I like being able to cook

[1293]

Cooking used to be my #1 hobby. I can no longer eat carbs, my wife went veg and my son is picky. The thrill is gone.

 

[brookdalebill]

If I only had a modicum of patience.
I can’t, and don’t cook.
I do admire, and greatly appreciate the art.
I roast a mean chicken, I grill a great ribeye.
End of (sad) story.
Bravo to you who can, and do cook.
Two of my dear friends Larry and Scott are wizards.
My sister Margaret is brilliant, as is my brother in law, Bill.
The walleye dinner sounds great!
I caught a mess of em’ once, in Hay River, Northwest Territories, many moons ago
Big fun!

 

[MisterZ]

In general, I prefer concepts over recipes. Concepts can be endlessly tweaked. We usually eat broccoli rabe once per week. Tonight I grilled the broccoli rabe, along with an onion and chick peas in two separate grill baskets. We had it over whole wheat pasta--which we generally only eat when we serve greens over it. Instead of Italian style with olive oil and garlic as we might normally do with the pasta, I tied it all together with some Costco cilantro and lime Mexican style sour cream sauce. I can do broccoli rabe 50 times per year, different each time. It always turns out good, and often great.

With that being said, I love to hear what other people are cooking. It always gives me ideas.

How do you keep the chickpeas from falling through the holes in the grill basket? Mine has pretty big holes...

 

[Midgetje94]

Cooking is great, unless it’s your job.

I actually quite love my job. Lol. I get it’s not for everyone.

 

[stxrus]

We eat out, primarily, for special occasions or “just because”. Maybe 5-6 times a year and only to places that we really like. Our thought is we can, a lot of the time, do better but sometimes it’s just nice to not have to shop, cook, and clean up.
Our two favorite places to dine out (not eat out) usually run around $150.00 plus tip. It’s as much the experience as anything else

 

[unixfish]

I made pan-fried scallops and mashed cauliflower last night. I was quite good!

 

[Engine Swap]

I actually quite love my job. Lol. I get it’s not for everyone.

Did it for about a decade - When I think about it, it’s more the business than the job.

 

[uriah1]

Another old walleye recipe
Tinfoil on charcoal grill
walleye/italian breadcrumbs/onion/parmesagn cheese sprinkle

 

[Midgetje94]

Did it for about a decade - When I think about it, it’s more the business than the job.

I started in a fast food kitchen at 18. I hated that. Stepped up to a better fast food job (better pay and a few “beneficial” perks). Became a manager of said fast food establishment. Left there to work in a real kitchen. Worked my way up. Been an assistant GM for a decently well known burger joint franchise.

Now I’m a kitchen manager/ Pitmaster at a more “froo-froo” taco place. We use smoked meats for our tacos. Kind of a bbq fusion of like Torchy’s tacos or Velvet taco.

I’ve worked my way from a fry boy at Chick-fil-A, to second in command of a mom and pop shop with profit shares.

Like I said. I get it’s not for everyone. I hated my first several years in it. But that was also lower level. I’m 29 now. I’ve worked food all but maybe 4 years. (Brief stent in the Navy, and tried my hand in Landscaping for a couple years)

I truly enjoy kitchen work. Personal and professional.

However I am looking for a more future planning based career here in the next year or so. Not many retirement plans or real benefits to the line of work

 

[dkmw]

I started learning to cook when I was a starving college student. We caught a lot of fish and had to figure out what to do with them. I still use some recipes I learned in 1975.

At the same time I started to pay attention when I was home around my mother and grandmother. Staples like biscuits, cornbread, hushpuppies. Also about 1975 I started on the Weber kettles, that came from a college friend.

I do all the grilling, BBQing, and deep-frying around here. My wife is French heritage so she could live on bread and cheese; but she makes a whole lot of other good stuff. And as someone above commented, she’ll often say “you’ll never have that again” because she was winging it and something delicious came out.

 

[Engine Swap]

@Midgetje94 - on the plus side, I learned a ton of management, thinking, and organizing skills while cooking that have served me well in later jobs. If you can survive Mother’s Day weekend in the kitchen of a high-volume restaurant, anything else is pretty easy

Still love to cook for family and friends.

 

[Fenderdad1950]

I have to, my dog is terrible at preparing meals

 

[Bob M]

I have a basic command of the kitchen. I live by myself and I cook a meal for myself every day. Some BBQ and grilling, but I do Italian (from scratch) and other stuff as well. I’m always amazed at the folks I meet that don’t/can’t cook.

 

[wrathfuldeity]

Love to eat good food...many decades ago, thought to myself why go out and spend a fortune when I could learn how to tweak it to my liking. Kind of like doing mods a git. So figured out how to do a repertoire of up my faves. Last night it was beer battered halibut tacos and Mrs W did up a rhubarb pie. She is a great baker bread, biscuits, rolls, coffee cakes, pies

 

[Lawdawg]

My wife and I both love to cook and are both pretty strong home cooks. We both have high stress jobs and cooking is a nice way to decompress and refocus your mind on a different task. I do tend to use recipes a lot, at least as a starting point, but some of the best things I've made were largely improvised.

One side benefit of learning to cook is I can better appreciate the work, craft and originality that goes into a great restaurant meal.

 

[BigDaddyLH]

I have a few dishes I can make in my sleep but I'm mainly a "wing it" cook.

I winged it last night because my wife was working late: Japanese eggplant, tofu, mushrooms and chard with the main seasoning being gochujang. I was just reaching into the fridge and pulling ingredient out, but it turned out pretty good.

 

[gb Custom Shop]

We're pretty good cooks in our household. I started to learn around 9-10 years old, back when the food network wasn't only competition shows. I don't care for most restaurants when we can do it ourselves, often better, in our opinion. But for certain cuisines/dishes that do it better than us, we'll go out for that, and the special occasion.

I'm not a picky eater by any means, so My most hated question of the day has always been "what do you want for dinner?"

 

[Esquire Jones]

There was a tv show a few years ago called “Chef At Home”. It was hosted by a chef from Nova Scotia.

The show was interesting because he would focus on using ingredients that he had in his pantry. In other words, use what ya’ got.

He inspired me to get creative and showed how to pull together simple and tasty meals without too much fuss.

It stuck with me. Now I can generally whip up something edible with relative ease.

Literally life changing insight, at least for me. I mean, I was that guy that didn’t know the difference between a head of lettuce and a head of cabbage.

Yup, I was a fast food freak. I had serious drive-through dependency.

 

[Preacher]

I see cooking as a creative process. I think most people who like to create eventually find like to cook.

Now cleaning up after cooking.... ugggg

 

[Hey_you]

Grads on stepping up your culinary skills! Too many people have little clue as to how to cook properly.(to taste best). I also have taken many classes. I find it so satisfying to produce a meals that exceeds expectations. Way too many people have no idea what great food taste like at home. Friends have suggested that I should open a restaurant. But as stated earlier, the joy would diminish due to being a job.