Recipes & Cooking!

oooh I like this thread!  I'm a not a great cook but I do enjoy doing it.  I don't have any recipes but I work with a lady that has heart disease and is type II diabetic.  If any of you have tasty recipes for food that she might enjoy I would REALLY appreciate it!

ooo how do you make miso soup? i LOVE it but don't know how. course, i could look it up online but i'd rather do one i know you've tried and works lol.

btw, i LOVE wrapping things in mountain bread and baking. you can do many low fat ones that way. and for the diabetic (i'm one too), they're yum and easy. i did a cheesey cauliflower one, and a chicken mushroom wellington thing that was to DIE FOR!

PANDAmonium wrote:

The only thing I know how to cook that doesn't involve removing something from a can or freezer container and sticking it in the microwave is potato leek soup, from scratch too! Go figure.

Allrecipes.com is a really good place to find recipes if you're feeling adventurous. They're all posted by other users I think and people rate them so you always know if it's a good one or not.

That's my two cents!

Allrecipes is good, but I've found Recipeezaar has a few more users, so the voting isn't as skewed.  I remember I found a really great hawaiian chicken recipe on allrecipes though--my family loved it!

I'd like to hear the penne pasta one, please!

i love cooking as well. i'm actually going to be majoring hospitality management and i hope to open a restaurant one day. if anyone wants a certain recipe and i know of it i can help as well.

My faves are

Tomato and chilli soup
Spag Bol - but everyone knows how to do that
Brocili and stilton soup
Tattie soup

On another note my OH just made me bacon and brie on warm ciabbata bread and it was amazingly gorgous!

Okay so, here's Chicken & Penne for Chestra:

Flavor Profile:  Clean, Summery
Challenge:  Easy
Ability to Alter Recipe:  High

Adapted from:  An ancient weight watchers cookbook of my mom's--she was on a diet kick and asked that I cook from it!  I loved it & fiddled with it some.  I can not remember how close to the original recipe this is.

Notes:  SUPER easy to double and halve.  I'm giving it to you for 2 people in case you are cooking for yourself (so you have one night & a lunch!)

Ingredients:
2 Boneless skinless Chicken breasts, chopped roughly
2+ garlic cloves (if you like garlic, use more.  If not, use less.  2 is a good starting point).
1 large onion (or 2 small onions), chopped roughly
1/2 of a red bell pepper, seeded and chopped roughly (for some spice, keep some seeds)
1 to 1 and 1/2 cups penne pasta (if you have no penne, any large, shaped noodle will do.  Add more or less pasta depending on your budget--more starch if you're poor, lol!--, the size of the pasta, and how much you like noodles!)
Salt + Pepper to taste
Olive Oil

Optional:  2 tablespoons cooking wine (depending on my mood, I'll skip this step, add lots more, etc).

Instructions:

1)  Chop up all of your ingredients, and salt or pepper your chicken to taste.  In a large pot, add 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil (more or less depending on your preference).  Bring to medium high heat. 

In another pot, heat the amount of water you will need to cook your pasta.  Cook your pasta to al dente while cooking the rest of your ingredients, and drain it when its finished.

2) Add in:  garlic, onion, bell pepper.  Cook for at least 30 seconds on medium high.  If you like softer vegetables, cook until the onion is nice and soft.  I tend to like mine crisp, so I just cook until the "rawness" of the vegetables is gone.

3)  Add the chicken to the pot.  Brown the chicken.  If you do not like the texture of boiled chicken, cook the chicken mostly through at this stage.  If you do like the texture of boiled chicken, just brown it.

4)  Put in the can of tomatoes, and optional wine.  Mix together, bring to a boil (and then down to a simmer) and cook until chicken is 100% cooked through.  My chicken is generally already cooked, so this step is short for me, leading to a crisper taste.

5)  Pour the cooked pasta into the tomato, veggie, and chicken mixture.  You are now ready to serve!

If you want, you can always add more vegetables during the cooking process, as well as spices like oregano or basil.  it is a simple dish, so it isnt hard to play with!

Annnd now for the Rosemary & Garlic Chicken recipe for Lil Miss Chicki!

Flavor Profile:  Rich
Challenge:  Depends (see notes)
Serve With:  Mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus, steamed broccoli and a baked potato, garlic bread, another starch, and veggies etc.

Adapted from:  A "20 minute meals" cookbook.

Notes:  I don't recommend using pre-chopped garlic from a bottle for this--it tends to burn.  The original recipe also asked that you flatten your chicken, then cook it in a frying pan over medium heat.  This also tended to burn things.  If you want to flatten your chicken and fry it, do so, but I've found the best way to do it in the instructions below.  Easy to double or quadruple.  I'm posting it for one.

Ingredients:
--1 boneless skinless Chicken breast
--2-3 cloves Garlic, more if you have tiny cloves.
--Rosemary:  If you have fresh rosemary, 3 sprigs will do the trick.  One of those nice already pulled together packets of rosemary in the grocery store generally turns out to be perfect for 4 people.  If you do not have fresh rosemary, determine how punget your dried rosemary is.  Depending on its freshness, or lack thereof, you may need a tablespoon full per person!  I recommend fresh for this.
--Salt + Pepper
--Olive Oil

Instructions:

1) Preheat your oven to 400 (higher if your oven will do it; mine refuses) (skip this step if you are just flattening the breasts and cooking them in the skillet the whole way through).
2)  Make sure your chicken is mostly the same thickness.  If not, flatten some breasts.  You will not want uneven cooking, or else some people will be eating sooner than others, or breasts will be drying out (again, if you are cooking them in the skillet on the stovetop the whole way through, just mallet them out to about 1/4 inch thickness).
3)  Salt and pepper your chicken lightly.
4)  Pour olive oil into a skillet and put it on medium high heat.
5)  When the skillet becomes preheated, throw about half of the aromatics (the garlic & rosemary).  DO NOT HEAT THESE UP FOR VERY LONG OR THEY WILL BURN.  After about 30 seconds or so, put in your chicken.
6)  Brown both sides of the chicken if you are putting them in the oven (if you are frying them the whole way through, this is where you finish cooking them.  Put the rest of the aromatics in the pan in the last few minutes of cooking).
7)  Put the chicken on... a) a cookie sheet lined with foil, b) in a proper meat pan of some kind or c) keep it on your skillet if oven safe (usually I have to do a, but if I'm lucky, I can do b)
8)  Layer with the rest of the aromatics.  If the chicken looks like it could use it, add more olive oil.   Put in the oven until it is cooked through.  My oven is a bum, so i can't give you a good time estimate.  it will probably be 15-20 minutes.

Frying it a little beforehand will keep the chicken moist, which is a huge problem with baked chicken.

Good luck!

Just diet related stuff, or any recipe? I love cooking, too. I do it vegan though, haha.

Whenever I feel like I need to eat healthier (More veggies and stuff), I go to http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/. My grandmother has type II diabetes, so I made her some of the more southern style dishes and she loved them (Saturated fat is a big problem for diabetics, too). The recipes are mostly low in fat, but some definitely aren't.. Cakes and things.

I have a bunch of dessert recipes if anyone is interested. They're still, you know, desserts, but minus the cholesterol and saturated fats. One is this amazing banana bundt cake that people go crazy for.. Not my recipe, but I'm forced to make it so much.

Minibrutus - the tempeh recipe sounds amazing. Would you share? And the asparagus! Man, I love asparagus.

Last edited by Layla47 (07-12-2008 18:45)

I do tons and tons of cooking and baking. I'm planning on starting culinary school this fall.

I'm a total foodie, and for the last four years have been working in the industry... I work for a company that's basically a middleman for artisan cheeses from all over the world. We basically get ahold of obscure cheeses and deliver them to really nice restaurants all over Southern California.

As a result, I get to do some heavy cooking, and since I speak to chefs on the phone every single day, I can usually weasel recipes out of them.

Tonight I made miso butterfish for dinner, with steamed veggies and sticky rice balls. Let me know if you want the fish recipe; I don't wanna spam the boards with information if no one wants it.

I also don't mind any posts or PMs with questions about food. I can go on and on about it.

EDIT: Also, I'm really loving FoodWishes right now. It's an amazing recipe/cooking blog. Here's the link: http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/

Last edited by Adacatcher (07-12-2008 09:05)

Adacatcher - What school are you planning to attend? I'm looking to attend one also, but I'm not quite sure if I can handle the meat portion.

I just made a gingerbread apple pie and I have an amazing vegan lasagna recipe (It's from Veganomicon). The lasagna is the best I've ever had. If you want to try tofu properly prepared, it would be in this dish as the cashew tofu ricotta. Tofu is such a bland food item, it really takes on whatever you want it to, but most people hate the texture or have had it prepared horribly.

Ooh, and a low fat cupcake recipe!

fifilamour wrote:

Chocolate Chip Cookies
....
11. 1/2 cup dry-roasted crickets

Tollhouse, but with crickets instead of nuts?  Oh man, lol.  Wish I was so brave.  Do you watch the colbert report?  he had a guy on there who calls insects "land shrimp."

Layla, not just diet related stuff, but ALL kind of recipes!  Oh and please list the desserts, I am always looking for new dessert stuff!!!

Adacatcher:  wowwwwwwww someone in the industry and going to school for cooking!  I am humbled.  I have a question for you:  what is a really good fondue cheese?  people are always saying "swiss swiss swiss' but I hate swiss with a passion.