I know it sounds like a weird question to ask, but I feel like everyone is much more likely to be cooking at home at the moment.
I know that Bon Appetit gets a lot of love around here and there’s been a few times where I’ve just watched one of their videos and said, “That looks good...I should just make that for dinner tonight. I’ve got the time!” I did that a few days ago with their Lamb Dumpling recipe and it came out amazing.

I’m currently using my leftover lamb and pork mixture to make a rice dish.

I’ve also been working on perfecting my cast iron pizza cooking skills.

I'm now T-1 to 2 days from having my sourdough starter that was created from nothing but natural yeast around where I live (and obviously generous amounts of flour or water) to being ready to bake/cook with. This is my first time working with starters, and dough in general, so I'm really looking forward to baking my own sourdough bread in the oven, or making a classic sourdough pizza with mozzarella and a marinara sauce (this is first on the list!).

I've been feeding it twice daily for several days now, and am getting close to the doubling-within-a-day metric many use as a baseline for when it's "ready", although I haven't tried the float test quite yet It's got an almost fruity, alcoholic aroma to it—with no funky, displeasing notes.

Here's the first recipe I'm planning, unfortunately our oven barely goes above 500°F, and I don't have any handy sources of thermal mass to properly cook a pizza, so I'm hopeful a cast-iron approach to really crisping the base on the stove first will pay dividends.

Seamus Blackley has also been a bit of an inspiration.

Anyone got any tips? Recipes to share? Surely I'm not the only person on Tildes trying this (for obvious reasons).

There are a million sites with postings on this theme right now, but this seems like an interesting opportunity to survey the Tildes community's collective wisdom.

I'll share one of my own pantry baking recipes to kick off - the only fresh ingredient required is eggs.

Patience Limited's Honey Cake

(based on original "Majestic and Moist Honey Cake" from smittenkitchen.com)

This is a simple, one- or two-bowl quick bread-type recipe which has a dense, cake-like crumb. (I highly recommend using a kitchen scale for faster and more uniform results, but it's a forgiving recipe if you measure instead.)

It can be eaten alone like a sweet bread if baked in loaf pans, or used as layers for other desserts if baked in loaf or sheet pans. The recipe is so versatile that it can also be easily scaled up or down, and portioned as mini-loaves or cupcakes with appropriate adjustments to cooking time.

This honey cake recipe is fantastic by itself with a cup of coffee in the morning, and will keep for days if lightly wrapped.

[Not gluten-free, but contains no nuts if optional almond topping is omitted, and is vegetarian and kosher.]

3 1/2 cups (440 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 teaspoons (about 8 grams) ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger powder
1 cup (235 ml) vegetable oil
1 cup (340 grams) honey
1 cup (300 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (95 grams) brown sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup warm (235 ml) coffee or strong tea
1/4 cup (60 ml) rye, whiskey, or rum
1/2 cup (45 to 55 grams) slivered or sliced almonds (optional)

Fits in three loaf pans, two 9-inch square or round cake pans, one 9 or 10 inch tube or bundt cake pan, or one 9 by 13 inch sheet cake.

[I make my batch in two full-size 9" x 5" x 3" loaf pans (8 cups each), and it makes two perfect loaves.]

Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Generously grease pan(s) with non-stick cooking spray. For tube or angel food pans, line the bottom with lightly greased parchment paper, cut to fit.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, cardamom, and ginger. Make a well in the center, and add oil, honey, white sugar, brown sugars, eggs, vanilla, coffee or tea, orange juice and rye or whiskey, if using. (If you measure your oil before the honey, it will be easier to get all of the honey out.)

Using a strong wire whisk or in an electric mixer on slow speed, stir together well to make a thick, well-blended batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom.

Spoon batter into prepared pan(s). Sprinkle top of cake(s) evenly with almonds, if using. Place cake pan(s) on two baking sheets, stacked together (this will ensure the cakes bake properly with the bottom baking faster than the cake interior and top).

Bake until cake tests done, that is, it springs back when you gently touch the cake center. For angel and tube cake pans, this will take 60 to 75 minutes, loaf cakes, about 45 to 55 minutes. For sheet style cakes, baking time is 40 to 45 minutes.

Let cake stand fifteen minutes before removing from pan.

In an attempt to get somewhat back into shape, I've recently taken up meal prepping again. I love cooking but my previous job was ~60 hour weeks, and some things had to be sacrificed because there just wasn't enough time in the day. However, I have a somewhat more normal job now and I can get back into the things I love(d) to do.

I made some teriyaki salmon and veggies for the next week: https://imgur.com/a/GCFPeJS

Recipe: https://www.lecremedelacrumb.com/one-pan-baked-teriyaki-salmon-and-vegetables/

I'm not good with fish and I rarely try to cook with it (landlocked state so it's hard to get it fresh), l but I found that fish-based dishes very generally tend to be healthier and dairy-free (lactose-intolerant).

What are your favorite foods to prep for a week? Got any recipes? Any tips for a fledgling beginner?

This question popped up between my friends and I when we were discussing the possibilities of lab grown meat. When discussing lab grown meat, one of the arguments for it is that it is far more ethical to consume as it didn't originate from a living, conscious being. But if you replace the meat being grown in a lab to human meat rather than fish or beef, is it still less ethical? Or is it something that will be seen as incredibly taboo to the point where it should be outlawed?

I would be curious to read your thoughts and points of view on this!

For me, it's going to be a hard no that it shouldn't it be done. But to be honest, I feel like my feelings regarding it come from an emotional perspective rather than a logical one.

Edit: Let's throw in lab grown human organs as well. Say these are the organs that aren't suitable for transplant, but are perfectly edible.

I'm sitting here eating a pan crust pizza with pepperoni, sausage, mozzarella+romano cheese, and easy mushroom and basil. I feel that this is an ideal pizza with it's mixture of crunch, spices, and sweetness. The leftovers are perfect for reheating in a skillet the next day. The crust has softened but is soaked with enough grease that the skillet makes the crust have an almost puff pastry style crunch/crumble. This is probably my ideal pizza.

What piece of kitchen equipment do you regret buying? Why?

I bought a garlic masher. (I don't think it was anywhere near £26 when I bought it!) https://www.amazon.co.uk/royalvkb-VP303-370-Royal-Garlic-Crusher/dp/B000OW58D8/ It looks really heavy, but it actually isn't. I regret it because it's not nearly as much fun to use as it looks. It's safer than mashing garlic with a knife, and it's easier to clean than a press. But other than that it's not worth the money. The garlic cards (credit card sized bits of plastic with embossed letters) that you rub garlic over are better.

Coming up to Christmas and gift-giving is on my mind and I wondered if you've ever been given food or a food-related gadget that you liked? I guess we can also talk about the misses too.

I like chocolate, so small amounts of nice chocolate are something that I like.

I consider both industrial meat production and veganism to be sub-optimal across all dimensions. I've recently jumped into this growing niche market for more sustainable and ethical meat. It's a little more pricey, unless you buy in bulk (e.g. 1/4 to full cow at a time), but I think it's worth it in the end.

I'm looking to share sources of info and network of producers/farms in this regard. Allan Savory has the Savory Institute which I found to be a good start. Though FYI there have been back-and-forth essays written about the criticism and defense of these practices (too many to post here but easy to find in the two above links).

I found one local family-operated farm that practices e.g. "organic" (in this case no herb/pest/fungi-cide) farming (crops for the animals), legitimate free-roaming chickens and sustainable land management that allows soil and ecology equilibration (reducing fertilizer use and subsequent runoff). Plus, buying and directly supporting local farmers and ranchers is always a plus!

EDIT: I foresee this thread being hijacked towards a discussion about how "meat is bad" and how we eat too much meat etc. I am being narrow here because I want to be pragmatic, rather than opine on global economics and dietary needs.

Lately I've been trying to be better about cooking a decent breakfast for myself every morning instead of grabbing sugary stuff at a coffee shop, blowing money for something fancier, or wolfing down a breakfast bar.

I'm also trying to be a boring adult and limit my sugar intake, avoid gluten on account I'm apparently at risk for celiac disease, and would like to try and be vegan whenever possible.... couple this with me being incredibly lazy and us not having a dishwasher in our apartment, and I've got what feels like very few options.

For the past two months, every weekday I've been crumbling firm tofu over a heated pan set to medium, throwing in some paprika, turmeric, salt, garlic & onion powder, nutritional yeast, stirring that up a bit for five minutes, and then ripping up a cup of pre-packaged kale/spinach leaves over it before taking it off the heat and tossing in a tablespoon of oat milk. I'll then eat half and leave the other for my wife.

It's been OK, but I'm trying to look into other options just to add some variety, and was curious if someone else has found something that works for them that I might be able to piggyback off of for inspiration.

we need more casual questions in here (there are 4 topics specifically tagged casual on the first page rn), so let me cast the first stone to that lot. bonus style points if you link to what the food is if it's country specific/kinda esoteric/something most people wouldn't know

So, I was looking for soy sauce the other day and my grocery store has created a whole new "ethnic" section. This section was near the entrance so I went there first to look for the soy sauce. It wasn't there. It was with the other condiments like BBQ sauce. Cool. Then I wanted oyster sauce and that wasn't near the soy and BBQ sauce, but back in the ethnic section...

So just wondering, where do you expect to find this sort of thing - ethnic and ethnic that's considered mainstream? (I also found tea in like five different places...)

Cooking is a hobby of mine, and as a result I really enjoy watching food related YouTube channels. Some of the ones I like are

• Alex French Guy Cooking - A fun channel of a creative french amateur cook. I like this channel because I have similar taste in food to him (check out his instant ramen series!), but his solutions to problems in the kitchen are seriously creative. To give an example, he builds a dough sheeter in his croissant series in order to get the perfect thickness of dough, and he makes a makeshift dehydrator in the ramen series. Stuff I would never do in the kitchen, but it's fun to watch.

• Bon Appetit - I totally did not expect Bon Appetit to have such a well put together web presence (for some reason I considered them an old fashioned publication). In any case, check out the "It's Alive with Brad" series. It starts out as a series about all things related to fermentation (beer, hot sauce, kombucha, sourdough, etc), but expands a bit in scope.

• Binging with Babish - Perhaps the most well known of recent food related YouTubers, Babish recreates meals from movies and TV. He also has a nice series on cooking tutorials. I don't watch him as much as I used to, but he's still a lot of fun.

• Townsends - A bit different than the rest, and not exlusively food related. Townsends is a historical enthusiast focusing on the colonial era, and he has a lot of videos recreating recipes and techniques from the time period.

EDIT:

Forgot to include

• Jun's Kitchen - Some seriously therapeutic cooking videos featuring sushi and cats.

I'll start: Hessian 'Tater soup. Maybe not very exciting, but I just love the stuff.

Start off with a diced onion and about 1 - 1.5 kg of peeled, sliced potatoes. Throw into a big pot on high heat with some oil and let it develop some color. Meanwhile, get peeling and chopping on this stuff - carrots, celery root, leek, parsley, parsley root. Amounts as desired, but I like to use a lot of parsley - root or leafs. If your taters get enough color, cover with water and add the rest of the veggies. All that in place, cook until soft. Blend. Add 200ml of sour cream and season with nutmeg, pepper and salt. Consistency should be thick, maybe slightly chunky.

When serving, fry up a few slices of old sausage to throw in there. This one is a traditional north hessian sausage, but any only lightly spiced and smoked, coarse ground, fatty hard sausage will do. Add a sprig of parsley if you feel like upping the presentation.

For my daily tea-drinkers: What are you drinking today? Where'd you get it? How would you rate it?

For my non-tea drinkers: Feel free to ask any questions you might have about the most widely consumed beverage in the world (next to water). Share a time you had a good experience or a bad experience.

In mid-2012 I decided to become a vegetarian, both for health and ethical reasons. Before then I had mostly been on autopilot when it came to food - I just ate what what was the norm in my family. My choice forced me to get out of my comfort zone, to try out new foods I had never considered before. For this reason, the change has been incredibly positive to me; I'm much more conscious of what I eat now. And by setting a precedent it later helped me make more changes, like cutting down sugar. I'm currently testing to see if the bloating and stomach aches I suffer daily are because I am lactose intolerant; if it is indeed the case, that will require another drastic change, although this particular one will be by necessity rather than choice.

What is the biggest change you've ever made to your diet? Was it by choice, or did you feel obligated to do so, for example because of health issues? What did you get out of it? How much thought do you put in your daily diet, in general?

I'm fairly happy with mine, it's simple and tastes good, but I'm hardly a chef so I'm sure it can be improved. Bonus points if its simple enough to do when you're tired as hell and just want a nice drink.

Mine:

Start heating milk on low heat, then slowly add sugar and cocoa powder while mixing, 1 tbs each per 4oz of milk. I find this pushes the saturation limit of the milk a bit too close, so I add some more in to make sure everything dissolves. Add in some cinnamon, along with a pinch of nutmeg and salt. Once hot splash in a bit of cool cream and serve.

hey all!

i see these kinds of posts in ~music where people talk all about what they're listening to that week, what they checked out for the first time, what they really enjoyed or hated. i thought it'd be cool to do a food version!

did you try a new recipe this week? how was it?

eat at a cool new restaurant?

try a new dish that you absolutely loved / hated?

grab a plate and dive on in!

For me, its Eggs Benedict.

Perfectly hand poached eggs, fresh scratch made hollandaise, fresh baked english muffins, ham steak (maybe add some spinach to make a Benedict/Florentine hybrid) served with potatoes O'Brien and an espresso. mmmm.....

For me, its a bowl of cereal, usually grape nuts or cheerios. Sometimes with blueberries. Quick and easy.

Also, weird fact;

I put table cream or half and half in my cereal. My grandmother grew up on a dairy farm on PEI and when they were kids the best cream was always used by her family for cereal or tea. Well, she had 6 kids, who then had 13 more and all of us use cream like weirdos (and drink lots of tea). And no, we are not all obese because of it, everything in moderation. =)

^ I may or may not be eating grape nuts and cream right now.

Some questions to get us started:

• Do you drink water? Does it taste like anything?
• Coffee or tea? What kind? Do you put milk in it?
• Do you drink the alcoholic beverages? What's your drink of choice?
• Do you drink the carbonated beverages? What's your fizzy drink of choice?
• Do you drink the fruits or the veggie or the smoothie? How you drink it?
• Do you make a Drinky McDrinky Drink, what is it, how do you make it so I can drink it?
• Does the word drink sound funny now?

As the title says, I am looking for your go-to recipes for when you are not in the mood to cook. They should be fast and simple to make and be preferably not too expensive.

Let me start this: Tortelloni with tarragon-cream-sauce (3-6€/2servings, depending on the tortelloni)
*500g Tortelloni, 250ml (sweet) cream, 2 tomatos, tarragon/salt/pepper;

1. Water with salt in one pot, cream with tarragon and 4 short splashes of water in another;
2. Cut the tomatos into pieces and add the to the cream when it boils slightly
3. When the tomatos are added, stir the cream (it should get slightly red from the tomato juice
4. add salt and pepper
5. at this point the water should be boiling, add the Tortelloni
   5.1 I usually buy the Tortelloni from the fridge, they only need to be boiled for 2 min, adjust the timing when you heat up the cream according to needed time to boil the pasta
6. When everything is finished put everything together and enjoy

What I mean by "treat yourself" is something which makes you happy, not just something which satisfies an urge. We all get days where we just want to gulp down a nice plate of spaghetti but what meal do you prepare/buy for yourself when you really want to eat something special?

When I have the time, money, and energy, I like cooking proper meals from scratch (as much as is reasonable, anyway). There's one that I like making more than any other, though, and that I've been making for several years now: pizza. There's nothing quite like a pizza made from freshly rolled dough, a good sauce, and cheese shredded by hand (with none of that cellulose getting in the way), and the smell of the yeast from the dough is wonderful. There's still quite a bit I need to learn to make it better, but I've so far gotten to the point of preferring it over anything you'd get from the popular pizza chains, so I'm pretty confident in what I've managed so far!

What about you? Do you have a favorite? What meal do you consider your "specialty"? Is there anything in particular that keeps bringing you back to it?

What's your go-to weekend dish? Whether it's a fried breakfast or eight hour smoked pork shoulder, what do you love to cook on the weekend?

Personally it's split between bacon and egg sandwiches on homemade bread; my chili recipe, loosely based on SeriousEats Best Ever Chili and potato, chorizo, and cabbage hash with a runny egg on top.

I've somewhat recently become vegan and am looking for more recipes to cook. I love pretty much all kinds of food, especially kinds I haven't tried before. If anybody has any great recipes that are vegan, I would love to share.

You probably know the drill, but in case not - you get an unlimited supply of one specific beer to drink when marooned on an island - presumably til death.

I love California blondes. I want to try some others that ~ loves, and thought other folks might like to do the same.

Firestone Walker 805 for me. You?

edit: just to say, oops, not dessert...desert.

Quite a lot of us will have them. They are pretty damn useful, and make for decent lazy meals.

Apart from stock, here is one of the recipes I really like for the IP.

https://www.justonecookbook.com/pressure-cooker-pork-belly-kakuni/

Japanese pork belly slices. Works brilliantly and stunning flavour. In fact Just One Cookbook is generally a great site, but this was the first of theirs I tried. I make it every time my wife goes away as it's not her thing, but I love it.

Interested in your favourites!

New group, new topics, this is all so exciting. I'm a chef myself and enjoy discussing the business and philosophies of what I do. I'm wondering if other people in the industry have found their way unto Tildes at this point.