Hi all. I cook as often as I can and thought it might be fun to chat about any recipes you’ve tried or would like to try! I’m vegan so anything I post in this thread will be too. Maybe even share snacks or restaurants that are you’ve tried that you’ve liked!

To start is a simple sauce/stir fry recipe I make when I’m pretty tired after a long day:

Spicy salty sweet sauce:

1-2 tbsp gochugaru
1 tbsp white or black rice vinegar
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp agave or maple syrup
1 tsp corn starch

I usually put all of the ingredients together except for the corn starch and then set aside as I do the rest of the prep.

The rest of the recipe is a bit more variable as I have certain ingredients but looks like this:

1 cup cooked white rice OR hand pulled noodles

Noodle recipe:
250g all purpose flour
125 ml water
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
Canola oil

I add the flour, water, and salt to a bowl, mixing with my fingers. It starts to form pretty quickly into a mass. I knead the mass of dough into a ball until uniform. With the large, smooth dough ball I cut it into 8 pieces with a knife, roll them into a sort of prolate spheroid shape, and coat with canola oil. Put the oiled dough shapes into a bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let them rest for about an hour or so.

Heat a pot of water. Flatten the dough pieces into rectangles with a rolling pin. Use the rolling pin (if it’s a thin one, otherwise I use large chopsticks), to press the dough lengthways to create a sort of seam. Hold each end of the dough and slowly pull to stretch. Slap on counter as you pull a few times. Stretch it as long or short as you’d like. On the seam you made with the rolling pin, split the noodle apart so that the noodle is now a large loop. Put into the boiling water and wait roughly a minute /or until it’s floating. Can cook a few noodles at a time, though I usually do one or two and roll/pull while they boil.

With the noodles or rice done or going and the sauce almost ready, start to chop vegetables, maybe a cup or so of 2-3 types. I like Napa cabbage, squash, green onions, bell pepper, and carrots but really get whatever you’d like or have on hand at the time. Sauté the vegetables in a tbsp or so of oil (I use canola or olive), starting with onions/garlic and then adding others as you see fit. Once the vegetables are done to your liking, add the noodles or rice, then the sauce (adding in the corn starch to the sauce at this point) and stir.

Often I’ll actually fry a half block or block of tofu I’ve cubed before adding vegetables into the oil. I usually do this as the noodles (or if I’m doing a pot of rice, as it begins to cook) are about done resting, maybe with 15-20 mins to go, since frying tofu can take awhile.

I like to serve in bowls, topping with a dash of sesame oil, black sesame seeds, and fresh green onion.

I’ll post more recipes in the thread as I make them but this is probably the most frequent thing I make in a given week. Feel free to share your own!

Spouse fell in love with Rancho Gordo's premium dry beans, and got a subscription.

We're now swimming in beans, but I'm not a bean lover - they usually taste bitter to me unless huge amounts of spice and vegetables are added. I prefer Asian cuisine flavor profiles, and dry beans don't seem to figure in much Chinese, Thai, or Vietnamese cookery.

But I'm game to try anything - please hit me with your favorite bean recipes. Vegetarian or vegan for preference, but I'll look at recipes that include animal products for flavoring and come up with my own alternatives.

This is a question I've been wondering about for a while as a home baker and amateur food scientist. Why do recipes for whipped, fluffy desert components like whipped cream or buttercream icing always seem to call for powdered sugar? If I want to add sugar to a something, why would I also want to add the anti-caking agent (usually starch I think) for powdered sugar as well? Is that starch actually something beneficial for a whipped desert? Because as far as I can tell, the only time powdered sugar makes sense is when it's dusted on top of something or incorporated into a desert that is being mixed by hand and doesn't have the shear of a mixer to dissolve or emulsify the granulated sugar. And I've never had any issues just using regular granulated sugar and honestly prefer it to powdered sugar for icings, whipped cream and the like. If a recipe calls for powdered sugar, but it's being combined with a mixer or beaters I just use regular sugar and the results are great.

Anyone have any thoughts or experience as to what I'm overlooking? Or is it just a hold over from a time when electric mixers weren't common and you needed a finer sugar to incorporate the sugar by hand?

I was wondering what people use for finding recipes and meal planning when they have less "standard" dietary restrictions. I find that a lot of these tools have options for vegetarians, vegans, paleo diet, keto diet, low carb; or for common allergens like peanuts and soy. But I haven't found a way to limit more specific things (especially things, like fiber, that are generally regarded as beneficial, or things, like fructose, that are everywhere). I suppose just manually searching for and then looking through a bunch of recipes is an option, but that can also be challenging given that nutritional information on recipes isn't always complete. I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions that people have for this sort of thing because I like to eat but right now food is making me very sad.

(also sorry if ~health was a better place to put this, I wasn't sure exactly where it should go)

I am looking for ideas or recipes to make with chicken thighs. I bought some for a barbecue chicken recipe that I really liked, but no one else in my family enjoyed. It seemed to be the different texture of the dark meat. Now I have several pounds in the freezer I eventually need to use for something.

I have been looking online, and most chicken thigh recipes are some variation of cooked chicken thighs whole, baked or fried, with some kind of sauce on them.

I am wondering if anyone has recipes that use them in a way that the texture of the meat is less obvious or maybe ways of preparing them that would make them less chewy. I love the richness of them, and they are cheap, so I hope I can find ways to keep making them.

A few questions for those who have tried homebrewing (and general thread on homebrewing in general)

• Have you ever tried homebrewing?
• What were lessons learned?
• Did you regret the up-front investment?
• Do you bottle or keg?
• What are your favorite recipes?
• What is your setup like?

Feel free to answer only one question, all of them, or none of them and share an anecdote!

My theme for 2024 is to work on creative avenues, one of which is cooking. I want to expand my recipe book to include more show-off-y meals from a variety of regions. Are there any recommendations for recipes to try out?

I just bought a Ninja nutribullet-equivalent blender and will be on a smoothie kick for quite awhile. I bought it because I really need to incorporate more fruits and vegetables in my diet and think it will be a good way to replace breakfast and sometimes dessert.

So far, I have bought two huge bags of frozen fruit, one with strawberries, mango, pineapple, and peaches, and the other is a mixed berry with blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. I also got a bag of frozen kale and frozen spinach. I know there are many, many sites out there filled with smoothie recipes but was curious on your favorite go-to recipe.

I'm open minded so share even your weird ones if you got them!

My husband and I will be alone this Thanksgiving, so we decided to cook a smaller bird than a turkey, specifically a duck. I like duck and frequently order it at restaurants where available, but don't have much experience. I found a low slow roasting recipe that looks promising. I'm already familiar with soup making.

What advice do you have re sauces and meals using leftovers?