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Can’t Cook; Willing To Give It A Go

January 19th, 2010

It’s true, I cannot cook. For a lot of my time living alone I’ve survived on microwaveable ready-meals, pizzas and take-away food. When home I enjoy Chris’ occasionally experimental (”A wee bit of chilli powder… ach it’ll be grand”) cooking. However, a few months ago I drastically cut down on all the crap, with the very occasional pizza, extremely rare ready-meal, and I can’t remember when I last had a take-away.

fry
Yeah, a fry doesn’t prove much – I haven’t taken many photos of the food I’ve cooked

In saying that – my cooking skills are extremely limited. Really limited.
Pasta or rice.
Pasta or rice.
Rice with chicken breasts and sauce. Tikka masala. Balti. Rogan Josh. Jalfrezi.
Pasta with mince and sauce. Dolmio sauce. Jamie Oliver sauce. Loyd Grossman sauce.

Oh, and a fry for brunch.

It doesn’t get much better than this unfortunately. But I do want to improve.

Lots of people talk about dieting in terms of losing weight – anyone who knows me knows that, if anything I need to put on weight.

food
This is really nice… but a little boring.

I may have started this at the right time, as Donal Skehan starts Twinnerparty – a dinner party with meal and recipe provided by Donal, next Saturday (I’m available!). Here’s the menu. I’ve been reading his blog lately – and will be getting his book soon.

Elly and George have recently started a blog “for the novice cook”, Not Junk Food – seems perfect for me! I may have to start a folder in the RSS reader labelled “Food Blogs” soon. There are a few others I already follow, and I haven’t even started on FoodFight.ie!

I need a little direction and assistance. I’d love some meal tips and suggestions!

Tagged cooking personal | 7 Comments

7 Comments

Thanks for the link love Phil.

If you like Pizza take a look at today’s recipe http://notjunkfood.net/2010/01/19/recipe-pizza-base/

Make ‘em, freeze em, use ‘em. You can dress the base in less time than it’ll take your oven to heat and 10 minutes later you’ve got your own Pizza. Plus they’re a great way to use up bits and pieces you have in the fridge which, lets face it, is important these days :)

Posted by George on 19 Jan 2010 at 2:25 pm Reply to this comment

A really easy and yummy pie my mum used to make me on cold winter days is Leek and Potato Pie.

It has 4 ingredients…

Potatoes
Leeks
Bacon
Cheese (grated)

Peel the potatoes and boil them in hot water for a out 30 minutes (or until soft – the amount will depend on your dish size)
Mash them in any way you like, I like to add a large bit of butter and mash mash mash

Steam the leeks for 10 mins ish (or until as soft/hard as you want them to be)

Cook the bacon and cut into small pieces.

Layer them in an oven dish type casserole dish, obviously the potato goes on top, but the order of the leeks and bacon doesn’t matter!

Spread the grated cheese on top and bake in the oven for about 15 mins, or until the cheese is melted. You can make it in the morning and keep it in the fridge for later or freeze it, but if you’re cooking from chilled it needs to stay in for about 30-45 mins, or untill its piping hot the whole way through. Easy Peasy.

Posted by Sarah on 19 Jan 2010 at 3:44 pm Reply to this comment

@George – The site’s off to a great start! I’ll definitely try the pizza bases soon!

@Sarah Thanks Sarah, that does seem pretty easy. Will gather some ingredients!

Posted by Phil O'Kane on 19 Jan 2010 at 3:56 pm Reply to this comment

What about the new website from Food Standards Agency http://survivorcomp.food.gov.uk/

Posted by JEREMY on 19 Jan 2010 at 4:44 pm Reply to this comment

Good for you Phil! I would recommend the BBC Good Food website – it’s really helped me to improve my cooking skills over the last year. It’s at http://www.bbcgoodfood.com and there are thousands of recipes on it, ranging from super easy to a little tricky.

Also, Jamie Oliver’s website is great – http://www.jamieoliver.com I have a few of his Jame At Home book at my home, which I really love, but you should try his recipes first on-line to see if his style suits you.

I have a few links to other international and Irish blogs on my food blog, so have a look through some of those. Loads of good stuff there!

Keep us posted with your experiments in cooking – as well as any advice you have on taking photos of food, most of the time I find it really difficult!

Posted by aoife mc on 19 Jan 2010 at 9:54 pm Reply to this comment

@aoife mc – Thanks for the links Aoife, though I haven’t checked any of the links on your blog, yours is one of the few foodie blogs I subscribe to, however suspect I will be adding to that list soon! Maybe some day I will even host my own dinner parties :)

Posted by Phil O'Kane on 19 Jan 2010 at 10:07 pm Reply to this comment