• robocall@lemmy.world
    2·
    52 minutes ago

    All the restaurants buy shitty Sysco food anyways. The only thing a restaurant has to offer that I don’t have at home is a deep fryer.

  • Impractical_Island@lemmy.world
    23·
    2 hours ago

    Why does dog have thumb. This breaks the realism for me. Cannot suspend disbelief, like, ok, I get that it’s a dog, but if dog has nose snout then it smell and it cook good. But then thumb, and I don’t know what to think of this. Big bowl of oatmeal in a frying pan? I mean, I don’t understand Basquiat, either, so it better to just wise how that it goes the way it can best be, yea?

  • Aniki@feddit.org
    2·
    3 hours ago

    i would love to cook more if there was anybody actually eating the food. i’m not cooking for myself, i eat 3 bites and am full.

  • Smaile@lemmy.ca
    7·
    6 hours ago

    to be fair, it looks like you’ve pan fried oat meal, not sure what your expecting

  • Digit@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    91·
    9 hours ago

    Coming out of atrophy hurts. The longer atrophying, the more it hurts, the harder it is, the longer it takes. So get out of atrophy as soon as possible. Gently. Now. Gotta start from somewhere, sometime, and that somewhere is right here, and that sometime is right now. Yeah, you’ll likely be sub-par, but that’s the karma of losing it from not using it. Mendwards! What’s cooking next today?

  • iegod@lemmy.zip
    4·
    8 hours ago

    Living in Toronto I can’t relate to most of these comments. I’ve been cooking since I was a teen, I consider myself pretty good. Wife loves my stuff, as do friends/fam.

    But the restaurant game here is so good I can’t possibly rival it, and the variety is absurd.

  • Ichiro_kun@lemmy.world
    22·
    13 hours ago

    Ngl, for me, it’s the opposite. Cooking at home is actually better since you can try different recipes, mix some things up, and come up with something way more delicious.

        • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.mlEnglish
          41·
          6 hours ago

          I wouldn’t be caught dead using AI for recipes. That said, I will sit down and compare a few different recipes for something, and pick and choose what I think would be best, and experiment.

          Once you have enough culinary knowledge, you can experiment more freely instead of being a slave to a recipe

    • Lantsu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      6·
      13 hours ago

      This here. My stepfather was a chef so I got used to very good food and he was kind enough to teach me the basics. I wouldn’t call myself a good cook, but I can do maths and I can make way better food for so, so much cheaper than eating in a restaurant.

        • Kogasa@programming.dev
          2·
          8 hours ago

          Not who you asked, but I want to shill for spaghetti aglio e olio for a sec.

          It has 3 ingredients. Pasta, olive oil, garlic. Fancy stuff will taste better, but the cheapest will taste fine. I use pre-minced garlic out of a tub when I’m really down bad and it’s still excellent. Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, maybe parmesan cheese if you have it, and sometimes I’ll throw in some frozen peas. It comes together in about 2 minutes longer than it takes to boil the pasta and can be really quite good.

          • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
            1·
            8 hours ago

            I do this but with olive oil, garlic and dried tomatoes :) Tried it in some restaurant one time. Dead simple and really tasty.

            Another dead simple pasta: mozzarella and cherry tomatoes. Just let the mozzarella melt with cooked pasta, add tomatoes. Presto.

            Carbonara is also not much harder.

            • Tja@programming.dev
              1·
              2 hours ago

              Carbonara is hard as fuck.

              For one real carbonara needs some pretty exotic ingredients (guanciale and pecorino). On top of that it’s relatively easy to scramble the egg yolks if you aren’t super careful. Or make it super salty if you use too much guanciale / cheese.

              I cook every day for the last 20 years and still my success ratio with carbonara is like 80%.

              Aglio olio is impossible to screw up unless you dump a cup of salt on it or something ridiculous.

              • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
                1·
                2 hours ago

                My local ALDI has guanciale from time to time and when it doesn’t I just use bacon. I would say guanciale takes it from 8/10 to 9/10. There’s difference but bacon does the job. Same with parmesan. I’m sure pecorino would be better but you can still make correct carbonara with the things you can easily find in most stores (at least in Spain).

                I don’t have issues with scrambling eggs. I add a bit of pasta water (as you should) and heat it up slowly. I don’t remember the last time I fucked it up. And I ate carbonara made but different people and I like mine to most :)

                It’s definitely not a “throw ingredients into a pot” recipe but it’s still fairly quick and easy.

        • Lantsu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1·
          12 hours ago

          I’m bad at recipes, I usually just throw some stuff in and add some spices, more if needed after tasting. This is fast in terms of cooking time, but takes some chopping. For two people, this makes 2-3 dinners or 2 dinners and 1 set of leftover oven breads. (Put the leftover sauve over bread slices, add some cheese, throw into oven until they look delish.)

          Recent favorite; pasta with tomato sauce (Bolognese-type)

          • 1 onion (whatever color, I like red)
          • 2-3 carrots (more if tiny, less if huge)
          • 2-6 garlic cloves (more if tiny, less if huge)
          • about 15-20 cm of celery stalk (the green thing, not the yellow block growing underground)
          • 2-3 tablespoons of tomato puree
          • 2,5 dl of soy TVP (or about 300-400 grams of minced meat)
          • 1 boullion cube (veggie, meat, chicken, idc)
          • (1-2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast flakes)
          • 2 cans of diced tomatoes (á 400 g, so about 800 g)
          • 1 can on lentils (whatever color, I like red and also a can being~390 g)
          • (2-3 frozen spinach cubes because is healthy)
          • splash of soy sauce
          • bigger splash of mild vinegar (whatever color, I use what I happen to have)
          • 1 tablespoon of sugar
          • all them herbs and pepper (oregano, basil, marjoram, black pepper, etc.)

          Instructions:

          1. Dice onion, put into big pan or pot with a plenty of oil. You might need to add more oil later on.
          2. Dice all the other veggies and add them in once the onions brown a bit. Spinach too, if you’re feeling strong.
          3. Add in the tomato puree. Let it all heat up.
          4. Add in the TVP (or if meat, maybe cook meat in another pan so it can brown too?) Add the boullion cube and mix it all well. Now is time for the nutritional yeast flakes too.
          5. Rinse the lentils properly and add them in. Same for diced tomatoes and add some water into the cans and then the water to the pan/bot aswell. (About half a can of water per can.)
          6. Splash the soy and the mild vinegar, then add the sugar, herbs and peppers. Taste, add more if needed. Possibly might need some salt too, don’t know how much salt anyone likes.
          7. Boil some pasta (choose whatever shape you like or happen to have at hand) and taste the sauce again before eating.
          8. If you let the sauce simmer longer it’ll be better but sometimes you just gotta eat.

          My grammar might suck, I can barely do understandable recipes in my own language. I won’t take offense in further questions.

          • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
            2·
            11 hours ago

            It’s all clear, thanks :)

            I get the “throw some stuff in” style. I do the same for lentils or beans. Just throw everything into pressure cooker (do sofrito first, of course), you can do the quantities by eye with a bit of experience. Get super tasty results every time.

            For tomato based pasta I just use tomato sauce they sell here. It just tomatoes and olive oil, tastes amazing. Add some black olives, onions, garlic, capers and you’re done :)

            • Lantsu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              2·
              11 hours ago

              I think the store tomato sauce is perfectly fine, especially since it saves time. I do it from scratch, or from scratch-er really, just to save few more cents hah. I should learn to use olives and capers… Maybe for the next one! Pressure cooker would be handy too, but I already have a blender and an airfryer and there is only so much closet space, you know?

              Thanks also! :)

    • Gormadt@slrpnk.netOP
      4·
      14 hours ago

      I’m the same way with my cooking though I do have somethings I’m rocking at (comfort food in particular lol)

      My favorite is when I bring a “boring” dish to a potluck and it gets cleared out in quick order.

      I’ll never forget my nephew when he was 5 saying how he hates sweet potatoes, and when he tried mine (after some coaxing) he became a fan. Nowadays (oh god it’s been almost 7 years!) he’s more specific and willing to try new foods even if they’re normally ones he doesn’t like, if they’re prepared by someone else that is.

    • BlackRoseAmongThorns@slrpnk.net
      3·
      13 hours ago

      Yeah a good spicy soup does not take that much effort, and i live in a one room apartment (😭) and my kitchen has exactly one stove top (also 😭).

      Also south asian spices is a must.

    • Decq@lemmy.world
      54·
      13 hours ago

      Sounds more like the restaurants in your area are dog shit. I’m not a bad cook or a good cook. The few recipes I make are usually good. But it sure as hell isn’t better than 90% of the restaurants out there… More like maybe 10-15%.

      • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
        4·
        13 hours ago

        I don’t have stats on all the restaurants in my are but restaurants in Spain are usually pretty good. I like my food better than all the cheap and fast options and all the medium level options which I estimate are 90% of the places. You can easily find higher level places with really good food and they can have things that are better than my cooking. I know what I like and I make food the way I like it. Restaurant food has to be really good to beat that.

  • Kaligalis@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 hours ago

    It’s totally fine to just use industrial premade stuff and keep the creative part to adding the spice of your choice to it.
    Just remember that you need quite a list of essential vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids - and a surprising amounts of protein for the body to function properly. So if you really like instant ramen a lot, you might need to supplement what’s missing.

  • Murse@slrpnk.net
    36·
    20 hours ago

    If you like to eat tasty food, you should learn to cook tasty food. There -is- a learning curve if you’re going in completely blind, but you’ll pick it up way quicker than you’d expect.

    Absolutely a skill worth developing!

    • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      16 hours ago

      I remember making a broccoli and cheese casserole. It was simple enough but I done gone and fucked it up.

      The broccoli was chopped proper, the cheese was dense (more of a brick/ball than a sauce when I tossed it in the oven) and then I saw a cup of milk in my mise en place still sitting there. no wonder the cheese was… Bricklike?

      I was very new to cooking. So I just opened up the oven in a panic and splashed the milk on top of the casserole. It was bad. The broccoli almost cooked, the milk heated up and evaporated a little, and there was this sense clump of cheese and exerting what goes in roux but milk.

      It was poverty days, but I had to throw it out it was so bad. I made a bowl of cereal (dry, since the last of my milk was now broccoli) and went to bed. It’s important to know when you’re beaten.

      Anyways, if there is a food you like a lot, it’s worth learning to cook. I almost have my gyro recipe finished (the secret ingredient is bacon)

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
      11·
      19 hours ago

      Start with soup. Soup is easy to get good at, and teaches you techniques that are critical for other dishes.

      Then do sauces (which are just soups in a top-hat), inc making a roux.

      With classical cooking techniquesyou turn boring steamed veg and grilled chicken into grilled veg and steamed chicken with a mushroom sauce.

    • Gormadt@slrpnk.netOP
      2·
      17 hours ago

      It really is and has been over the years

      I’ve been cooking good food for a long long time, I mostly shared this because one of my friends is quite early in his journey of learning to cook lol