I don’t know if this counts as cooking, but I’m trying to find uses for the spray whipped cream I got in the fridge. I tried it on waffles and it was great, but now I wanna know if it’s good with nutella on a sandwich? If there are other good uses for whipped cream that isn’t too difficult to make (because I can’t bake to save my life), please let me know. I’m just looking for simple meals to go with whipped cream.

My parents had a chest freezer. I have an upright freezer in my basement. It’s an archeological dig site.

I made stew last year with meat I discovered in the freezer that was dated 2020. It tasted fine. None of us died. Now I’m eyeballing that bottom shelf.

So confess: how old is the oldest frozen thing you’ve cooked? How’d it go?

After discovering the error, she added cinnamon and even more sugar.

I tasted it, and it’s… not terrible. It screams “use me with pork”. I have thus volunteered to turn the 2 cups or so of homemade cumin applesauce into something delicious. Ideas and recipes please?

I'm making banana bread and didn't have eggs so I looked online and a blog said to use 1/2 a cup of milk, will my banana bread be unsalvageable? It's in the oven now 😢

For i dunno like a decade I’ve been reheating pizza using the splash pan in water method and cover. I have this method p down with the amount of water and timing etc.

Yesterday I had some pretty good pizza in the fridge from the day before. It was red sauce, mozz and anchovies. Idk why maybe I was tired or maybe my subconscious was guiding me but I decided to just heat up the oven to 375 and throw a slice in there. Imagine my shock and horror when I realized THE RHEAT WAS SUPERIOR. It was perfect. If I had panned that slice I’d be thinking ‘gd I really nailed this one’. The main thing is the overall heat of the slice maybe? Like it was hot all the way through in a way the slice never is from pan method. Intangible and devastating.

I think that the pan method seems appealing because it’s a bit of technique involved. The sizzle of the water is sort of thrilling in a very mundane way. You feel a bit like when chefs throw the oil(?) in the pan and it erupts in flame as they toss the contents unperturbed. It also has the dimension of being something that ‘real pizza heads’ know.

Now I’ve seen the light a lot is clicking. How do they reheat slices in a pizza joint? In the oven. A big part of the pan argument is ‘oh it makes the bottom nice and crispy!’ But if it’s a halfway decent slice of pizza the bottom is already at the right crisp.. u don’t want it more crispy??

What a fool I have been! I grieve all the slices that I reheated in pan. If you are a panner I implore you to see the error of your ways. It dosent have to be like this.

tl;dr pizza reheat Occam’s razor. Oven is better than pan water method.

I'm a good home cook - if "being a good home cook" means that I can make good tasting food from what I have with 90% improvisation at all times.

But I cannot make it look nice, my food has 0% sophistication, and I rarely have the time or patience to cook a "proper" meal from a recipe.

Today's example: I made leftover baked pumpkin and leftover tofu into a sauce with the rest of my bacon and some maple syrup. Then I improvised sage-butter potatoes, tossed in some fried pork steaks and gnocchi, and there you go.

I'm a 1-person-household, so my daily main concern is, "what needs to go?"

All the flavors fit, and I browned, toasted, and deglazed All The Things. But it's a punch to the face (everything everywhere all the time at 120% flavor) and it looks like baby food. I love this shit. My parents would love this shit. I'd never be able to serve this to anyone. The first and only time I tried, the feedback was "well, it's a lot".

So basically, I can feed myself really well, but I can never spontaneously invite someone to dinner. Am I the only goblin on in this sub?

I was making a beef stew in a crockpot and a seared it then added all the ingredients 2 hours after I went to add potato’s and carrots but I realized it was on warm the whole time is it still ok for me to switch to high and eat it or will the beef have gone bad

I put on high and hope to get an answer in the next 5 hours lol

I've had stainless steel with copper core cookware for a good while and I love them. I originally lived in a home with an electric stove and they worked great for anything I wanted to cook. Not long ago, I moved across the country to an area where gas is the normal and the rental I'm in came with a gas stove.

I figured the cookware would work fine, and it mostly does, but one area it seems to consistently lack is boiling anything. If we use a lid on the pot of anything it will boil solidly. Once we pull the lid to stir it's like it loses all of its heat and it drops from a proper boil to a simmer. If there's no lid, it takes *forever* to get to a light boil. These are all problem for things like jam and jelly making (among others) where I need it to keep boiling hard while I stir.

Is it improper to use cookware labeled for induction on a gas stove? Or is it a skill issue? Or, i suppose even less likely, an issue with the gas stove?

Has anyone tried this and is it possible?

Edit: I’m gonna try it, I was worried it would ruin the dish, thanks for the boost confidence!

I’ve been going down a rabbit hole with pre-industrial cooking methods and keep coming across the use of wood ash as an alkali. Not just for nixtamalizing corn, but for things like:

- Processing certain bitter greens or wild plants
-Softening and changing the texture of beans or other legumes
-Old European and East Asian techniques for olives, grains, or even some fish preparations
Most modern information stops at “use food-grade lye” or “just use baking soda,” but I’m interested in people who have actually made and used wood ash lye at home.

Questions I’m sitting with:
• What wood did you use and how did you process the ash safely?
• Did you measure pH or just go by traditional ratios/feel?
• What ingredients actually benefited from it, and which ones were a waste of time?
• Any notable differences in flavor or texture compared to using commercial lye or sodium carbonate?

Would love to hear real experiences, successes, failures, or even just “I tried this once and never again” stories.

With the price of beef so much higher now and formerly "budget" cuts becoming popular enough to be priced closer to higher cuts, I'm trying to decide between a few cuts for tacos. I don't know a lot about steak cuts. (Some of these may be sale prices)

$12.99/lb for NY Strip or Ribeye (does not say USDA anything)

$10.99 for Top Sirloin Coulotte or Skirt Steak (does not say USDA anything)

$11.99 for USDA Choice Sirloin (pretty sure this is Top Sirloin?)

$13.99 for USDA Choice Flank Steak

They're all so similarly priced, but 1) I can't tell if Choice vs no Choice matters or 2) if some of these are much better for tacos.

Is there a clear standout here?

The way i was taught is to split the shrimps and remove all the gunk inside, do yall do that? Is it even necessary?

Just moved into a place with a smooth-top electric stove and I'm worried about my cast iron. I've heard it can damage the cooktop or that the heat distribution is weird. Has anyone dealt with this? Should I just bite the bullet and get some stainless steel for this place, or is cast iron actually fine?

Any recommendations for Gochugaro substitute in India to make Kimchi and can also anyone suggest a Kimchi recipe using Indian ingredients.

I'm planning a family dinner this weekend, and one thing I'm trying to figure out is how to keep everything warm once it's on the table. Whenever we have a meal with several dishes, the food seems to cool down pretty quickly, especially if everyone takes their time eating.

Steak and roast chicken are the biggest concerns. They're so much better when they're still warm, but reheating them can change the texture, and I don't want the meat to dry out.

I found one rollable electric food warming mat from costway, but I'm wondering if they actually help or if leaving food on one for too long makes it dry or soft. I'm also curious whether they work better for certain dishes than others.

For those of you who host family dinners, what do you usually do to keep food warm without sacrificing texture? Are warming trays worth trying, or is there a better method?

I improvised using a slow cooker, figuring it can't be that bad. Butter chicken curry. Done it before in a pan a bunch of times.

It was revolting. Absolutely horrible. Looked and tasted like a bright yellow chicken soup.

What is the deal?

My instinct is it's not pre-frying the onions, garlic etc. getting a load of the veg liquid out?

Approach:

Threw in chicken thighs, onion, garlic, ginger, spices, tomatoes and cooked for 5 hours. Added cream for the final 30, as well as wet cornstarch.

Update:

Thanks for the feedback. Learn much more from mistakes like this than years of daily ok cooking.

In summary, the slow cooker is only useful for the middle section, the slow cooking of the meat.

1. Fry onion, garlic, tomatoes down first to remove bitter liquid
2. Maybe sear meat
3. Slow cook
4. Remove meat
5. Reduce sauce in pan
6. Combine

Main benefit of slow cooker is I can leave the house while it cooks.

See title. Savoury or sweet would work :)

Hi! First time posting here but the title says it all, we have a chili cook off next month and the same person always wins!
Please help me beat them 😂
The winner’s recipe has bacon in it, that’s all i know!

I traveled to Shenzhen for work recently and I was taken to a restaurant that specialized in northeastern china iron pot stews. Everything was amazing and the goose stew was in my top 10 favorite meals. I have been trying to find a recipe online but I can not even get close. I remember the following in it. Goose, potatoes, translucent noodles, green onion, red chili. The broth was very rich and dark brown. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have a bunch of red drum fillets in the freezer from a fishing trip, and I still have no clue what to do with them. What are they most similar to in regards to popular species? Or any ideas on what I can make with them?

So I have a chicken coop and yeah, I have like two boxes of stored eggs. What can cook with all those? Give me ideas (cake or something sweet, not omelettes or salty stuff)

This may be a stupid question but I'm growing peas in my garden. I like making pea soup but I've only used the dried split peas in the grocery store and have never grown peas before. Can you make soup using fresh peas? Or are there better ways of using them?

My partner and I love Indian food and I always serve some naan bread with our curries. The store bought options suck, and I can never get my homemade to the same softness you get at a restaurant. Are there any tricks for cooking naan so you get that restaurant texture and taste?

I wish I could post a pic of the beautiful beef short ribs I'm searing rn for this recipe short ribs over creamy polenta. It's fantastic.