So I'm not much of a cook. :rolleyes: But I've been trying to make actual meals instead of just pulling something out of the freezer, cooking it in a frying pan, and maybe making some rice or noodles to go with it. ;) so...


Post here your attempts at cooking something new, and the recipe if you want (either because you think it came out fabulous, or because you want other people to suffer the way you have suffered :lol: )

So last night I made Potato Soup (or Stew, not sure what the rules are...) and I thought it came out pretty good. I'm kind of a picky eater so it surprised me that I liked it and my husband didn't (of course he didn't SAY he didn't like it, he just had a few bites and claimed later that it wasn't what he was in the mood for. :whip: ) It was a lot more work than I anticipated, though, so I was glad my husband helped me out. He fried the bacon for me while I was chopping stuff up, then I was still chopping stuff up (apparently I am a slow chopper--knife safety is important!) so he cooked the onions in the bacon drippings and whisked in the flour to thicken it, then added the chicken broth, at which point I took over and it was a one-woman show from there. If you try this recipe I definitely recommend having some help for at least the early stages.
Also, I felt like this soup was too strong a flavor to be a meal on its own; I think a cup of it would be a great appetizer before a steak dinner.
Here is the recipe, from copykat.com:

Ingredients: (This is the full recipe: I halved it since I was only serving two of us, and there were easily three to four servings leftover)
8 Slices Bacon fried crisp
1 C. diced yellow onion
2/3 C. Flour
6 C. chicken broth
4 C. diced peeled baked potato
2 C. heavy cream
1/4 C. chopped fresh parsley
1 1/2 Tsp. Granulated garlic
1 1/2 Tsp. Dried basil
1 1/2 Tsp. Tabasco
1 1/2 Tsp. coarse black pepper
1 C. grated cheddar cheese
1/4 C. Diced green onion
Methods/steps
"Chop bacon. Set aside. Cook onions in drippings over medium high heat until transparent. Add flour stirring to prevent lumps. Cook for 3-5 minutes until mixture just begins to turn golden. Add broth (it helps if it is warm) gradually, stirring constantly with whisk until thickened. Reduce heat to simmer and add potatoes, cream, bacon, parsley, garlic, basil, Tabasco, and black pepper. Simmer 10 minutes. DO NOT BOIL. Add cheese and green onion. Stir until cheese melts.
This can be made ahead up to the point of adding the cheese and onion. Reheat the soup very slowly and gently. Be careful that it does not boil. Then add the cheese and green onion. Of course if there is any leftover it reheats beautifully. I have never tried freezing it."

This weekend I baked a ham and found a recipe online for a pineapple glaze that I really liked. One of the things that I really liked about it was that it did not contain mustard which I can not stand. Most of the recipes that I found had mustard in them.

It was very easy and it turned out great!!


Baked Ham With Pineapple


INGREDIENTS:
1 smoked picnic shoulder, fully cooked, about 5 to 7 pounds
1 can (15 ounces) pineapple slices in juice
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup honey
Maraschino cherries
whole cloves
PREPARATION:
Remove skin from ham; place on a rack in a baking pan, fat side up. Cover loosely with aluminum foil; bake at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes a pound, or to 140 degrees on meat thermometer.
Drain pineapple, reserving 1/4 cup of juice.
Combine the reserved juice, brown sugar, and honey in a saucepan; cook over low heat until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally.
Remove foil from ham; score fat in a diamond pattern. Brush ham with pineapple-honey mixture. Arrange pineapple slices and cherries in a pattern over the top of the ham, securing with toothpicks. Stud with cloves, if desired, and brush again with pineapple-honey mixture. Bake an additional 30 minutes at 325°, basting with pineapple-honey mixture.
Serves about 10 to 12.

I made cheesy mashed potatoes tonight. It required boiling 1 cup of water and mixing it with the powder stuff. I didn't even start anything on fire. I thought it was a great accomplishment.

On Tuesday I made a Barbequed Beef Brisket--in the slow cooker! I had to buy a fresh beef brisket, which meant the butcher had to go out back and find it, then she trimmed it all up for me and cut it to how big I wanted--made me feel very special. The liquid ingredients are mostly the same as you might use for ribs in the summertime; ketchup, chili sauce, brown sugar, worcestershire sauce, mustard, vinegar, etc, plus something called "Liquid Smoke" which I had to go find. It basically just puts a smokey flavor in it as though it's been on the barbeque.
Anyway it was quite good, though I thought the brisket cooked down an awful lot. I also realized that I didn't know what to serve with it, so at the last minute we cooked some french fries, but I think baked potato would have been perfect. The recipe came out of a book so sometime I'll try to type it up here, 'cause it was a nice summer barbeque sort of flavor in the middle of the winter!

last week, I cooked meat that wasn't chicken to put in salad. I made pork shops and it was delicious ! I even bought some more, so hopefully I'll do the new ones soon !

I usually cook my food from scratch but seldom bake. Today was an exception. Made Muffins with Feta Cheese and Sun dried Tomatoes. :thumbsup:

Ingredients:
5 dl of all-purpose flour
2,5 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 dl milk
0,5 dl oil
3 egg
10 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
100 g feta

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius
2. Mix together flour, salt and baking soda.
3. Whip milk, eggs and oil and mix with the flour mix, add tomatoes and feta cheese.
3. Fill muffin pan cups. Bake 20 minutes.

The result? Tadaa...

looks yummy, non dessertish muffins, I have to try that!

And incredible easy to make. Even I could make them. ;) Going to serve them tomorrow to a visiting friend, but had to taste one today to see if it was eatable. It was :P

OMG - sounds like something I'd LOVE! Going to have to figure out the conversion for that "dl" though.... :blink:

BTW - I've not been much into cooking lately, but I DID make Chocolate Cherry Scones yesterday - they are absolutely DIVINE topped with a little Apricot Cherry Jam!!! And the recipe?? Harry & David's Chocolate Cherry Scone mix! :P Highly recommended!

1 deciliter (dl) is 0.4226753 cup if that helps... :blink:

Oh-oh, too odd an amount..... it's gonna take some ciphering to convert this recipe to something I can use...... :unsure:

So 1 dl = about 6 & 3/4 .... (Or maybe you should let me test my conversion before leaping in yourself! :lol: )

So if that's right, then about:

2 cups plus 1&3/4 Tbsp flour

3/4 cup plus 1&1/2 Tbsp milk

About 3 Tbsp plus 1 tsp oil


(And thinking about it, those amounts of flour and liquids together do sound like they might be relatively on target for muffins.)


These are sounding very good right now! I wonder if I've got any sundried tomatoes around here or if they need to go on the shopping list.... :D

I need feta, but I'll make sure to pick some when I go grocery shopping on Monday ! Thanks for the conversion Kyri!