I like to cook, but lack inspiration

Post Reply New Topic

I'm a vegetarian too. I didn't know the first thing about cooking until I moved to Finland and couldn't find frozen soy products, ready-made vegetarian entrees, or even pasta sauce in a jar (this was almost 9 years ago). Out of necessity, I had to learn how to make food from scratch. I bought a bunch of vegetarian cookbooks and tried any recipes that included ingredients I liked. I also discovered a lot of ingredients I had never thought of trying before (my mom calls me the vegetarian who hates vegetables). A major source of inspiration has been cooking shows. About 3 years ago, we started to get the BBC Food channel on TV, and it has given me so many ideas. Even shows about things like fish are interesting when they're hosted by someone like Rick Stein, who is very passionate about food.

I would say that if you want to get inspired, watch some cooking shows hosted by really passionate cooks, and get a whole bunch of basic cookbooks.

Diseased-
I have the same situation in my house. My wife bakes. She went to school for it, and at one point was a pastry chef for a very high-end Boston restaurant.

I was a line cook for years, and handle most of the day-to-day cooking. I'm also very improvisational when it comes to my cooking, but I feel I have enough experience that I can get away with it. In the summer, I grill 4-5 nights a week.

As with anything, experience is key. The more you cook, the better you get at it. And you'll also find that the better you get, the more you're able to "work clean" minimizing the amount of cleanup afterwards.

My site has had few updates and little activity.

I now have the following offer for anyone willing, and anyone who reads this:

Free usage of the domain for a cooking related site/forum/what not
Free hosting with sql and the works
Free e-mail adresses with various accesspoints (webmail/pop/imap) if desired

All this, and in return I don't really want anything then a promise that the webspace won't be used for anything other then the abovementioned, will not contain anything breaching US law (where the server is), and that there will be a goal of having an active site. I'd also appreciate a link at the bottom of each page, but nothing too fancy.

Oh, I'm not to keen on a site filled with ads and stuff, you should be making a clean and simple site that will not destract the users from the content (ie, having ADD ads kills my experience of the web sometimes).

You will of course be allowed to make money of ads if you wish to do that. But I will frown upon excessive amounts.

I do not want to take credit for your work, nor any money you would make from ads.

If interested feel free to e-mail me on stian.hole@gmail.com

I don't cook very often but I really like cooking. For me I like the chefy stuff, try to perfect recipes. I'll put some simple recipes up later stuff even my sister can make

But most days I’m lucky if I can remember to have lunch.

Sometimes I forget to eat anything but dinner :/ So I know the feeling. Sometimes I know I'm hungry, but I've got so many other things to do and think about that eating gets a little secondary.

I learned a version of quesadillas when I was in college that I still rely on to this day. Requires flour tortillas, cheese, frozen corn and hot sauce and grease for the pan (butter is best). Heat pan on medium, throw a pat of butter in, then tortilla, then grated cheese and a sprinkle of frozen corn, a splash of hot sauce (Pace picante is good) then another tortilla on top. Turn when bottom is brown.

If you have sour cream and guacamole, so much the better.

no i do not like cooking, usually its either burritos or ramen noodles
sorry

Same here! So tired of eating same old stuff that sometimes I skip meals. I guess I could do like my greatgrandmother did once my greatgrandfather died and live entirely off cherry poptarts.

Granola or other crunchy cereal are a good combination.

I don't cook if it's just for me. I cook a LOT for my family. Tonight made sweet potato pancakes and a great salad.

One easy meal is to grill or broil a steak (first spinkle with garlic salt if you can handle MSG) and a ceasar salad. Get the romaine lettuce prewashed in the bags, buy ceasar dressing, croutons and expensive parmesan cheese. Slice lettuce straight into bowl, pour on croutons, dressing, then after tossing, use the shaver part of the grater to shave parmesan on top. It's very quick.

Secret to a good salad, by the way, is lightly dressed and well-tossed.

Hi Ticker. Back from your trip?

Solo meals? Tried fish steaks? Tuna or large fish cut thru the backbone so its about 3/4" thick steak? Grill/fry/bbq. I also used to like grilling camembert cheese (cut the round cheese in half horizonally, sprinkle with olive oil, black pepper (kalamata olives or capers etc if you want), and grill until turns golden and bubbling, serve with a green salad (I'm not supposed to have cheese any more ).

Last edited by BazzaMcKenzie on 16 Apr 2007, 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't like cooking at all
And I'm crap at it anyway...

Same, but I usually love the end result.

I like cooking. Even though it tends to wear me out afterwards. My mom usually does the cooking in our house. But she'll allow me to cook if i find something we all would like. Like this one chicken recipe I got from my uncle, or tacos. Or I'll make her Carob cake since she can't have chocolate. I've made homemade Cinnamon rolls and homemade pretzels too.

I sometimes cook at my dad's too.
I make spicy chicken strips from scratch(pounding and cutting the breast, breading with breadcrumb mixture, etc), Chocolate-chip cookies(that are the best I ever had. *drool*)
Crepes (I think I finally got it down...those things are hard to make because they are difficult to flip. :S)

And yea, cleanup afterwards is always a pain. x.x

Great thread, I cook often because I like to have cooked meals rather than sandwiches and so on. Cooking is really a matter of not being afraid of it rather than requiring any special talent (unless you're doing it professionally).

I like to cook when I feal inspired. Never from a cookbook. My method involves starting with a starch base product like pasta, rice, couscous, etc..., then wandering through the store looking for interesting ingredients to add. I usually stir-fry the ingredients, dump on top of chosen starch, and it generally turns out pretty well.

At uni I have to cook for myself. I like it but I always cook the same thing so it's more part of my evening routine which I like to follow. I want to try and cook a few more things but I just prefer to do what I know.