Kari Kamiya tries cooking - Woman vs. kitchen - House might burn down.

[Kari Kamiya]

So I have a couple of cookbooks I bought while engaged because I wanted to get into cooking but my brothers wouldn't be my taste-testers, so I procrastinated at being in the kitchen. I figured having a husband would make that journey go better because he needs to be fed and a good wife does that. Unfortunately he's a picky eater as well, but he still promised he'd try my cooking whenever I make something, and I was insisting. Once I got him to flip through my cookbooks, he picked out a recipe that I probably shouldn't have started for a while because why would you allow a novice to do this:

Oh yeah, forgot to mention I have weeb cookbooks. So this is me starting this journey on being more of a weeb by making recipes from these two cookbooks:

with more to come, perhaps. Despite the Pokémon cookbook being nothing but vegetarian/vegan ingredients, no, I'm not a health nut like Yuuko Kamiya is in the Digimon dub (weeb joke), I just feel a need to do this. It's my wifely duty.

(Meanwhile my co-worker, who's a certified cook, has said she's never made bagels on her own before. Lovely, my only source of good tips hasn't even touched bagels.)

So anyhoo, I could only work on this recipe when I had a couple of days off, so luckily I did this week and started it yesterday after we got ingredients at the store, though we didn't quite know what to look for. Black cocoa powder? Have Hershey's "special dark" cocoa powder. Vanilla bean, seedless? Lol this paste here comes with seeds! And I can't filter them out.

Now we already had some ingredients in food storage like wheat gluten and yeast, but Mom pulled out the "dough rise" stuff and gave me yeast from the fridge that had been there for who-knows how long, and also said to not worry about bread flour, regular flour was just as fine. And the yeast needs to be 7 grams, but it kept changing weight on the scale for some reason despite the tare? Might've removed too much. So I hope that's not coming back to bite me in the butt in terms of looks.

The food dye is considered optional, but I wanted the color scheme with the chocolate bagels because Umbreon is cool dammit.

Oh and I burnt the chocolate chips in the microwave trying to melt them because I didn't take my time like I should/didn't do the double-boiler. That'll be biting me in the ass. Live and learn.

I had to get the water again because there was a fridge technician who had come by, and it had cooled down too much by the time I was ready to mix ingredients together, but I threw the water, chocolate, honey and food dye in and while I was skeptical by its sludge-like coloring, I knew looks were deceiving in the beginning of baking. So I tossed them in with the flour and stuff.


Hm, too gravelly. Needs more water to be doughy.


There's a rocky road look I like.

Then I called my hubby over to knead it for ten minutes, which he grumbled about a bit but we made homemade pizza in the past before, so I don't know why he was so against this. So anyhoo I had put down some flour earlier but we were running out, so I asked him to put more down. And he proceeds to dump a full cup-and-a-half mountain onto the table when I just wanted some sprinkling. Surely, this won't come back to bite me. (I did appreciate it, though, we just laughed as the dough turned to chocolatey sticky paste in our hands.)

There was no room in the main fridge, so I stuck it in the smaller one in the garage. It needed to be there for at least 12 hours, so the bowl had to be covered in oil to keep it moist. My brother drowned the bowl in olive oil and we left it be.


But I had the cream cheese to do, so I cleaned up and worked on that very quick. That one came out how I was expecting from the word "go", although I wasn't sure about the seeds in the paste.


It came out pretty sweet, which is something I never thought I'd say about cream cheese. (Not a fan, personally.) Camera quality's not the best, but trust me, it looks as golden as it does in the recipe book.

Part one was fun and worked out as planned, I felt. How about part two?

Well over 12 hours and sleeping in an hour past my alarm later, I then shuffled downstairs to work on part two. The recipe says it makes six bagels, so I cut this malformed moist dough into six and started rolling them into malt balls.


I don't know why you're supposed to cover them with a kitchen hand towel, but I did just that for 20 minutes. Wasn't sure if it was to protect it from the dry room-temperature air, though.

Then it asked to roll them into logs (they look like poop, don't call them that, book), and then wrap it around your hand to connect the dough together.

I don't think that was a smart thing to do, but it got the job done, I guess.


Yay, coiled poop bagels.

They sat there covered (again) for another 30 minutes, and then I started getting the "bath" ready.

It was at this time that the kittens were gathering around because they thought it meant food and play. Consider this a bonus for sticking around this far.

I was getting the egg wash ready, too, and I'm still terrible at breaking eggs so I was dripping egg white where I wasn't supposed to. Thankfully, the kittens seemed unaware of that and didn't try licking it before I could clean it up.

I dunked the bagels one-by-one into the bath and watched them puff up, while also seeing to my disappointment that they just weren't going to be a full circle. Dough was just too soft to stick or I was being too impatient about rolling them into rings. Or both.

And now, my poop bagels are ready to go into the oven.

They were in for 18-ish minutes, flipping them at the 9-minute mark. And when they came out:


I thought I had burnt them. They looked more like croissant dog turds than actual bagels despite the texture looking like the picture. How is it that these are the food of God's Chosen People when they look like something they wouldn't have ever touched because they look "not kosher"?

But, hubby took one, cut it in half, and spread the golden cream cheese on it.

And he... actually ate it all. Went back for more.

Maybe he's just being nice. I tried a bite too, and while there's some fluffiness and it was a little flaky, it didn't taste too bad, but it still didn't feel or taste like a bagel to me. My parents tried it as well and said it wasn't bad for my first try, so perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. But it's what the husband wanted, and he ate it just fine, so I guess mission accomplished?

I won't be doing bagels again for a while, but next time, think I'm going for the actual listed-on-bag-as-such vital wheat gluten, see if that makes a difference.

What's next recipe to tackle? Hell if I know, I'm doing it all on hubby's request, and he hasn't picked the next one out yet. But personally, I wanna do the spicy arrabbiata because it's fucking spicy pasta and I've been practicing making sauce from scratch. I wanna see how it turns out and that it hopefully doesn't destroy my butthole (anymore).

R&R my baking skills by pretending I'm shoveling my poop bagels into your mouths. 'Til the next day off/whenever I go grocery shopping again.

(Also feel free to try out the recipes as I post them and rub your perfection in my face by telling me what I did wrong.)

 

[rel=alternate]

You should not have let him choose! Bakery takes a lot to make perfect. If you really want to learn how to cook, or do pastry, don't go for recipe books, go for the actual chef books. Understanding the products and the chemical reactions is much more important than being able to follow a recipe, and much more efficient.

You say he is a picky eater? Does he eat pasta?

Pasta is so easy to do, and inexpensive. If you mess it up, try again. And you can do a lot of fun stuff with it, whether it is shapes, ravioli or lasagna. You can even add crushed basil or spinach to the dough and it will be green and super tasty. Not to mention the possibilities in terms of variation of flour.

When you want to convince a non-foody to indulge you, you need to go progressively. You take dishes you know they like, and you look for ways to elevate every single ingredient. If they don't like food and don't cook themselves, it usually is not too hard.

Best of luck with the next project!

 

[Ultrapenguin]

You ever get a glimpse into someone's life and it seems totally alien? I've never understood how not having cooked before works, it's like someone saying "I never learned how to use doors, so I figured I'd start today". You kind of puzzle over how that situation even played out.

That isn't a dig at you specifically for the record, I hear it fairly regularly.

But yeah, trying to make strange bagels from scratch for someone who's barely dealt with a kitchen before seems like a really steep curve. Baking isn't especially easy to do.

I'd start out just like making seasoned ground beef and chopped onions in a pan with some oil, or seasoned baked fish or something. Or pasta, like the above said. A picky eater is going to have simple tastes anyways, so no reason to make the situation more complicated than you need to.

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

You probably should have gone with something a bit simpler. Baking takes a bit to get right unless you have some kind of bizarre, familial aptitude; and bagels in particular are fiddly in my experience.

Congrats on getting into cooking. For baking in particular measure everything, and keep in mind that if you're using fine sea or table salt over kosher you need to cut the amount by anywhere from a third to half.

Edit: And for baking and cooking having good pots and pans makes more of a difference than most people realize.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I fyou really want to learn how to cook, or do pastry, don't go for recipe books, go for the actual chef books. Understanding the products and the chemical reactions is much more important than being able to follow a recipe, and much more efficient.

Good idea, I'll have to keep an eye out for them. Don't know if Mom has any of those kinds of books, she has a lot of cookbooks and has printed out a lot of different chicken recipes and such these last few years. I know I'll have to study that more as a few recipes involve it.

You say he is a picky eater? Does he eat pasta?

He does, he's just picky about the sauce.

Pasta is so easy to do, and inexpensive. If you mess it up, try again. And you can do a lot of fun stuff with it, whether it is shapes, ravioli, You can even add crushed basil to the dough and they will be green and super tasty. Not to mention the possibilities in terms of flour.

I should learn how to make my own pasta, huh. Always looked fun.

When you want to convince a non-foody to indulge you, you need to go progressively. You take dishes you know they like, and you look for ways to elevate every single ingredient. If they don't like food and don't cook themselves, it usually is not too hard.

Best of luck with the next project!

I've considered that thought, yes. I gotta learn to become more daring/creative with recipes, I just hate/worrying about making mistakes when it comes to food 'cause there's only so much of it at a time, and I can't afford to be wasteful.

You ever get a glimpse into someone's life and it seems totally alien? I've never understood how not having cooked before works, it's like someone saying "I never learned how to use doors, so I figured I'd start today". You kind of puzzle over how that situation even played out.

That isn't a dig at you specifically for the record, I hear it fairly regularly.

Lol I have been in the kitchen, but it was rare for the longest time. Mom made the mistake of not forcing me to get involved with prep when I was younger, think that's true for a lot of girls in that their mothers don't have them work alongside them or find ways to make it fun for them. But Mom had also made the mistake of kicking me out whenever I slipped up in trying to be helpful, so that had killed that interest for a long time.

But yeah, trying to make strange bagels from scratch for someone who's barely dealt with a kitchen before seems like a really steep curve. Baking isn't especially easy to do.

It's really not, but I honestly prefer the process of baking to other cooking methods. It feels more hands-on and I learn more easily that way.

EDIT: Reeeee I had a whole paragraph here about how I recognize I made mistakes like burning chocolate and taking away yeast amounts but phone-posting was too slow and Tor farted and erased most of the post.

Funny thing lol last time I did some baking I was trying out a cookie recipe a Kiwi had put down in another thread. I thought I was doing okay until Dad asked if I was using Mom's keto/gluten-free stuff. Which it turned out I did. And the chocolate tasted weird, and no one else wanted to eat the cookies.

I would've cooked more for myself but my brothers would always complain about not being fed too only to not be happy/helpful about how I was fixing it. Just been bad experiences overall.

I'd start out just like making seasoned ground beef and chopped onions in a pan with some oil

I have, I just don't like draining the grease. Always had a hard time with it due to my weak girl arms dexterity.

I wonder if this was because I made chocolate bagels instead of plain regular ones, so I don't know where to alter ingredients to taste. But it was what the hubby wanted, so it is what it is.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

You can do it Karl! I recommend watching Oh Cook by James May. The dishes he whips up are quite appetizing and give inspiration to try making new things.

 

[Executive Petrel]

Despite the Pokémon cookbook being nothing but vegetarian/vegan ingredients

 

[DankSmoker]

I would be incredibly embarrassed to own those cookbooks and would hide them like pornography.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

You ever get a glimpse into someone's life and it seems totally alien? I've never understood how not having cooked before works, it's like someone saying "I never learned how to use doors, so I figured I'd start today". You kind of puzzle over how that situation even played out.

I think it's more like "I never learned how to use doors so I booked a spot on this escape room place I've heard so much about".

Personally I like the "how hard can it be?" attitude, the problem is that many people will immediately give up when they fail. Failing is a great learning experience but people do not want to learn from a series of humiliating failures, they want to succeed.

 

[TenMilesWide]

I think it's more like "I never learned how to use doors so I booked a spot on this escape room place I've heard so much about".

Personally I like the "how hard can it be?" attitude, the problem is that many people will immediately give up when they fail. Failing is a great learning experience but people do not want to learn from a series of humiliating failures, they want to succeed.

Not saying "Oh, that's how hard it can be? I quit." is more than half the battle.

 

[rel=alternate]

Personally I like the "how hard can it be?" attitude, the problem is that many people will immediately give up when they fail. Failing is a great learning experience but people do not want to learn from a series of humiliating failures, they want to succeed.

While I agree, I can still understand those who choose to give up. It's a personality thing more than anything. I don't see it in a bad way.

There are many (most) things that I could do well if I really applied myself. But there is so much I can do in a day. I make the conscious choice to focus on what comes naturally to me and what yields the most interesting outcome for me.

It so happens that I like food. And I am tempted to see those who don't see the value in the time spent to actually learn and do it properly as insane.

But, there are areas of my life where they would look at me the same way. I just don't care about these areas. I tried and I understood that they did not come to me in a natural way. I hated every second, and I struggled. I either completely neglect them or overpay for someone else to take care of it for me. These same people I would see as crazy for not caring to even try to do better at food would probably look at me the same way. We're just built different.

In a way, I am grateful for this. People need complementarity for relationships to work and for prosperity of the community at large. I don't want my girl in my kitchen. I want her to want me to cook for her. And I feel like a million $, and I care more, and I enjoy every fucking second of it from prep to licking the plate. Mostly, I enjoy that she enjoyed.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Just have to say, thanks a lot for your comments, both the encouraging and "dafuq's this shit" words. Honestly don't know how long I'll keep this up for, if it'll even be a weekly thing or monthly or more like "whenever I feel like making something and I remember to document", but I want to have fun doing it, and I want my readers to be tickled by it, too.

So in that regard, today's recipe:

I don't mind spicy food, I'll indulge in it here and there. Hell, I've actually been practicing making my own spicy sauce with just what's in the cabinets, so going out to buy fresh ingredients and chopping them up was just the natural next step. So how'd it go?

Well for starters, I couldn't find Calabrian peppers. Maybe I didn't go sniffing around more, which that'd be fine if it was just me, but now I'm dragging my husband around and we went shopping immediately after I got back from work near the evening time, so there just wasn't a lot of nearby places for us to go. So I chose to substitute with serrano peppers, which it turns out is a more mild pepper compared to Calabrian. Which sure, I can live with that, especially since the hubby's not a fan of spicy food anyway, so perhaps it'll be somewhat more mild than expected.

So I thought while chopping up all eight peppers from the package.

It's worth noting that absolutely no one and nothing told me I needed to de-vein peppers. At work, after plucking off the stems we oven-roast serranoes before blending them in with other ingredients for the salsa, so I figured that's just how these particular peppers work.

Prior to the peppers, I zested a lemon first and nicked myself in the process. This was the first omen of things to come before I chopped the peppers. Also I guess I must've absentmindedly touched my face after cutting the peppers because I'm a dumbass and I felt that burning sensation during the whole cooking hour. I thought about getting gloves while out shopping but I didn't write it down to remember them. Same with pasta, but luckily Mom had a fettuccine box she had no future plans for anyway that I used.

Anyhoo, while I was weighing out the ingredients, the red pepper flakes (also couldn't find proper chile flakes so figured I'd substitute with red pepper flakes) for some reason wasn't registering with the scale, so I gave up at this point instead of waiting to see if it'd get to 2 grams.

Might be a blessing in disguise, but probably didn't mean anything in the long-run.


These were all the ingredients minus the San Marzano tomatoes off-camera. I hadn't opened the can yet at this point in which I remembered to do that and then pour it out into a bowl because I gotta squish tomatoes with my hands. My tiny, tiny hands. And no foresight about how squishy and pulpy these kinds of tomatoes actually are. Yay.

Also it called for shredded Pecorino Romano, but I had found it grated, and it weighed out to 25 grams no problem, so I doubt that makes a difference.


So after being surprised I didn't burn the garlic this time around, once I put in the peppers, that is when I went "Yeah... that may have been too much."


But whatever, figured it'd be buried under tomatoes anyway, and it adds that extra crunch, I assume. Then I went to crush the tomatoes while the kittens are screaming at my feet thinking there's food for them.

It was here that I made a mess, and tomato was squirting everywhere. I was wearing a cute green shirt today and I had to go and stain it. Not like I was planning on going anywhere, but still, I wanted to look nice. >:/




So the sauce came out looking okay, I thought, and it was making me more hungry seeing it. I started wondering at this point if I should perhaps add ground beef to brown in the future because I figured adjustments were going to be needed, but that's not going to be for a good long while.

In the meantime, while it simmered, I decided to put that lemon to good use and try and get some lemonade out of it. It only amounted to I think a quarter of a cup, but you put in water and sugar anyway to sweeten it up, so whatever. Wasn't the greatest, but I managed to gulp that pitiful thing down.

I then put the pot on for the pasta, and I stupidly forgot to break the noodles in half before throwing them in. Had to take scissors to them for that last-minute adjustment, but I don't think that was enough when all was said and done. Especially because the recipe said to then mix the noodles together with the sauce. All of it.

I knew better than to do that because of my picky husband, so I only put in half the pot.

And I stirred and mixed while getting second thoughts on if this was a mistake, then seasoned and cut some basil.

And it... doesn't look all half-bad? Didn't exactly look like the picture, but it's close enough. Actually had a pleasant spicy smell, and I was honestly looking forward to making it. So I took it over to my poor, brave husband for him to try, and he cried. Not out of happiness, though.

So I tried it myself.







And Kari Kamiya is now spirit cooking. Was so damn hot it damn killed us both. Or perhaps just me 'cause I ate more than hubby did and he took all my milk immediately to save his life.


So wha'happen????? I ask myself.

In hindsight, think it's definitely me throwing in one-too-many peppers (because hurr-durr it's not as hot as Calabrian need more to compensate) and not de-veining them. Even Mom took a bite and went "Oh yeah, that's way too hot".

So I killed my taste buds just to see what would happen. That is the moral of today's lesson.

Next time: Hubby wants lemon tarts. Actually originally wanted what the One Piece book calls "Sky Fish Sauté", but fuck no way am I working with horse mackerel right now. Give me time to get comfortable with the knife more and shit.

In the distant future, all recipes I log here will be done again in some "before and after" to see how far I have come, but for now, I'm just going to be flailing about until I can find my balance. Oh, also, if anyone has any cookbook recommendations, please let me know. I legit do want to get better in the kitchen, and I need a great variety to experiment with.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

In the future remember you can always cook a dish that's a little hot but it's very hard to make it less hot after its been cooked. Hot peppers are an ingredient that you need to acclimate to.

 

[Diamond Homonculus]

I get that the whole weeb cookbook thing is probably how you are keeping yourself interested but maybe you should start off with a few recipes from youtube videos so you can see what the person is doing and they will also tell you why and when they are adding the ingredients so you have some context.

 

[DankSmoker]

Anyhoo, while I was weighing out the ingredients, the red pepper flakes (also couldn't find proper chile flakes so figured I'd substitute with red pepper flakes) for some reason wasn't registering with the scale, so I gave up at this point instead of waiting to see if it'd get to 2 grams.

lmao, yeah this is where you fucked up, you probably just needed a couple teaspoons to get to 2 grams.
Edit: wait it even has conversions on the recipe, you fuckin dummy

 

[Old English Roast Beef]

You don't really need to de-vein or de-seed peppers, but it reduces the spiciness if you do. Definitely use less of them next time though. Since you weren't sure about spicy food to start with, you could've gone with a mild pepper like bell or poblano (probably should forgo the sugar in the recipe in that case).

If you're feeling lazy, a can of "crushed tomatoes" will give you a sauce with some texture without needing to combine tomato paste and the tomatoes like you did in this recipe. "Diced tomatoes" are more like finely cut tomatoes in water than a sauce, "tomato puree" has a finer texture than crushed, and canned "tomato sauce" is puree with spices added.

Also, you shouldn't break pasta in half. Having long noodles is the point. You can just put them in sticking out of the water, then wait for them to soften after a minute or so, then you can stir them into the pan. You can also substitute a different kind of pasta if that's too much bother, but different kinds work better with different sauces.

Anyhoo, while I was weighing out the ingredients, the red pepper flakes (also couldn't find proper chile flakes so figured I'd substitute with red pepper flakes) for some reason wasn't registering with the scale, so I gave up at this point instead of waiting to see if it'd get to 2 grams.

Did you hit the "tare" button? That resets the scale to zero. Turn it on, put the empty bowl on there, hit tare so it gets reset to zero, then add the ingredient (and don't touch anything on the scale at that point).

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Did you hit the "tare" button? That resets the scale to zero. Turn it on, put the empty bowl on there, hit tare so it gets reset to zero, then add the ingredient (and don't touch anything on the scale at that point).

Yes I tared it, I tare everything. It just wasn't registering for some weird reason and I wasn't going to shake out the whole bottle just to get a reading. In all honesty, I probably didn't need the red pepper flakes with the number of serranoes I used.

 

[Soggy paper straw]

I am not sure what I expected on a thread about cooking on KF...

For traditional tomato sauce: sautee diced/sliced (whichever you prefer) onion and/or garlic, by pre-heating the olive oil and then adding the onions. You want to achieve the Maillard reaction, so a bit of browning. At that point add tomato, and keep on medium heat. Add a bit of water, tiny bit, so it's a bit more watery than you want the end result to be. Add basil. Cook for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Done!


For richer, still keeping it basic:
- add diced bacon/pancetta with the onion.
- add black olives in the last 5 mins
- add red chili flakes when you add the tomato


For baking... you need to understand what you are doing. It's more about the techniques than the exact recipe. I would wait for it

For info... how do you eat??

 

[Helvítis Túristi]

I'd recommend the Japanese navy curry from the one piece cookbook. I've seen youtubers make it and I've tried it, it's very good.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

I'd recommend the Japanese navy curry from the one piece cookbook. I've seen youtubers make it and I've tried it, it's very good.

I know one of the videos you're talking about.

There was also this:

Curry is one of the recipes I really want to learn to make as a regular occasion, I just don't have the kitchen space all to myself for now. There's also a spicy tropical curry recipe in the Pokémon cookbook, but like I said, it's not happening any time soon.