too.

I'm not the best "healthy" cooker. I admit, we love our fattening foods at this house!

That is awesome that you bake breads. I have YET to do it and I'm almost 35 years old.

I love fried green tomatoes and green tomato casseroles and recipes. If you have any of those to share I would love them! As well as any bread baking tips

 

[whitelop]

I usually make quick breads. They're pretty easy, just a little time consuming because of having to let it rise so much. I make white and wheat quick breads.

The tips I would give are, don't use metal bowls or utensils for mixing the breads. My cookbooks says to use a mixer, but I don't because the metal counteracts the yeast.
Oh and don't let the bread sit out to rise for too long, because once it reaches a certain point, it won't rise anymore when its baking. I know this from experience. haha.

I just made some beer bread and its one of my favorites to make for dinner, its so crunchy and buttery and delicious!

Unfortunately, I don't have any recipes for green tomato casseroles. I don't make many casseroles.

 

[agnesthelion]

whitelop wrote:

I
Unfortunately, I don't have any recipes for green tomato casseroles. I don't make many casseroles.

Oh I was just asking for your fried green tomato recipe OR any recipes you make with green tomatoes. I have a green tomato pie/casserole that I like to make, you said you are from the south so I wondered if you had more because it is a southern thing doesn't need to be a casserole since you don't make those but wondered if you had other recipes...

As far as fried green tomatoes do you just use flour, salt, pepper,,,buttermilk? There is so many ways to make them curious how you make yours....

 

[whitelop]

haha I misunderstood . I usually just dip them in egg and then in flour that's been seasoned with seasoned salt and pepper.
I usually only fry the green tomatoes, but I have made a fried green tomato sandwich.
I had one when I was a teenager in Missouri and it was SO good. So I tried it later in life.

You get a hoogy roll, open it up and toast it a little.
You fry to green or red tomato, slap a tiny bit of mayo on the bread, with some lettuce and bacon.
So its like fried BLT on a good roll. They are soo good!

 

[agnesthelion]

Ok cool. I love fried green tomatoes I think I can get some from my garden before it freezes here.

That sandwich sounds fantastic!

 

[lauratunes12]

I LOVE cooking AND baking! Just not cleaning up. I would cook so much more if allowed to. I think once I am out on my own I will start cooking more. I actually asked for a food processor for my birthday.

 

[lauratunes12]

I love a healthy dessert blog by the name of www.chocolatecoveredkatie.com

She's a vegan, so all the recipes are technically vegan as well, but you can easily use regular milk, butter, eggs.

They all taste sooooo good though and are so easy!

 

[holtzchick]

I love to cook also but my specialties are vegetarian dishes. That being said I love Indian cuisine.... Or just soups of any kind...

I used to be a very good cook until I met my boyfriend. He is a chef and specializes in French cuisine... All in all his cooking is much better than mine, I just get discouraged now. However since he can't make anything vegetarian for the life of him it makes me happy

 

[littl3red]

I love cooking! I'm more of a baker myself, my specialty is cherry pie. I also make some mean chicken noodle soup, with homemade noodles! It's similar to my family's ages-old chicken and dumplings recipe, which is passed down from girl to girl in my family, but I haven't gotten that recipe quite yet. This year will be my first thanksgiving learning how to make the sacred dumplings! :yahoo:

 

[whitelop]

Ohh Ashtin thats exciting! We don't have any recipes like that, that are passed down from generation to generation. The women on my moms side of the family all cook very similarly, but I think thats a southern thing. We all learned from each other, but we don't have any sacred recipes like that. Thats something to be cherished!

 

[lauratunes12]

I kind of started my own cookie company, so baking is probably my stronger suit too. I still need my license to bring it anywhere though. Right now it's kind of an undercover operation, we're not allowed to advertise or anything, so it's just word of mouth. A locally owned gas station that a lot of people go to wanted to put my cookies in there, but as said before, I need to get myself a license!

 

[KaliQ]

@ lauratunes12, That's awesome you started a cookie company! I started a sort of cake/cupcake company myself at the prompting of my mom. Same here with the license deal, doing some 'under the table/cash' jobs in my spare time.

My husband is definitely the better cook of the two of us, yet I end up doing most of the cooking. A lot of meat and potatoes dishes, along with trying to find new ways to eat chicken, pork loins, rice, and green beans, lol. My family really only has one recipe that has been passed down from my mom to me, and I'll be sure to pass to my daughter. That is our baked french toast casserole that we have every year on Christmas Day.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I love to cook, also! I'm always looking at recipes, thinking up recipes, making meal plans... This is my blog if anyone is interested: http://cheesewithnoodles.blogspot.com/

So what is everyone cooking this week? I'll be making pizza from scratch tonight, and tomorrow night we'll have BLTs with tomato soup. The B in the BLT will actually be an interesting looking recipe I came across for vegan bacon. We are not vegan or even vegetarian, but I am open to all manner of interesting looking recipes I also plan to make a giant pot of lentil stew this week. Will probably cook biscuits or popovers to go with it, and this weekend I will make bagels. Will likely make some type of dessert this week too

 

[daisyandoliver]

I love cooking. I cook for my mom and dad all the time. PINTEREST IS MY BEST FRIEND! All my recipes I find on there. My boyfriend also gets my cooking. ;p He comes over almost every Friday and I try out a new recipe on him. He seems to love that.

 

[whitelop]

Tonight dinner for us was a little weird. I was gone most of the day so we had leftover chinese food, then at about 10pm I made french bread french toast with leftover a loaf of leftover french bread. It was pretty good. I put a little french vanilla coffee creamer in the milk, egg, cinnamon mix. Delish! The hub really like it.

For tomorrow night, I'll be making cubed steak with homemade mashed potatoes and some kind of veggies. Tomorrow I'll also be making loaves of bread for this week, I should have made them today, but it was a stressful day.
This week, I'll probably be making fried chicken, pork chops of some kind. I might make some breakfast for dinner one night this week too, I love doing that. Its going to be a simple week for dinners, but a good week for desserts...

Because its a pie week! On Wednesday I'll be making made from scratch real pumpkin pies! Its the hubs birthday and pumpkin pie is his favorite. I use real pumpkins and make my own crust. I'll make 2 of those so he can take one to work. I might try to make a sweet potato pie too, if I have the time!

Also, my chickens will be eating leftover beef stew from the other night and the ends of the french bread loaf. They eat pretty good!

 

[whitelop]

@Shiloh, how about Slutty Brownies for a dessert this week?
You have to eat them in small quantities or you'll go into a sugar coma!

The recipe is as follows:
1 box of chocolate chip cookie mix
1 box brownie mix, I use the fudgy brownies
1 pack of oreos

Preheat oven to 350*
-Make cookies per box instructions.
-Put all cookie dough on bottom of greased 9x9 square pan.
-Cover cookie dough with single layer of oreos.
-Mix brownies per box instructions.
-Pour brownie batter on top of oreos.
-Bake per brownie box instructions, for the size and type of pan you have.
-Let cool before you cut.

Super sweet, but sooo worth it! If you didn't have diabetes before you ate these brownies, then you might develop it after you eat them!