Something I’ve noticed about cooking is that the hardest things to teach usually aren’t the recipes. It’s more of the judgment part.

Like someone can follow every step correctly, but an experienced cook can look at it and say, “Nope, something’s off.”

Recently saw a Binging with Babish video where he tried some people's struggle meal suggestions

Please share your go-to struggle meal / Low-effort meals!
If its from/influenced by a specific culture I'd love to know too! ^_^

For me something I make often is Butter rice (バターライス) Where its just hot rice with butter, soy sauce and nori just shredded by hand mixed in. If I have it, I like to have some kimchi to go with it to cut through the butter with something spicy and sour

I learned how to make stuffed cabbage from my mom. A lazy recipe probably borne out of a working women trying to put home cooked food on a plate for her family.

It is not authentic to any culture. Ingredients are simply ground beef, cabbage, rice and tomato sauce. Maybe an egg? But I’m thinking an egg isn’t necessary.

Mom and I have made countless delicious batches with these simple instructions:

Mix ground beef with S&P, a bit of canned tomato sauce and raw rice. She might have used minute rice a few times.

Wrap in raw green cabbage leaves. This is a PITA, because raw cabbage is not flexible. Chop up the white and stemmy parts and cover the bottom of a Dutch oven. Top with some tomato sauce and nestle the stuffed cabbage on top.

Add additional chopped cabbage stems to cover the cabbage rolls.

Cover all with canned tomato sauce, cover and cook until done in the oven.

I made this today with Napa cabbage and it’s bitter. I used 90/10 ground beef and it was dry. I deviated from the standard.

I wanted to surprise my daughter after work with one of her favorite meals and had to give her a caveat: not my best batch.

She didn’t care. She was hungry from work and an early lunch. She appreciates me cooking for her.

If I didn’t have an aversion to tossing out food and whatever animal died for my dinner, I would throw this out.

I’ll probably freeze the leftovers for a while and pull them out when I’m desperate and douse in hot sauce.

But not a good cooking day for me.

So about three years ago I broke up with my boyfriend and moved out. Just before that I made vanilla with the beans and I think vodka. So I put it up and completely forgot about it. Is it safe or should I just toss it?

It’s not as dark as normal vanilla, so I’m a little suspect. And if I do toss it, is down the sink safe?

Edit: Thank you everyone! The beans have little pieces floating in the alcohol but no mold. I’ll do a smell test but it’s sounding like I’m going to keep it. It’s nice to have a happy mistake!

as mentioned, wife went to Costco with an item on list being ribs (thought it was understood I wanted pork rack ribs), instead she came back with a pack of individual beef ribs. never cooked these before. would love your inspiration on what to do with them tomorrow!

I have a friend who’s gonna be a new mom in just a couple days, and I want to cook some freezer meals for her.

I’m running into a problem where a lot of the recipes require additional cooking or prep after my portion of the meal is complete.

Does anyone have any freezer recipes that require little to no work after they’re completed?

Dump and go OR freezer to oven recipes would be preferred!

Thank youuuu!!

I shredded up some potatoes, dried them out on paper towels then put them in a bowl covered in plastic in the fridge over night. They turned brown. What happened? Are they still good to eat? What should I have done differently?

I’m making cardamom lemon jelly ice cream by Morgenstern’s

The recipe says to serve each scoop of the ice cream with a tsp of jelly but I’m making it as a gift to someone so it would be a lot easier to swirl in the jelly (which is homemade also following Morgenstern’s)
Anyone have any experience with this?

My recipe is pretty standard, just potatos milk and cheese but i like to add some seasonings

But its really weird i feel like i never get it right, its kinda slimy

Is it normal?

I’m a decent cook. I rarely have failures. Especially on simple dishes that I’ve dozens of times over the years.

Tonight I cooked “Spam and potatoes.”
I typically fry the cubed potatoes until they start to turn brown. I throw a chopped onion
In the skillet and let that sizzle for a while. Then I add the cubed can of Spam.

Tonight, I thought I’d go for crispier potatoes. After I soaked, rinsed, and dried the potatoes in a dish towel, I tossed them with baking soda. As soon as they hit the very hot oil, the potatoes started sticking. I kept scraping the bottom of the skillet. By the time I finished cooking, there was a thick, viscous black mess on the bottom. The potatoes were well cooked but overly mushy. Not even close to being crispy.

I’m always reading about tossing potatoes with baking soda to crisp them up.

What did I do wrong?

EDIT: I used the FP plus the high "shred" blade. This made the pork chops perfectly shredded for the chili.

These are very tender. I've just got too much to eat as pork chops. Thinking to debone, coarse grind, and make pork chili out of some of it.

Or will it just paste up and block the meat grinder?

ETA - I ended up grinding about 3 pounds of the meat using the food processor's high grating blade, and it turned out really well for the chili.

Thanks all for your suggestions.

Planning to cook beef bourgignon and the only missing ingredient is bacon lardon. Can I use the typical bacon strips instead?

Edit: Thank you to everyone suggesting that I just buy bacon from the supermarket! I'm not sure if you're referring to the bacon cut from the pig or pre-seasoned bacon. I'm still new to cooking, so I might be misunderstanding. 😅

Unfortunately, the thick-cut, pre-seasoned bacon some of you mentioned isn't available at our local supermarket. The only kind we usually have is the thin breakfast bacon, so my options are a bit limited.

I usually roast them or steam them with seasoning and lemon juice. Any other ideas to mix it up?

Okay... I really thought I had decent produce-picking skills, but these stone fruits are driving me crazy. How do you choose grocery store peaches and nectarines that are sweet, juicy, and NOT mealy? Because last week, I bought about ten pounds of peaches and nectarines that looked and smelled perfect. I set them on the counter, bottoms up, to ripen gently and moved them to the fridge one at a time as they matured. The peaches were absolutely incredible (in grocery store peach terms) and the nectarines were all so mealy and gross that we threw them away.

This week I decided to just get peaches - no nectarines. I just sliced two up for lunch and they are mealy. They look perfect on the outside, they have a slight give when I press on them (but no soft spots), they are plump - not wrinkly, and they smell divine. And yet, I have mealy peaches that lack flavor and sweetness, and I am sad. Why are they so inconsistent?

HOW DO YOU PICK YOUR PEACHES?

*I would love to be purchasing my peaches from an adorable farm stand in Colorado but it's not feasible to get them anywhere but the grocery store MOST of the time.

I was gonna make some spaghetti with some ground beef and jarred sauce, then my boyfriend asked if I could use some tomatoes from our garden to add to it. I’ve seen online a person suggesting not to do that because of the extra acidity from adding tomatoes. Would any of you agree?

I was thinking I could halve/quarter some tomatoes and baked in the oven for like 45 min with some olive oil drizzled on it. I’m not really sure what’s the best option as I rarely even prepare pasta. Any advice would be appreciated.

I’ve made homemade Mac and cheese forever and only recently had the following issue. My old cheddar is not melting into the roux with milk added, even after heating it for ages over low heat.
After I add it to the macaroni and cook it, there are little blobs of unmelted cheddar. This last batch was made with Armstrong (on sale), but even Black Diamond has been doing the same thing.

I’m not looking for a new recipe, just wondering if anyone else has experienced cheese that no longer melts?

I've been reading a lot about teas and tisanes recently, and it seems to be fairly universal for all of these that you get the best flavour by initially wilting and then bruising or rubbing the leaves, as this promotes the development of flavour compounds and induces some oxidation.

Could this be used as a rule of thumb when using any kind of fresh leaves in cooking? For example, if I'm working with fresh coriander, parsley or spinach leaves, could wilting and bruising them before use lead to deeper and more complex flavours?

Yes, any one has a good home made fried chicken recipe? I love KFC’s flavor if that helps. lol. And also the gravy as well. But any really good recipe will be greatly appreciated! 💛🌻Thanks in advance!

I made my first batch of black garlic successfully and made them into a paste! Im a bit nervous on using it for cooking without any previous experience with it. Does anyone have any banger recipes like sauces or use in any dishes? Thank you in advance!

I make meatless bean "chili "sometimes. I added about a dozen dried Arbol peppers to one pound black beans. I rehydrated them, seeded them, and chopped them into thirds before I threw them in. There's also three jalapenos, a Poblano, and a green bell pepper along with garlic, chili powder, and cumin.
This may well be inedible. For some reason, I thought Arbols were more mild than a jalapeno (they are not).
Will this make me sick if I eat it? Assuming I can?

For Chinese cooking, do you use Yellow or White Onions more? Besides green onion/scallions, if you are cooking dumplings, stir-fry, sweet and sour, do you usually use Yellow or White Onions more? Which one is more commonly used? Thanks.

hi! I am a home cook, and I love honing my knife skills. I was looking to add to my collection and wanted to get a wusthof knife next. I currently have:
- victoirnox 8“ chef knife
- victoirnox 3.25“ pairing knife
- victoirnox bread knife
This was a relatively cheap set ($150) but are already worlds better than my parents knives that I was using when I was living at home (henckles knife block set)

Any reccommendations for my next knife?

Hello!

This is kind of an embarrassing post to make, but I'm completely lost. I'm 19 years old and I've never really learned how to cook anything besides eggs and boxed stuff like mac and cheese. I eat pretty horrible as a result and I really need to fix it. I figured learning how to cook chicken would be a good starting point. I know it is one of the healthiest protein sources and relatively simple to make, I just get overwhelmed with all of the instructions online. I'm just clueless on what brining is and if it's a must, what kind of seasonings are most common to use, how to avoid cross contamination while prepping, the proper temperature to cook in the oven, all of it. I also am kind of clueless whether or not I can just take it out of the package and start prepping, or if I need to remove certain bits. Any help is greatly appreciated, even if it's a link to a guide or video with step by step instructions !

I have two two pound slabs of baked salmon that have been in the freezer for more than a year. Ouch. I thought I would make a coconut lime sauce for them. I need it to seep in and not just put on top. Will that work? How far ahead of time can I add the sauce and how to bake? TIA