Status report and cooking

[mrissa]

Well, my sinuses still hurt like crazy, and nothing is fixed so far, but at least my stomach is upset by the antibiotics. Umm.

But despite that, I'm doing pretty well mentally, I think. We've got a plan for taking care of timprov (if you want details, ask on e-mail), and the meeting with his doctor went as well as it could without her offering a magic spell that makes everything feel better, or even a technological equivalent. I got him breakfast and sang silly old songs with him before he went to bed this morning, and the small beast-dog has been a nice beast-dog this morning, and now markgritter is awake. And it's snowing, and I don't have to go out in the snow until later today, and by then it might not be snowing any more.

And we have enough stuff to worry about that I'm patting myself on the back for getting any writing done instead of fussing about whether it's the right writing, which seems like a good thing.

Two of you asked -- back at the beginning of last month, and yes, I'm still on those questions -- about my favorite things to cook. Right now my favorite thing to cook is Spanish rice. I feel like I could live on the smell of it, the saffron and garlic and white wine. I like eating it, too, but that's not the question you-all, and I really, really love cooking it. I almost always do a little groovy dance when I'm making Spanish rice, because it makes me so happy. I have started trying to think of main dishes it could go with, because mostly I make it for with black bean soup, and we don't want that all the time, but I still love Spanish rice.

Also, on a much less interesting note, I seem to have remembered that I'm allowed to make myself salads at lunch, so I do, and they make me very happy.

What are your favorite things to cook? Are they the same as your favorite things to eat?

Comments

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

Even though I haven't posted lately, I'm sorry to hear about your sinuses and your household woes. I keep my fingers crossed that it's a temporary situation and one that will be improved muchly and sooner than later. *snug*

I don't do much cooking anymore - I don't have time and the grocery stores make it easy for me to eat like a queen with all their ready-made gourmet goodies.

I *do* like making and eating rice pudding, though - with lots and lots of raisins and cinnamon. Nothing beats the smell of warmed cinnamon wafting through the house. Mmmm.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I like rice pudding, too. And I like wild rice pudding with sour cherries instead of raisins. Oh man is that stuff good.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

Ooo - I haven't tried cherries - especially sour cherries. I don't think I've even heard such a thing. But then you've been expanding my culinary knowledge by leaps and bounds ever since I started reading your journal. That, and all the cool customs (ie. spring baskets) I've never heard of. *g*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We aim to please; all education is incidental.

Sour cherries are lovely, and underused in the US, I think.

[carbonel]

I think of cooking as a separate thing from baking, and I really don't cook much. Mostly I assemble salads, nuke vegetables, and grill protein -- and call that dinner. Recently I discovered a bunch of Indian-style simmer sauces in jars, and those have made the protein more interesting without adding too many carbs or calories.

Today, however, I'm going to tackle my mother's ratatouille recipe, and if it's at successful, it will be the basis for a veggie dinner for me and a couple of friends on Saturday, over baked potatoes for them and over mushed-up cauliflower for me.

That doesn't really address what I like to cook, though, and mostly what I really enjoy is baking. I suspect this is partly situational -- I live alone and don't cook fancy stuff for myself, but I can bake stuff and share it with others.

I love making truffles, which aren't really cooking or baking so much as playing with mud pies that taste really good when you're done.

I have a chocolate torte recipe I learned from my mother that's a lot of fun to assemble.

But mostly, while I derive a great deal of satisfaction from the results of cooking and baking, I don't really think of things as "favorite" because of the process, but only of the results. And I have a lot of favorite things to make. They're (this is going to sound like a tautology) the favorite things of mine to eat that I make. Which is to say, there are a lot of favorite foods that I never think of making. Like sushi, or most Chinese dishes (I make a decent generic stir-fry, but it's not what I'd get in a Chinese restaurant), or, well, lots of things that are either too much work or are too dangerous to have around the house in more than single-serving amounts.

Oh! I haven't done it in years, but I make a really good hot and sour soup. I used to spend an entire day making both hot and sour soup and Tassajara bread, because both used up a lot of time but had lots of waiting periods in-between. And I enjoy the spicing-up of the soup to my taste, which involves getting just the right balance of sesame oil, sugar, white pepper, hot oil, and maybe pinches of some other things.

[carbonel]

And vinegar. Lots of vinegar.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Baking is something separate for me as well.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

I like baking stuff with cinnamon and cloves in, it just smells so good! I also like making cheese cake, because really, cheeeesecake! Hmm, on the other side, burgers made with some mesquite oil and a dash of worchester sauce cooked on a grill are also a favorite thing, though it might just be the fire that captivates me.

I really hope the universe is not laughing up its sleeve, and your woes are a bizzare alergic reaction to saffron pollen. I would personally do my best to kick the world's ass were that true.

[rosefox]

If you like cinnamon and cloves, I highly recommend baking chai brownies. My ultra-spicy recipe is here. Proportions can of course be adjusted to suit individual tastes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't think we consume enough saffron to make it that, for good or ill.

[sensational.livejournal.com]

Mostly the stuff I like to cook is the stuff I like to eat, and I get more joy from the eating. The exceptions are cooking something really kickass for someone who hasn't had that thing before and curry. I like cooking curry way more than I like eating it.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I am turning into my mother. The older I get, the less I like the act of baking. I've stopped any pretense of attempting to bake breads, because my wrist RSI means that kneading is actively painful, and the results were never good enough to be worth the pain. On my list o'appliances for when I finally move to a place that has a kitchen bigger than a postage stamp is a breadmaker, because I love waking up to the smell of bread.

For the rest of it, the act of cooking is tied into the act of eating. I like cooking and eating laab, and the same with what my family calls chicken-fried steak and the rest of the world calls pan-fried steak (lightly floured instead of heavily breaded, quickly fried, eaten with a milk/cream gravy), but they take a lot of effort to cook and clean up afterwards, so I haven't made them in a while. (The chicken-fried steak thing is especially elaborate because my smoke detector is both hypersensitive and right at the kitchen entrance, so I have to arrange fans in strategic ways to blow allsmoke and steam out the kitchen window, or deal with the annoying noise.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am very lucky: when my hands are sore, kneading makes them feel better, not worse. But that isn't an actual diagnosed RSI issue, so that probably makes a lot of difference.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

It's been, what, three days since you started the antibiotics? If your symptoms haven't improved, you probably need to try a different antibiotic. You might want to give your doc a ring today and see what she thinks. This doesn't surprise me a bit. If, in fact, your sinus infection has been with you all these months, I wouldn't expect it to give up easily. :-)

I'm glad you've got a plan for Timprov. Plans are good.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Omlettes. I really like to cook omlettes. I don't care to eat them, so much, though. Why have an omlette when you could have a skillet and have even more tasty things in it, like potatoes? But I do like to cook omlettes--it's fun when they turn out all pretty.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Tomato basil soup. I wish it wasn't so easy to make, because it's crack-like in its goodness and has way more cream than I really need on a regular basis.

Also, red or green curry, and the Guinness gingerbread.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I like food with complex, intense flavors. My least favorite foods to eat are ones that are basically large masses of the same food with seasonings on the outside. Steak, roast chicken, that sort of thing.

I like cooking things I can build. Either layers of flavor building on one another, or actual physical construction, like a souffle.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't like Roast Meats as a category, either.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

My favorite things to cook include vegetable soup (I love how procedural it is, especially on a slow winter afternoon), lasagna (the assembly is fun), and roast chicken (because I feel so accomplished when I take it out of the oven).

These aren't necessarily my favorite things to eat. That list includes a lot of Korean dishes which fall in the category of "way too much work when cooking for one."

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the rough stuff, and glad of the good stuf...

I'm in a non-cooking phase right now. I was all geeked-out and cooking every night, when I first moved out here. Then there was that whole crashiness and I just couldn't be bothered. I think I'm starting to move back towards a cooking/takeout balance, though. In baby steps.

But I'm always ridiculously pleased of myself when I make risotto. I know not why.

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

My favorite things to cook are things that remind me of my parents.

So from dad I have:
-- Chocolate cake (it is the most moist cake I have ever eaten)
-- Blue ribbon fudge
-- italian beef
-- bread

From mom:
-- chicken and dumplings (which is amusing as I am cooking some right now!)
-- turkeys

From Pop:
-- spagetti with mushrooms and cheese
-- Garlic shrimp

I like to cook those, as I remember when my parents would make them and I could help or they taught me how to do different parts. My dad taught me most of my cooking skills, and he was not a big believer in cookbooks or rules.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I caught myself feeling guilty for messing with one of my mom's recipes, and that was silly, because the biggest thing my mom taught me was to mess with recipes any time I felt like it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I don't really cook. But I love fried eggs, and I can make fried eggs that are, to my taste, the best fried eggs in the world: yolks perfectly liquid, whites totally firm and crunchy and brown around the edges, everything perfectly seasoned with salt, pepper, and brown sugar during the frying process, so it all caramelizes and the flavors meld.

[rosefox]

Right now I am all crazy about making brownies. My "recipes" tag might as well be a "brownies" tag! I've made chai brownies, orange brownies, Captain Jack Sparrow's coconut rum brownies... you name it, I've made or contemplated making brownies with it. I enjoy eating them, but I enjoy other people eating them even more.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ooh, brownies. If I hadn't just spent part of the afternoon making lemony cheesecake bars, I would so make brownies.

[rosefox]

If you're a recipe type, I recommend going back through my "recipes" tag for brownie recipes. If not, it will at least give you ideas. *) Last night the_xtina was trying to name things that I wouldn't put ginger in, and all she could come up with that I wrinkled my nose at was tomato sauce, but in the course of this she said "pears" and I was reminded immediately of my pear-ginger brownies. So good!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Even aside from brownies, I should think that pear crisp with crystallized ginger would be not at all a bad thing.

[rosefox]

Mmmm, I imagine not. A while back I made pear bread with chunks of pear and ginger and it was just phenomenal.

[(Anonymous)]

In response to the Spanish rice dilemma, have you tried making it into a paella? I'm not sure exactly what you are doing to make it and how it differs from paella, but the process sounds similar and then you have a meal without much extra work over Spanish rice.

As for cooking, I'm mostly a baking person, but to me, one of the things I enjoy most about it is the smells. In the fall especially I always pick a day and roast a chicken, mull some cider, and make an apple crisp. To me, the smells sum up fall and it seems to be a ritual that calls to me. Other than that, there is something I enjoy about baking almost any desert. The smells at the end telling you it's done, the textures of the items changing and joining together, the snitching of the batter before you bake it into the "desired" end product. What more can I say?

I hope your sinuses feel better. The medicine I got for mine made me feel sick too, if you were curious.

Take care.

Heathah

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, baking is different from cooking for me, and it's something I do just for fun, whereas cooking is deliberately for my or someone else's nearly-immediate consumption.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

My favorite thing to cook is grilled cheese sandwiches. And I certainly do like eating them.

I also like cooking fancy scrambled eggs, which is basically an incompetent omelet.

I enjoy cooking many other varied and strange and experimental things, but Laura rarely likes them, so that takes a lot of the fun out of it.

musical macaroni

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I like cooking macaroni and cheese almost as well as eating it. I love the shape and texture of macaroni all the way from the package to the stomach. I like the boiling water with oily steam, and shaking the macaroni into it so it doesn't clump up, and watching it bob around, and stirring it while it's still hard and makes the spoon bounce. I like nibbling to see if it's near al dente, and straining it over the sink (and another nice cloud of steam) and bouncing it around in the strainer so it doesn't stick to the strainer. While it's draining, I like quickly putting more water in the pan and the pan back on the turned-off burner to make the pan easier to clean later, and feeling like I'm really on top of things. When the strainer stops steaming, I like putting the macaroni into another pan with more oil and back on the heat and nibbling nice oily salty macaroni (or just pigging out on it to get the energy to finish cooking). Also while it's in the pan I like
sprinkling on lots of parmesan cheese, and stirring it (there's something about the shapes and how they bounce off the spoon) and then stirring in some sour cream. Then I like sitting down to eat it while it's all hot and sort of bouncy.

I love the shapes of shell macaroni and and the color of durum wheat.

Sometimes first thing I heat oil and then toss the dry macaroni in the oil, before putting it in the boiling water. Just got a new brand of shell macaroni and the dry shells tinkle when coming out of the package and keep tinkling when tossed in the oil, the note slowly getting slower and lower.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I like cooking fish en papillote (well, en aluminum foil, really, but en papillote sounds nicer) because it is easy and always comes out tasty, and I like how everyone gets a little foil bundle to open at the table.

I like cooking omlettes - for the longest time, I couldn't do a proper omlette, and then one day, I just concentrated on doing it just like I'd always seen my mother do it, and it worked.

I like making soup.