Share Your Culinary Successes!

[Writer Cath]

Cath's Rainbow Cake

Part one: Who's helping? Apparently no one.

Part two: Cake's all done.

Part three: You can't complain if you didn't help. Stop looking unimpressed.

Part four: Sexy batter shot.

Part Five: La Piece de Resistance!



So come on, share your culinary prowess!

[Amina516]

Very cute!

[DesignFox]

oooh that looks awesome AND tasty!

I don't have a picture, but I was all proud of myself for baking cookies from scratch yesterday.

It's my SO's birthday today and I wanted to add a surprise to his gift. (Got us hockey tickets for tonight, but since he helped decide what game we were going to, it wasn't much of a suprise). This will be the first time I've actually baked for him, and it's only the second time I've done cookies from scratch and not mix.

mmmm chocolate chip cookies. They came out soft and delicious.

I'd love to learn to do a cake from scratch.

[ArcticChicken]

I'd love to learn to do a cake from scratch.

A basic white or chocolate cake isn't that much harder than cookies. The only thing you need to know is how to follow a recipe.


Speaking of culinary success, I made a devil's food cake last night. I was worried because I usually don't have that much success in getting the layers out of their pans without breaking them, but I managed this time. I think the trick is to leave the house for several hours after the cakes come out of the oven, so I'm not tempted to try too soon. I was also really nervous about slicing the layers in half, but that turned out fine, too.

The thing I think I messed up on was putting enough icing between the layers, but I compensated by putting the rest on top. It then proceeded to goo everywhere.

Based on the picture on the website where I got the recipe, they expect the icing to be a bit cooler when you put it on the cake. I don't know why, the directions seem to indicate pour the hot syrup into the meringue, beating constantly, the put the icing on the cake. Maybe it would have been a lot cooler if I hadn't had the egg whites at room temperature? But they whip so much better that way.

Anyway, my cake looks like a giant white fudge covered Oreo. Haven't had a chance to try it, because it's a birthday cake, and it's generally considered rude to eat the birthday cake without the birthday girl.

I think it's going to be fantastic.

[DesignFox]

A basic white or chocolate cake isn't that much harder than cookies. The only thing you need to know is how to follow a recipe.

So there's hope for me, yet!

Anyway, my cake looks like a giant white fudge covered Oreo.

*drool* That sounds sooooooooooo good.

[iradney]

I made pork sausage pie

Haven't made it again coz it's a mission, but so yummy! Made the pastry and gravy from scratch, but not the sausages - I'm not THAT talented

[AccountingDrone]

Well, my company laid off 10% of the population [all the way up to the vice presidential level ] so I have been making bread and actually taking over more of the cooking - as long as it is something I don't have to be standing on my poor CPPDy feets.

I managed to score a very nice austrian sourdough starter culture, and have been working on a good bread recipe that still comes out after baking cheaper than storebought bread. Based on unbleached all purpose flour, powdered whole milk, an egg from our chickens, a touch of sea salt. Comes out quite nice, though not as sour as a good san francisco sourdough. Works quite well with my soups. So far this week I have done a nice french onion, a good chicken and garlic and today is a fresno style split pea soup to use up a ham bone remaining from a christmas ham that was tucked in the freezer to flavor a legume based soup whenever we got the urge to make one.

Not that we actually have to do depression era frugal, but it is nice knowing that we can do it.

[Rapscallion]

I used to make some awesome sausage. Seriously.

I even did one that was made from chicken leg meat trimmed right down and defatted pork leg meat - expensive, but lab tests showed a mere half percent fat content. Hard to cook, though, since there wasn't much fat in them at all. Stuck to pretty much any surface

Rapscallion

[Nurian]

When I was to meet my future wife's parents, I was freaking out about what to do for dinner (they were coming over to our place). Without asking her, I started making My Lasagna (tm). It was baking when she came home. I told her what I was making and she got a deer-in-a-headlight look:

Wife: My father makes a very good lasagna. He's very proud of it.
Me: ....Aw crap

So not even trying to and I wind up competing with him. His wolf grin didn't help matters when he saw what I made. When he tried it though...it completely died. He started eating a little more quickly, taking some time between bites to tell me how good it was. Needless to say, I started breathing again.

My wife says I won her father over that night.

[LibraryLady]

My story is more about quantity than quality although we received many nice comments on our food.

There's an old New York Tradition of the New Year's Day Open House. The tradition goes back to the 18th Century. It is made known in the community that the "Library-Lady Home' will be open to visitors from 11 AM to 8 PM on New Year's Day. Ladies of the house will refresh visitors with food and drink. The men of the house will be out paying the family's respects to neighbors and friends.

In the early years of our marriage we weren't all that young but we were foolish enough to think it was a good idea. We staged an old style New Year's Day Open House and did it for several years. Here's what that entailed.

11 AM to 2PM : Breakfast and Brunch [/B]

Pitchers of orange, apple and tomato juice.

A tray of bagels with cream cheese, capers, and red onions at the ready.

A tray of assorted breakfast pastries and breads with jams and jellies.

A tray of fruit. Melons, apples, oranges and preserved fruit are well represented.

A home-made quiche or two with mustard and salad available on the side. It's on a hot plate to keep it warm.

From 2 PM to 5 PM

Platters of meat, cheeses and assorted breads for sandwiches.

Potato, Pasta, cucumber and vegetable salads, all home-made.

Pickles, olives and all the condiments you could want.

5 PM to 8 PM

The bar opens We serve wine and beer. If someone wants it, we'll make them a Bloody Mary.

The hot plate from Brunch have been cleaned and we're ready to serve Dinner.

For the carnivores we have home-made chili. For the Vegetarians we have baked penne in a home-made tomato sauce. For everyone we have good, fresh salad.

My Husband and I are not very interested in desserts. By 7 PM we'd already had 8 solid hours of guests with no help. My Husband ran out to the corner store to get more ice cream. The desserts we served were gifts of cookies, pie and cake from our guests.

The first time we did the Brooklyn Open House we got about 40 people we knew well and liked. The second time they brought their friends who were still nice. We had about 70 people to feed. We could still handle that,

The third time we did this party, people were bringing in friends of friends. We had about 120 people in and out the house throughout the day. That was getting to be a bit too much.

To encourage conversation, we put out interesting things on the end tables. Many of them were Russian boxes I bought in the 1970s. Some of them disappeared into the pockets or purses that belonged to friends of friends of friends. After the party, I checked what I had. Out of a total of 20 Russian boxes I had, I'd lost about 7 during this party.

After we assessed the cost of the stolen boxes ( probably about 1,200 USD.) We decided that we wouldn't do this Open House Party again.







aanother

[Kiwi]

Part four: Sexy batter shot.

okay please tell me Im not the only person to read that as

sex batter

lord my mind is in the gutter tonight!

[Writer Cath]

okay please tell me Im not the only person to read that as

sex batter

lord my mind is in the gutter tonight!

If only I could figure out a way to market that; we could make millions!

[Lace Neil Singer]

Maybe not a culinary success, but I wowed my boyf with my pasta bolognaise soon after we first met... and it must have worked cuz we're still together nine years on.

[Dreamstalker]

I made shepherd's pie with lamb and Canary Island spices; the corn got replaced with roast sweet potato and cut-up roasted baby brussel sprouts (wash and dry sprouts and toss lightly with olive oil, salt and pepper or other spices to taste, spread on tray in oven at 300 until the outer leaves are browned/slightly charred).

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to surprise mom and make an artichoke pie from a firehouse cookbook I forgot I had. That or a fish-something, not sure yet.

[Boggles]

I tend not to do fancy dishes but am good at regular dishes for however many want them.

When we were just starting at uni, after about a fortnight the novelty was wearing off and people were starting jonesing for a proper sunday roast dinner.

In our flat of 12 i was the only one who felt confident enough to do a roast so i offered to cook if the others bought the ingredients. They agreed and i did roast lamb with all the trimmings for the 12 of us followed by Jam roly poly pudding and custard.

The following week I was asked if i could do it again but half a dozen from the next flat wanted to know how much they would have to pay for a plate ful. We worked it out at about £3 each and i did a roast for about 20.

Fast forward to the last weekend of the academic year. We had 3 kitchens on out floor giving a total of 6 big ovens, 6 small ovens and 24 hob rings. I was using most of them and served up Roast rib of beef, roast turkey, roast pork and roast lamb. Served with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatos, mashed potatoes, mashed swede, mixed peas and sweetcorn, chanteray carrots and onion gravy. Followed by steamed treacle pudding and custard. We plated up over 100 servings and i turned a £75 profit on the day!!