/kitchen/ - tasty morsels & delights

Veggies are cool. It will sound banal, but I love potatoes most. Filling, neutral, cheap and with at least one hundred billion trillions of recipes. Out of this many my favourite is baked potatoes, though there is a little secret - boiling them before baking and turning oven fan in last 10 minutes. Turns out very soft, juicy and with delicious roasted look.
Beside that, I like onion+carrot fried on drop of oil and stewed. Along with spices and a dash of dill it makes a great additive to other veg dishes (mix with mashed potatoes!) or any poultry (stewed chicken) or meat. I also recommend salting it good to balance out sweet carrot flavour. It is easy on stomach too!
I tried to abstain from meat in December. I see the appeal on positive effects on health and I hope to try a short period again soon. Sadly I cannot abstain from meat entirely or for long because of family cooking.
Speaking of comfy, I think soups are where comfy at - nothing like a bowl of hot soup spreading it's spicy aroma all across your place as you return from a walk in cold weather; it warms both body and spirit. Cooking is trivial. Just pick vegs you love, cut, boil and add spices* and that's it. Can consume with noodles, rice, toasts or as is. What do you think, sushi rolls?

* - laurus, dill, garlic, parsley and pepper are obligatory

When I make chicken noodles at home, I like to use sweet red and green peppers, cooking onions and mushrooms (soft cap simple ones). What else could I try?
I used to like to add beansprouts but the problem is that they go off so soon I can't really have them at home? Is there a way to make them last longer?

>>233
I have to agree, a good soup is maximum comfy, and I like the sound of onion and carrot.
I sometimes fry up some onion and sliced mushrooms with a bit of parsley as a quick addon to other dishes, I think it goes particularly well with creamy pasta dishes.
I've never tried boiling a potato before baking, do you boil them with the skin on?

>>234
I usually throw some chopped cabbage in with my noodles, but that's mostly because it's cheap, I don't think it adds much flavour.
As for the sprouts, have you tried freezing them? I didn't know you could until recently, the trick is to boil them for a couple of minutes then freeze them straight away, otherwise they come out soggy and brown.

I absolutely love veggie fajitas (OP's picture?) too. I used to make them with chicken, but over time I started using less chicken and more veg until eventually I just left the chicken out entirely.
Peppers, Onion, Mushrooms, garlic and a bit of spice all fried together so the flavours mix. Cooks in 20 minutes, dump it in a wrap with your favourite toppings and you're done.

Sometimes I eat raw cabbage as a snack. Its actually pretty nice.

>>236
Onions and mushrooms is great addon. Adding a bit of cream makes it a great sauce for rice and pasta.

> I've never tried boiling a potato before baking, do you boil them with the skin on?
Sometimes yes - it depends on potatoes. If they are "young" (fresh local harvest) I boil, bake and eat with skin, for other cases I prefer to peel them.
Before baking you can crash them slightly or cut in quarters, whichever you prefer.

I think I'll try fajitas soon. What spices do you recommend?

>>241
I usually use about a level teaspoon of chilli powder, 3/4 of cumin and half of paprika and salt. Swapping the paprika and chilli for cayenne pepper comes out pretty similar too.
I usually cook the peppers and onions for for about 3 minutes before putting the rest in, but make sure you mix everything up well when you put the spices in, I find they stick to the pan really easily at first.

>>240
I've never really tried raw cabbage might give it a go, although I have seen loads of recipes for spiced or picked cabbage that I'd like to try

>>240
I'm not sure if it was me, who wrote this, but just in case I meant salad. Raw cabbage sounds not like the highlight of a day.

My favorite vegetable is probably garlic. Maybe that is why nobody wants to spend time with me.

I make rice and put soy sauce on it when im hungry （´・ω・｀）

>>241
when you say baked potatoes do you mean things that look like this

>>337
or like this?

>>338
This second pic looks almost exactly how it turns out. I also turn on the fan in the oven during the last 10-15 minutes to get that delicious golden crust.

>>339
for future reference those are usually known as roast potatoes
I agree though, parboiling them helps keep the insides soft and the outsides crispy

For those interessed in growing their own and live in the northen hemisphere; i don't ;_;.

Spinach is such a nice leaf

im a vegetarian ! there's lots of delicious meals i like to make that don't use meat, like stir fry and curry especially. tofu works well if you need the protein ! if money is tight, i recommend chili or pasta. you can get pasta noodles and premade sauce for dirt cheap, and chili uses mostly cheap canned food but still tastes delicious ! bonus tip, add some macaroni to ur chili to vastly increase the amount of food for super cheap :)

>>336
For a step up try rice and lao gan ma chili crisp (buy it at your local asian grocery).

>>232
Recently I've been cooking a lot of eggplant. I like the long, Japanese/Chinese ones a lot better than the globe eggplants I get in usual supermarkets. There's this spicy eggplant dish I had once in China, I'm trying to make it at home.

Are all vegetables fine to eat raw? Most of the time I fry them because it tastes better but I wonder if I should stop. From what I've read it seems like it's worse for your health

Whats the best way cook cabbage? Sometimes I'll pick one up but I never know what to di with it. I could just be cooking it wrong but it aleays comes out tasting too raw. Also, how are rutabagas? I see them at the store and they look cheap but I've never cooked one. From cooking online, they tend to be cooked mashed or fried. Are they like a potato then?

>>623
in general the more you cook a vegetable the more nutrients get destroyed. During world war 2 the british government had a lot of propaganda to try and get people to stop boiling the shit out of their vegetables. Raw is not always better (raw brocoli tastes like shit for example) but most won't harm you. If you want to cook them try baking them for a short time instead of frying, or if you really need to fry, use a healthy oil like olive oil and only fry it a short time so it's still crunchy. They taste better that way anyway. Remember to season your veg so it's not flavourless.

>>623
most vegetables are fine raw, except for stuff like potatoes that'll fuck up your digestive tract. Brassicas can apparently fuck up your thyroid if you eat them raw, but you have to literally have them at every meal.

They're one of those stereotypically gross foods but I actually really love brussel sprouts. Especially roasted with other veggies, nuts, or bacon. As someone who doesn't really like veggies, they just taste heartier than other vegetables

I've been eating a lot more cabbage lately, I like the texture and how it can absorb the flavours of whatever you add it to, similar to how broccoli (another vegetable I like) absorbs flavours.

>>628
Cabbages can be good boiled with e.g. pork meatballs if you make them by hand. Very cheap and if you drop tofu and some ginger in there too you basically have an entire meal for dirt cheap. You can also stirfry them either straight with oyster sauce, with chili peppers, or with rice vinegar because you can stirfry pretty much any leafy vegetable with that formula.

Cabbage goes good in soups/stews too

>>673
Looked up a video recipe of that soup and it unlocked some distant memory of mine. I swear I had something like that when I was a kid. I'm going to try that out, thanks for the tips.

>>675
It's a pretty basic friendly lady Sinosphere peasant soup so yeah. Remember that nothing in the soup 'goes bad' if you overcook it so don't worry too much on timing as long as you don't leave it in there for like an hour. If you want tips on the meatballs I can give you some too.

Made more cabbage stew today lads, fuck I love cabbage.

>>677
if u love cabbage so much why dont you marry it

What's your favourite vegetable?
Potato has so many different forms that I gotta give it it's due. Plus whacking one in the oven for an hour is the easiest meal on the planet.

What are your favourite veg recipes?
Spinach, sweet potato and red lentil dhal is good, though it's a bit of a mission to make.

>>677
Never had cabbage in my life. A awful food upbringing has left me without the knowledge of using any leafy greens. Cabbages seem too big to do anything with without throwing most away.

>What's your favourite vegetable?
Parsnips is the first to come to mind.
They have a very distinct yet subtle taste, along with a soft comforting way of breaking apart when cooked in stews, which makes for a nice texture contrast to other root veggies.

>>883
Cabbage is way rougher than something like a head of lettuce, even if you've cut out a piece it lasts at least several days just left out at the counter (YMMV depending on your ambient temps).
Can also turn leftovers into sauerkraut, just add salt, some heavy handling, and time. Haven't tried myself yet but looked through a couple of instruction vids, seems simple enough.
>629
It's good to keep in mind though, even if some nutrients may be destroyed by the heat in many cases absorption is still higher or equivalent cooked because the food is easier to digest.
>623
If you want a healthier alternative there's always steaming.
Better than boiling since water soluble vitamins don't leach out into the cooking water (not relevant if soup since you eat the broth anyway), better than frying cause no created carcinogens and no need for any cooking grease.

I tried to roast some swede (rutabaga) but it came out kinda nasty and bubbly. Anyone know how to do this without fucking it up?

>>884
Parsnips are so good. I like to cut them into discs and put black pepper on them.

I eat a lot of frozen veggies - I read that they are still as valuable as fresh and in some specific cases even better.
I love cauliflower and brussel sprouts and brocolli and spinach, as a supplementary to my meat. Also beans, onions, cabbage but those make my stummy hurt. Maybe not the healthiest way, but my favorite way to make them is just a stir-fry.