Nobody here but us servantless American cooks...
(P.S. Don't forget to "Like" this thread if you're into it!)

If you’re currently having a feeling of déjà vu, well, you probably guessed it. I nicked the title off the Julie & Julia project..

Why? Because I wanted to start a thread about food. I love food, and I’m pretty sure most of us delight in being able to treat ourselves to a good meal every once in a while that doesn’t look like everyday crap. Or if that’s your preference, then great! This thread is for sharing recipes, websites, stories from the kitchen, photographs, and food we like in general.

I’ll admit, I’m not a very good cook. I’m absolutely terrified of cooking, especially the frying pan. And here’s my first story!

When I was eight years old, I was sleeping over at my relatives’ house. One cousin was taking a cooking class at the time, and she experimented on us. A lot. That weekend, we had macaroni & cheese, though I have no idea what kind of cheese she used, but I remember the taste had been very bland and aforementioned cousin said she should’ve used Velveeta instead. So bland macaroni happened to be our dinner.

For breakfast the next day, I think she was trying to cook Spam or eggs. The eggs were most likely it. Well, this is what happened to the frying pan: She set the burner on, and of course the pan got too hot when she added oil to it. The stove area was instantly flambéed but thankfully nothing was burned. The reason I’m freaking out about this is that my seat at the dining area was directly in front of the stove, so my back was facing it. I could see the reflection of the blaze on the wall in front of me and it was so orange. We were all freaking out (us cousins were just teens and tweens at the time) and the cousin that was cooking turned off the stove, set the frying pan on the floor while it was still burning and dumped a cup of water on it. I can’t remember whether the fire went out right away, but eventually it did and I saw the charred remnants of a failed breakfast then.

So instead we ended up having Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup as a safety, but I’ve hated going near frying pans since then. And I’m nearly 21.

Actually, a lot of my food experiences have been in that house, but those are other stories saved for later.

Who wants to share?

Recipes we'd like to share

Carbomb Cupcakes - by Smitten Kitchen, recommended by For-Chan Cookie (dude, make me some for my 21st!)
Bechamel sauce - as prepared by Iron Chef Mario Batali, recommended by For-Chan Cookie
Filipino Chicken Adobo - as prepared by Corinne Domingo on the Food Network forums, found by For-Chan Cookie after recommended by Marguerite Blakeney to try this stuff. BTW it's really good, especially with rice!

Stories of our adventures in the kitchen

Out of the frying pan and into the fire! - Marguerite's fear of the frying pan
Shrooms. Are they good or bad? - Marguerite's experiences with the fungi/vegetable (she still doesn't know what it officially is).

Photos of dishes we like

Carbomb Cake - by For-Chan Cookie; original recipe from SmittenKitchen.com
A variety of stuff - by our dear administrator, Insomniac: General's tofu; Mushroom, bellpepper and garlic curry; Chicken parmigiana & sauce, Chana Masala, Fatty Potato
Another variety of stuff - by the head wallflower, For-Chan Cookie: Lasagna, Menewsha-themed desserts, and onigiri
Crepes - by For-Chan Cookie
Chicken Soup - by For-Chan Cookie
Raspberry & Chocolate-drizzled Cheesecake - by zazabar

Websites of amazing help

Smitten Kitchen - Fearless cooking from a tiny kitchen in New York City.
The Julie/Julia Project - The original blog that inspired the movie.
Food Network - What better resource for cooking than THIS?!
AllRecipes.com - I've been using this site as a guide since I was 13.

Form for submitting things

[FONT="Arial"][size=6][color=#770000]I've got a [pick: Recipe, Photo, Website, Story, etc] I'd like to share![/size][/color][/FONT]

[b]What it is:[/b] (What do you call it?)

[b]What it looks like:[/b] (Insert photo here)

[b]Where'd you get the recipe/What is the recipe:[/b] (How you came across this thing)[/b]

This will totally help me a LOT when you guys share stuff in here.

Reserved

And we are open for business!

*smushes a slice of alcoholic cake onto the thread in celebration of it's opening*

I will share the recipe for this ridiculously rich and alcoholic chocolate cake with everybody because it is super yummy!



Chocolate Whiskey and Beer cupcakes aka Carbomb Cupcakes!

It may sound like a very manly sort of cake, but you would be very wrong. It's super rich and chocolaty with a kick. Everyone needs to try this cake!

Yaaaaay, just in time for my 21st in 23 days!

Cooking thread? Oh my! Here are some of my more recent pics of things I've cooked.

Generals tofu


Mushroom, bellpepper and garlic curry


Making chicken parmigiana with sauce made from scratch


Chana masala


Fatty potato

Daaang Inso, why do they look so good?!

I'm being out-food porned by Inso! *digs up more pictures*

Delicious Lasagna!


Delicious Menewsha themed cupcakes!


Menewsha Cookie


Onigiri flower! :D


Don't forget Foodnetwork.com/. It's a great resource. I got the recipe for the Bechamel Sauce that went on top of my lasagna there. :D

You got it, Cookie! <3

BTW where's that adobo recipe that you found that doesn't have salt on top of salt on top of salt on top of salt like the one I found?

---------------

Things about mushrooms...

I used to hate mushrooms when I was a kid. Why? Because I considered them a vegetable, and as a kid, well, vegetables seem to be icky, don't they?

My first time I ate a mushroom was in the previous story when I was staying with some relatives for a weekend. We had Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup for breakfast, and I didn't want to eat any mushrooms. However, everyone kept pointing out to me that the mushy brown bits that were in my soup had gone in my mouth, and those were mushroom bits I was eating! So then I figured they were edible there.

And the time my other relatives stayed at my house and we ordered some Pizza Hut. Normally I preferred pepperoni or cheese pizza at the time, and when they ordered pizza with mushroom, they made me try it. Mind you I still thought mushrooms were icky, even after the ordeal with the soup (they were at least tolerable). And then I found out that I rather liked the taste of them. Very, very much.

Any mushroom recipes, as long as they aren't spicy, I'll totally take!

I believe it was this one: Filipino Chicken Adobo :drool:

Yay, thank you dear!

P.S. We totally had chicken adobo cooked today and there's still leftovers downstairs. Good with rice.

I'm pretty sure more than five hours have passed since my last post.

Anyway, I went to a local European-style bakery because I've been itching to have a Napoleon pastry all week! I bought a slice of baklava with it (though it was rather dry so I'm not too fond of theirs, I'd rather go to Daphne's or a local Greek cafe for a good slice of it) and I don't have pics because I already ate the damn pastries.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Here's a photo of my crepe making assembly line. I have a very old Sunbeam M'sieur Crepe Crepemaker. You dip the pan into the batter as opposed to putting the batter in the pan and then put it on the burner to make a very nice crepe.

I've been trying out all sorts of crepe recipes from Julia Child to Alton Brown. And while Julia Child's recipe is a classic, I don't care for the alcohol in it so I lean more towards Julie's variation without it that you can find here.

They're the same crepes that I used in the Feast of Fools Food Contest. :D

LOL Sunbeam's superrrr old. They're not even in existence anymore since apparently their products had some problematic things. But that looks really cool though.

*blinks* What? They are too. They have an up to date website and make oodles of products like toasters and irons and fans. M'Sieur Crepe on the other hand is something of an antique.

Really? Hm I thought an article said it was out of business. Or maybe something else is.

It must have been something else. Sunbeam is a really big company.

Thiiiiiis is why I was wondering where it went.

Sunbeam Products - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah. I didn't know they'd gone bankrupt. But depending on the type of bankruptcy, they don't always close completely.

And not everybody loses everything in a bankruptcy ^_^ I should know.