Kitchen

[granddi]

me too.......

Meat: overcook it because I do not like rare beef. I tried to roast vegetables and they were like mush. I made a chocolate sheet cake this week and it was all dried out.

For Christmas I sent my daughter's family some Cheryl's Cookies. Her MIL came with a home made beautiful apple pie.

I just have to keep it simple.

[summerlust]

I'm so bored with cooking, hubby is a meat and potatoes guy so its always the same things over and over. I on the other hand will try lots of new things just for a new experience but I guess we adjusted to each other just fine, January was our 48th anniversary.

[sfnative]

On 2/13/2015 gulf coast girl said:

That's good advice Brii, I'll work on that, one thing at a time. Yes I have people to feed chickenbutt but around here my husband does most of the cooking cause he has better hours for it. Me, not so much. I do try though but mostly I think I stink at it. He's a good cook but he doesn't do many desserts. I'm just glad I wasn't taking that cake to an event or something. I di order a cook book from the other night from that ITKWD show, it's from America's Test Kitchen, I hope it helps me. I'm lost if it doesn't.

Good luck with your new cookbook!

Should you decide at some point to try a dessert that might be in the book, a bit of advice: follow the recipe directions to a "T," as baking is much like chemistry, wherein all ingredients should be measured and used as directed.

Don't forget to come back here if you get stuck and need assistance.

Happy cooking and baking!

[Rus Girl]

I developed severe food allergies at the age of 38. I cannot eat out really at all. There are maybe 2 restaurants that I trust. So I have to cook every meal pretty much from scratch. I work 50+h/week and have a family and animals. I make the time to do it. I am not that great of a cook, but I am getting better all the time. I practice with recipes, ingredients, and seasoning. Some are misses- and that is OK.

I am probably the only person I know who eats more than the "recommended" number of veggies every day.

[CalminHeart]

I hate cooking too. And I never bake anymore. I actually cook on Sundays and that's it for the week.

I fix eggs (mostly egg whites and a yolk for color) and turkey sausage for 5 work mornings and package them in little containers. I microwave them at work.

I fix one large entree on Sunday. It may be to crock pot some chicken and then use it various ways during the week for dinner. Or it might be a soup or small roast or something. That's it. I add a little salad or a veggie and that's all I do.

If I'm taking sandwiches for lunch at work that week, I even prepare them ahead and put them in the frig. I'm weird about soggy bread so 2 slices go in each of 5 baggies. The insides go in another 5 baggies.

I also buy cottage cheese and split it into 5 small containers to take to work for lunch along with yogurt or raw veggies.

Sometimes I'll make a batch of homemade soup and package it into 5 containers for the week.

Bottom line, I cook on Sunday and that's it for the week.

[Daysdee]

I love cooking and miss not cooking for a family. Love to bake too, but health restrictions prevent me from baking unless I'm having company or baking items to donate.

[Mominohio]

You sound like you want to enjoy it and try to do better, and if that is the case, I have a couple of suggestions.

First, if you have eaten something someone else has made and love it, get the recipe. I'm NOT one for cookbooks. Most things in many of them aren't appealing, and the recipes are oftentimes not very well tested. You might like cooking better, if you knew exactly how you want something to taste, because you ate it at (work, mom's, a family reunion), liked it, and know exactly how it should look and taste.

Second, start simple. Find something you like, that is really simple, make it, and if it fails the first time, go to someone who has made the exact same thing (like the person you got the recipe from) and get them to help you figure out where you went wrong.

If you have been eating in restaurants and buying prepared foods, know that much of what is 'homemade' doesn't taste like those things. They are using flavor additives MSG, and cooking processes that you either shouldn't to be healthy or won't at home.

IF all else fails, start with things like a simple boxed cake, follow directions and get the finished product to come out right. Move from that to things more homemade. Sometimes you have to make the same dish, many times, tweeking it a little. Learn by reading, and try to figure out what makes something good, and get a "feel" for doing something, like making a pie crust or a good sugar cookie dough. Some things like this require getting a 'fee' for it, and many lack luster results to get there.

[Toppers]

If it's any consolation to you gulfcoastgirl, I have been cooking and baking for a very long time, and there have been many times that I have made a recipe or a meal where it has turned out to be a "dud," and where I have either thrown out the cake, or parts of a dinner, because it has turned out to be a disaster.

Sometimes a cake will turn out to be too dry, or a roast will turn out to be too dry, or we will make a roast or casserole, and the combination of ingredients sounds good at the time, but once put together and cooked, just doesn't taste very appealing. Things happen.

Sometimes it isn't even what you do, yourself, but like someone else mentioned, the test kitchen itself doesn't test the recipe that well, but somehow the recipe ends up passing, and by the time we make it ourselves, it doesn't taste too good.

Also, sometimes our ingredients can be off, or even our oven itself can be off, where the thermostat is a bit too high, after time.

Perhaps the butter sat out too long for our batch of cookies, for example, and they became too flat when we baked them. Things like that can happen, too--all different kinds of variables.

So, take heart. I would keep encouraging you not to give up. Personally, I would stick to some easy recipes. There are even some out there where you can cook with even just five ingredients, if you want to try those.

As I have mentioned before in other posts, I go all over the place to get some of my recipes, and here are some of the places that I like to go. It is free to sign up at these websites, if you are interested in checking them out: BettyCrocker, Pillsbury, CampbellsKitchen, Kraft Foods, all recipes (that is the actual name of the website).

[candys mine]

I'm sorry your cake came out bad. It is so disheartening to put the time and effort into something and have the result be not good. I consider myself a passable baker but I can't put a whole meal on the table all at once to save my life. I would really suggest you get a cook book and start from scratch. That way you can control the whole process. Maybe the cake mix was the problem. You don't have jump right in to wedding cakes. Muffins and quick breads and brownies give good results with little prep work. Once you understand the ""kitchen chemistry"" you may come to enjoy baking. I hope you continue to try.

[lucylover64]

gulf coast girl--we could be twins! I, too, hate cooking/baking. There, I said it, too! I do not enjoy anything about it. Period. As chickenbutt suggested, I do set myself up for failure since I don't even try. The thought of it makes me grumpy. LOL! Interestingly, I LOVE watching ITKWD: I am almost mesmerized by it. And as chickenbutt also commented, baking and cooking do not need to be difficult, which is possibly why I am fascinated with ITKWD because everyone makes it look and sound so easy. Sigh....life really is too short to do something that causes so much "trauma."