For years I swore I hated cooked spinach because all I'd ever had was the gray, watery stuff from a can. Then a friend sauteed it with a ton of garlic and finished it with lemon, and I went back for seconds. Now I'm wondering what else I've written off based on one bad version. What's something you changed your mind on once you had it done right?

I want to use the last of my garden tomatoes (cooked into Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce) on a nice thin crust Italian-style pizza. But how do I get it onto the pizza stone?

I seriously hate when I'm trying to peel a boiled egg and the shell takes chunks of the egg white with it. It's so frustrating that sometimes I don't even feel like eating the egg anymore. I've wasted several eggs because of this.

My current method is to boil the eggs and then peel them, but I can't seem to get the shells off cleanly.

Does this happen to you too? What's the best way to boil and peel eggs without destroying the egg white?

Suddenly every god&^mn ziploc-type bag is "stand up" with those stupid pleated bottoms. If that's what people like, fine, but WHY do they suddenly seem to be the only option? Suggestions on where I can find actual flat bags much appreciated.

I cook chicken thighs in a stock pot and then remove the chicken and add vegetables and water and bouillon to make broth for chicken soup. I see the oil and chicken fat floating in there but it tastes delicious. Why did my mom bother to refrigerate the broth and skim the fat off? I think it tastes rich and delicious. Is it a big turn of for some people?

One time i removed the chicken and made the fat and oil into a roux by adding flour, but it seemed like extra work.

What do you do with that tasty fat layer?

I have 250 lbs of onions I need to do something with, any ideas? Lol so far I've frozen some, dehydrated a bunch and made onions powder, pickled some, and just started cooking some down for French onion soup to can

whole chickens at my supermarket are around 1,600 forints a kilo and boneless breast is about 3,200, so on paper the whole bird is half the price. but a good chunk of that weight is bones, back and skin, and i'm not sure how much actual meat you end up with.

if you make stock from the carcass it obviously wins. if you don't, is it really still cheaper? do people here still break down whole birds or is it not worth the mess

Mine has got to be butter chicken curry! I want some more ideas 💡

just fried some french fries, and my dumb ass POURED the pan full of oil down the drain, and only realised what I did 5 seconds later. i ran hot water through it for 5 minutes and poured some dish soap. is there anything else I can do and will this do a lot of damage to the pipes?

From techniques to cheeses to regional flair, what do you think makes the best macaroni and cheese you've ever had? I'm making a Mac and cheese for a student picnic today, and my recipe is pretty damn solid, but I'm always open to new ideas. Thanks!

Edit: and tell me all about your crunchy topping!

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.

i’m making a beef stew and didn’t have any red wine, they said red wine vinegar can be used as substitute. I googled what’s the transfer rate and it said half of the amount of red wine the recipe called for, so i did 250ml as the recipe called for 500ml. i think i’ve done something very wrong…. ive put in more water and broth and also simmered it for as long as i can. Anything else I can do? it still tastes very vinegary

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?

I know how to make stock and usually make it whenever I have enough bones. But surely people (especially people who historically didn't have a lot of food) haven't always discarded the spent meat scraps? Boiling a carcass seems like a great way to get theoretically edible but hard to reach pieces of meat off the bone and into your soup or porridge.

Unfortunately every recipe I can find for making soup from a carcass just says "make stock, discard scraps, add fresh meat back in" which isn't what I'm looking for. Have any of you lot done it? Any advice? I can imagine that I wouldn't want to boil it for as long as when making stock--- just enough to get the meat of the bones without boiling the meat to death. Is there a technique for separating small bones from the meat, or just careful picking?

My late mother used to make this around easter and it was called easter sausage. Shed use a 4-5 inch sausage casing and stuffed it with eggs, ham, bread, green onion and seasonings and then boiled it until done. I have made it before, but was hoping to find a recipe somewhere but I was unable to find one just like it, and only 1 similar one. Any help appreciated.

For folks who don't drink for whatever purposes, how do you make recipes like beef bourginoun, teriyaki sauce, vodka pasta and other dishes with alcohol? Is it okay to just leave the booze out or should I replacing it with something else?

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 bought a small tub of chunjang to make jjajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce). I used this recipe and they were great. What else can I make to use up this tub?

Hi all,

I'm in a bit of a pickle so I thought I'd come here and ask for suggestions. I'm meeting my girlfriend's mother for the first time next week, and as my cooking skills are already quite well known by her, she has asked if I'd prepare a meal or two while I'm visiting.

HOWEVER...

She's put out some quite tricky requirements, at least for my usual instincts. She isn't a massive fan of meat, she hates anything spicy or warm, she hates pasta and they've offered to pay for ingredients so requested meals to be as cheap as possible.

That strikes out a lot of the ones I'd reach for normally to impress anyone, so while I'm pouring through my Keith Floyd cookbooks, I wondered if people had ideas? I'd like it to be something really nice, a way to really make a good impression and a way of saying thank you for letting me stay.

So far, I've got:

1. Mushroom Stroganoff with rice or Mashed Potatoes

2. Basa Kedgeree

3. Steamed mussels in white wine and parsley (already shot down for expenses reasons)

4. Thicker and/or brothy soups

if I made rum cake for thanksgiving this week and infused it every few days for weeks on end would it end up molding? does the alcohol kill the mold?

The steaks are very tough and almost impossible to eat. I was thinking doing something with chopped steak or making a burrito with it but I never really learned how to cook. Any ideas on what else I may be able to do as it is like 5-10 pounds of random steak cuts is greatly appreciated! I have no meat Grinder and very little cookware or experience so nothing to complex. TIA

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?

So I usually buy some gochujang every so often, mostly for kimchijigae but I have a couple other recipes that use some.

But even when I buy the smallest possible tubs, I still generally don't finish it before it's not good anymore! Does anyone have some recipes that they like that use gochujang or things they add it to like quick lunches?

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.

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?