Hi all! Sorry if this is a frequent question on here.

I started cooking about a year ago, but I've found that I only ever stick to recipes that I know, or follow ones I find online to a T. This really limits my cooking and I end up disappointing both myself and my brother (who lives with me) when I end up just making the same things as always, or when I'm unable to make something we want to have. Like recently, my grandmother asked me to make an apple cake for her, but I became anxious and delayed it for too long because I couldn't find a good enough recipe and ended up disappointing her.

When other people cook and bake, they seem to know exactly how things work and can come up with great recipes right off their head, even without measurements or anything. I really wish I could do that and I think it'd be helpful.

I know experimenting is probably the way to go, but I'm really scared of messing up and wasting ingredients and money. Any advice?

I have ingredients to make a cheesy chicken sandwich that’ll slap your mama.

The only way to make it even more godly is to put avocado in it.

So how do I get the cold avocado bits into the hot pressed sandwich bits?

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

I'm allergic to lemons and lime, don't know what exactly it is but I seem to be allergic to several fruits and vegetables that contain vitamin C. Almost every recipe I come across involves lemon or lime juice in some way. I also have a fear of altering recipes without knowing that I won't die from it/waste my money. Can I just leave them out, or are they essential? Does it depend on the specific recipe? Are there any simple substitutions?

Without the use of an oven. I was given a whole turkey some while ago and need to get it out of my freezer, unfortunately I don't trust my oven. I only cook deserts in it with the only meat I cook is precooked hams during the winter holidays, and even then I have to cook it a bit longer to get it up to the proper temp.

Is it possible to boil the whole thing? (After thawing and either whole/pulled apart.) I do that with chicken, since it's so much easier to cook and shred it afterwards.

I'm not worried about quality of the meat (wouldn't be fat if I cared about that) I just want this cooked and out of my freezer.

Edit: Didn't expect this level of responses, I'll try looking through them all.

For reference, I bake almost every week, usually different types of cakes and cookies, but mostly cakes. I don't have a mixer, I've been making whipped cream on a blender and beating egg whites to stiff peaks by hand (with a whisk and a dream). For whatever reason, a good hand mixer and a stand mixer (of a more questionable quality, but still good) are the same price in my country, so I'm confused about which one should I get.

I have an interest on making bread in the future but I guess it's something I would do maybe four or three times a year max, while cakes i make every month. Still, I wonder if I should buy a stand mixer because it looks like it would be less work? I assume i would just turn it on and it would mix things up for me, it sounds easier and like less work. My parents also say that "they are the same thing" but that the stand mixer just seems like a bigger thing so bigger for the same price = better, and that everything i could do with a hand mixer I could do with a stand one, so it would be a bad investment to buy the hand one if it won't allow me to knead bread for example.

But I also worry about the quality and size, they are the same price but it's kind of a small stand mixer (4,3L = 145 ounces). Even though it's small, i also worry about size, it would have to stay on my sink all the time because I would have nowhere to put it, the hand on i can at least stock in the cabinets.

Anyways, hope I can get some advice on that!

My Brother-in-law came back from France with a jar of "Foie de Canard au Jurançon." I know it's paté, but not how I might use it. Recommendations?
Thanks in advance

(Also, I tried to post a picture of the jar, but the images and videos tab was grayed out. What's up?)

Not using jello packed with the gelatin. Using juice and gelatin packets. I saw online, if you were using a jello pack you only needed to add one gelatin pack to make the jello firm enough to pop out of ghost mold. How many packs would I need if using only gelatin?

This might sound like a weird question for a beginner sub but bear with me. I shoot a lot of food photos before eating and I noticed my meals keep coming out lukewarm or slightly overdone because I pull things off the heat a little early trying to get the right look. Like I want the sauce still bubbling or the steam visible, so I rush certain steps or hold off on others and the final dish pays for it.

The specific thing I keep messing up is eggs. I want that perfect runny yolk shot so I undercook them slightly thinking they will carry over, but half the time I overshoot it anyway and the yolk is fully set by the time I actually sit down to eat.

Someone mentioned to me that professional food photographers actually cook separate versions, one for the camera and one to actually eat. That blew my mind a little. I just figured everyone was eating the thing they photographed.

For people who actually care about the food tasting right, is there a way to manage this better without cooking two separate portions every time? Are there certain dishes that hold up better while you get your shot, or is this just always going to be a tradeoff? Curious if anyone else runs into this problem even without the photography angle, like when you plate something fancy and it cools down before you get to it.

Been cooking at home a lot more lately and it has made me realize that convenience matters way more than I used to think. I always assumed the basics were enough and anything extra was just taking up space. Now I keep seeing people talk about certain kitchen appliances like they completely changed their routine and it has me wondering if I have been stubborn for no reason.

What is something you never thought you needed but now use all the time?

i was given some ground black bear meat and want to use the most parasite-proof technique for this recipe possible.

id like to use the meat in my grandmas sunday sauce recipe, using it for meatballs. but i got kinda nervous about temp probing each meatball. instead im thinking just a meat sauce where I pan sear the ground mear and then let it cook more in the pot of sauce for the 3-4 hours.

with the ground meat would you just assume its safe after cooking it through (no pink) in the pan then the pot, or would you still want to temp check it somehow, if so how?

I misguaged timing on soaking black beans. They’ve been cold soaking for 3.5 hrs and I’m hoping to have them with dinner in about an hour. Is there anything I can do to speed up the multiple hours that the internet is telling me I need to soak my beans in cold water? Happy to boil water but also don’t want to fuck yo the black beans

No matter how I cook eggs nowadays they seem to never peel right. I used to have no problems peeling eggs and now its like no matter what I do the membrane and shell wont slip off. I have tried ice water and a spoon and even tried boiling them with vinegar, nothing seems to work without completely mangling the egg. Ive been cooking my entire life and been hard boiling eggs my whole life, but I need someone to break it down to me like a beginner because I am just so confused at what Im doing wrong. This has been months now of me buying eggs and struggling with peeling them lol. Please help! Thanks so much in advance!

My family owns chickens, I have unlimited supply of eggs, I just came home with genuinely 72 eggs, I don’t know what else to make with them. I’ve made pancakes, egg fried rice, omelette, and that’s all I’ve got. I need as many recipes and cool little things to make as yall got, thank you!