Men who can cook.

[jamespowers]

My lovely wife likes when I cook [last night was homemade chicken and rice soup] as I do clean up after myself in the kitchen. Her comment was something to the effect now if she get me housebroken and able to color inside the lines..........

If I cook, the price of admission is washing the dishes.

 

[Shangas]

Not exactly cooking, but recently, I...

Made some pasta (yeah, anyone can do that).

...and I baked...

Sticky Date Pudding.

Shortbread biscuits.

Despite my past success, for some reason, my shortbread today turned out very lacking. For reasons unknown to me, I couldn't get the mixture to stick together properly, so I couldn't get the cookies to mold properly and hold their shape. So in the end I just clumped everything together and broke off little balls and lumps and chucked them in the oven.

The end result was delicious. Crumbly, sweet, warm, slightly buttery.

But they look like something the dog excreted onto the carpet, and nothing like neat little shortbread cookies.

I think I need to knead the dough more thoroughly next time.

the recipe, if anyone wants to try it, is:

150g Plain Flour.
100g Butter (room-temperature, or slightly, slightly melted).
50g Sugar.

Yes, everything's very nicely ratioed in this recipe.

For a little added flavour, you can also add 1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract.

Tip everything into a bowl and mix thoroughly until you have a sort of dry, buttery dough. Squeeze and knead the butter and the dry ingredients until everything is really well kneaded. You should have a sort of dry, squidgy dough which you can form into shapes.

Clingwrap.

Refrigerate for 20 minutes, then remove.

Press the dough into cookie-moulds. Knock or wriggle them out onto a baking tray with baking-paper on it. If you've kneaded the dough properly, when you do this bit, you should end up with nice little cookies. I didn't, because I screwed up the bit above.

Bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees C.

The cookies will go hard and slightly crunchy/crumbly in the oven (like all good shortbread should). When they're done, let them cool and then enjoy them.

I'm too ashamed to show you what my current batch looked like, but as they say in the cooking industry, here's some we made earlier:

This is a photo of a batch of cookies that I made last year, following that same recipe. those little shortbread 'bricks' are about 2 inches long, by 1-inch wide, by 1-inch high.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

If I cook, the price of admission is washing the dishes.

If I cook, the price of admission is a trip to the emergency room.

 

[jamespowers]

If I cook, the price of admission is a trip to the emergency room.

:rofl: Yeah, unfortunately, I cannot use that excuse.

 

[olive bleu]

Proud to say that I come home from work each night to a home cooked meal by my hubby. Believe me, I know how blessed i am and do not take it for granted. he has always been the stay-at-home parent and my sons have always preferred his cooking. He has also taught them to cook, and one at least is planning on becoming a chef.

 

[Yeps]

I was talking to my older brother, and we were talking about plans after graduation (he is finishing his doctorate, me my bachelors), and he commented that if we ended up in the same city we could live together, and if I cooked, he would buy all the groceries. I am pretty sure he was mostly joking, but I would love to have that arrangement somewhere.

 

[steve the hat guy]

Well i do all the cooking at our house. My wife is a great cook, but we dived up the responsibilities of the house and i love to cook and am a bit more inventive than she is so i decided that i would do the cooking and cleaning after the meals and cleaning the kitchen ( that includes the oven, microwave and the rest of the appliances) and she does the laundry and the dusting of the house and our son does the floors and the bathrooms( except the master one , that my wife also does) . I HATE LAUNDRY!!!!!!!! so for me i think it is a great deal. My wife seems to think she got the fuzzy end of the deal, but i tell her if you take into consideration the time of prep and cooking as compared to the things she is doing, that i have more actual time spent, though it is little consolation when i am sitting reading and she is doing laundry.

 

[jamespowers]

Well i do all the cooking at our house. My wife is a great cook, but we dived up the responsibilities of the house and i love to cook and am a bit more inventive than she is so i decided that i would do the cooking and cleaning after the meals and cleaning the kitchen ( that includes the oven, microwave and the rest of the appliances) and she does the laundry and the dusting of the house and our son does the floors and the bathrooms( except the master one , that my wife also does) . I HATE LAUNDRY!!!!!!!! so for me i think it is a great deal. My wife seems to think she got the fuzzy end of the deal, but i tell her if you take into consideration the time of prep and cooking as compared to the things she is doing, that i have more actual time spent, though it is little consolation when i am sitting reading and she is doing laundry.

I would have taken the Laundry if it were me.

 

[1961MJS]

I would have taken the Laundry if it were me.

James, you're just not doing it correctly. Laundry day is TV Day. Put on the laundry, put on the TV, watch Sports (or movies, whatever), mix a drink (repeat as necessary). When the laundry is finished, iron it (if necessary), mix another drink. Continue until the laundry is done, the movies are done, and the drinks are done. Two out of three ain't bad....

With respect to cooking: 1. Only learn to cook things you like to eat; 2. if you're asked to learn to cook something you don't like, screw it up.

Later

 

[jamespowers]

James, you're just not doing it correctly. Laundry day is TV Day. Put on the laundry, put on the TV, watch Sports (or movies, whatever), mix a drink (repeat as necessary). When the laundry is finished, iron it (if necessary), mix another drink. Continue until the laundry is done, the movies are done, and the drinks are done. Two out of three ain't bad....

With respect to cooking: 1. Only learn to cook things you like to eat; 2. if you're asked to learn to cook something you don't like, screw it up.

Later

Oh, believe me, that is what I meant. That is why I would choose the laundry over cooking.

I only know how to cook things I like to eat already. However, you can also get out of laundry by shrinking a few things that are expensive.

 

[m_luvsartdeco]

Oh, believe me, that is what I meant. That is why I would choose the laundry over cooking.

I only know how to cook things I like to eat already. However, you can also get out of laundry by shrinking a few things that are expensive.

I think my husband knows that trick...he shrunk a sweater once...never again!

 

[jamespowers]

I think my husband knows that trick...he shrunk a sweater once...never again!

See? It works.

 

[Old Mariner]

Having been single all my life thus far...cooking, cleaning, groceries...all that sort of thing that would, for some, be considered the woman's area of focus - has always been mine. I have always been a neat freak to begin with, so taking care of me is easy for me to do.

I have decent cooking skills - but the problem that I have is, trying to cook for one on top of my wonky appetite (thanks to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). There's days when I will eat a lot, days when I will eat "normal", and days when I don't eat much at all. So, combine that with trying to do a meal for one, and sometimes lunch really is just a box of mac and cheese. It's not that I don't like cooking, but portioning things out for a "one person wonky appetite" can be frustrating. I am a good cook and love rich food, but...

At least with the pandemic situation, it's allowing me to refine my diet more so. Making things simplified - not getting hard to find stuff, things that require few ingredients, etc.

So far...so good.

 

[scotrace]

The cookbooks at my house now number more than 150, and I have published nearly 400 weekly newspaper columns on food, cooking, and foodie culture.

And you know what? I made a brioche last night that is a disastrous crumbly mess.

 

[jkingrph]

The cookbooks at my house now number more than 150, and I have published nearly 400 weekly newspaper columns on food, cooking, and foodie culture.

And you know what? I made a brioche last night that is a disastrous crumbly mess.

My wife has a bunch of cookbooks, which I rarely use. Since retiring, and her having had some rather drastic surgeries, I started helping a lot. Today since it has been turning cooler made a couple of pots of soup, no cookbooks used. One was a chicken, rutabaga, onion, carrot with green salsa, the other a simple beef vegetable. We had the first for lunch, will have some of the other tonight with some biscuits. I don't cook that many different things, but the wife seems to enjoy what I do cook, as does my son when he comes to visit.

 

[belfastboy]

Both my wife and I love to cook and over the 45 years of our marriage have developed our niche, our specialties. I make out a week's worth of menus on Wed and we shop for the week on Thursdays so we don't have to run around during the rest of the week picking up things.....we did this before Covid and now it fits even better. The the one thing my wife appreciates the most....food wise is me making out the week's menu. She gets stuck in "what to cook" so with me making the menus and asking for her ideas it takes pressure off her. I just ask...."on Friday will you make pizza?....or some such. I probably do more of the cooking but we don't keep score....but she is the baker of breads, cookies and breakfast items so comes close to being even.

 

[Tiki Tom]

When we were first living together, my now wife and I were pretty poor. Going out would break the bank. So we got into a habit of spending Saturday night cooking together. We would buy a cooking magazine and spend a month trying out nearly every recipe in its pages. Put on some music, cook and chat... then light some candles, open a bottle of wine and eat a feast. Nearly 40 years later, this is still our idea of a great evening. Usually we have enough leftovers from the weekend to get us through the coming workweek.

Regarding clean up. Yes, clean as you go. Normally my wife puts away the leftovers and I do the pots. After all these years, we are in sync and can whip up an extraordinary meal and clean it all up with hardly thinking about it.

 

[de Stokesay]

When we were first living together, my now wife and I were pretty poor. Going out would break the bank. So we got into a habit of spending Saturday night cooking together. We would buy a cooking magazine and spend a month trying out nearly every recipe in its pages. Put on some music, cook and chat... then light some candles, open a bottle of wine and eat a feast. Nearly 40 years later, this is still our idea of a great evening. Usually we have enough leftovers from the weekend to get us through the coming workweek.

Regarding clean up. Yes, clean as you go. Normally my wife puts away the leftovers and I do the pots. After all these years, we are in sync and can whip up an extraordinary meal and clean it all up with hardly thinking about it.

That’s a great idea Tiki Tom! I do something similar when I get a new cooking magazine, but it was never a conscious thought, I just boutht magazines with lots of recipes that appealed to me.

 

[belfastboy]

When we were first living together, my now wife and I were pretty poor. Going out would break the bank. So we got into a habit of spending Saturday night cooking together. We would buy a cooking magazine and spend a month trying out nearly every recipe in its pages. Put on some music, cook and chat... then light some candles, open a bottle of wine and eat a feast. Nearly 40 years later, this is still our idea of a great evening. Usually we have enough leftovers from the weekend to get us through the coming workweek.

Regarding clean up. Yes, clean as you go. Normally my wife puts away the leftovers and I do the pots. After all these years, we are in sync and can whip up an extraordinary meal and clean it all up with hardly thinking about it.

Yes, my wife (45 years together) both love to cook. We have mastered most cuisines so go out very seldom except for sushi which we refuse to learn so we have at least one cuisine to dine out on. We work fairly well together in the kitchen....depending on the dish, one of us takes the lead and the other steps in as sous chef. I do more main courses, my wife is more the baker of breads and desserts.

 

[Tiki Tom]

depending on the dish, one of us takes the lead and the other steps in as sous chef.

We have a name for the sous chef role, “Craig”. As in “Okay, I’ll be Craig today.” Not sure when we started saying that, but it stuck. Craig was the name of the sous chef on the old “Frugal Gourmet“ cooking show back in the 80s or 90s. I think the show ended when Craig sued the main host for sexual harassment.