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

[mindlessobserver]

Girl has never really cooked before and decides the first attempt would be bagels? Yikes. That's like going down a Black Diamond rated ski slope on your first day. Congrats on not making a total hash of it! You may have discovered a talent! As an aside, baking is more of an art then a science. The recipes are more of a guideline rather then a rule. For me the oven is my favorite kitchen tool, but it's always finicky and every dish from roast chicken to take requires a prayer to the fairys in order to really nail.

 

[Kurt Eichenwald]

Have you tried Boston cream pie yet? You'll never learn how to scramble eggs until you get that Boston cream technique down.

 

[DankSmoker]

Girl has never really cooked before and decides the first attempt would be bagels? Yikes. That's like going down a Black Diamond rated ski slope on your first day. Congrats on not making a total hash of it! You may have discovered a talent! As an aside, baking is more of an art then a science. The recipes are more of a guideline rather then a rule. For me the oven is my favorite kitchen tool, but it's always finicky and every dish from roast chicken to take requires a prayer to the fairys in order to really nail.

It's still science but  you need to be calibrated to your tools, and with baking that includes your climate/altitude.

 

[Xerxes IX]

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.

The pokemon cookbook also has a good japanese curry recipe as part of the dedenne ramen.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Have you tried Boston cream pie yet? You'll never learn how to scramble eggs until you get that Boston cream technique down.

That sounds like fun, I've noticed there's different techniques in scrambling eggs and how it affects the texture.

The pokemon cookbook also has a good japanese curry recipe as part of the dedenne ramen.

I've noticed! So excited.

I'm going shopping after work so I can start on making crêpes batter tonight for breakfast tomorrow. Hubby wanted lemon tarts but my parents accidentally dropped the oven door cleaning it out and the plexiglass shattered, and the baking sheet won't fit in the conventional oven. I had made chicken Parmesean last week but it was a recipe I was somewhat familiar with and didn't take pics of. It had turned out better this time around than I remember from the last time, so it'll be among one of my regular routines.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

About 15 years ago, one of my Young Women leaders had an activity done at her house that I had enjoyed immensely: we made crêpes, and it was absolutely delicious. Was my first time having them, too. I wanted to make them again afterwards, but never did even though I had multiple opportunities to.

Well until the oven gets fixed (or if we just have to replace the whole thing because Sears is being fuckwads as usual), I wanted to make something, and this was one of the few recipes in the book that didn't need the oven.

I didn't expect to go for one of the Galarian-inspired recipes so soon, but what can you do.

I don't have pictures of when I was making the curds because I (apparently) needed to be there whisking the entire time, couldn't exactly step away or free up my hands, so this was the finished product as I took them out this morning:

I was more confident about the berry curd than the lemon curd, but I legit don't think I had heated them up correctly. It was on low heat as stated, and you have to whisk them as it thickens, but I was a dummy and made them in frying pans instead of sauce pans (herp-derp), but I don't know if that would've really affected them? I might've needed to have kept them on the stove longer instead of ten minutes each, or actually stopped whisking for a time to let them just heat up without disturbance. They were in the refrigerator all night, and there was some kind of goopy film over the lemon curd, but I disturbed that quick and they both still had liquid-y consistencies. Mom had lemon curd, but honestly there wasn't enough in it to begin with (we used it all up later today anyway) and I didn't think about looking for them at the store yesterday.

So note to self: Just buy the damn things in the future. Even though hubby liked the taste of what I made anyway, I think it's just better to get them at the store and just do the batter only.

Speaking of:

I don't think the light batter was supposed to be that low compared to the chocolate? But that's how the recipe turned out, so I'm just going to assume the chocolate will always be family-size while the light crêpes is just for self if I want to scarf something down by myself.

Though I think I was just a dummy with the light one because in my sleepiness I had forgotten to put in the egg when I first blended it, so I had to put it back in and do a second blend. I should've just made the batter last night but I figured "It's better to make it be fresh because I remembered it taking about an hour before the crêpes were ready to be made".

Anyhoo so I sprayed the frying pan and got right to work.

"Wait, aren't I supposed to be spreading the batter around a bit to make sure it's evenly flat?"


"Ah shit."


Well it's fucky, but it looks like how a crêpe should look, I suppose. Might as well keep going, I'll get the hang of it soon enough.


...Though I don't think it's supposed to be getting all porey like that so much.


Now that it's all chocolatey, I gotta be careful—



Goddamn it.

Eventually I realize that it's about to burn if those "pores" show up too much, mostly because there was no real way for me to tell how "brown" it'd get when it's chocolatey, so I would start flipping the batter within ten/fifteen seconds. The three-to-five minutes was probably when it was first heating up, anyway. Some of them look too smooth, though...


I had stopped counting at four, but I believe I ended up making nine chocolate crêpes, making it a total of 13. Even though I worried about if there was more egg than curd in the lemon curd, I served up the first plate and handed it to hubby.


He gave a thumbs-up and ate everything. I even managed to get a little brother to have the last light-colored crêpe and he actually ate it. I offered everyone else but they wouldn't take any, so the leftover crêpes hubby and I ate cold as a late-lunch/early-dinner. Apparently he actually liked the lemon curd but I had tossed it out in the sink after breakfast simply because it just doesn't look like lemon curd to me. There's still some of the berry curd leftover, but I don't know what I'll use it for within the week.

Think overall, as clumsy as I was putting it together, I would say it went alright. Still haven't keeled over from the lemon curd yet, so I guess it wasn't too eggy after all, but tbh I don't see myself making that again. I have determined I will not make the light-colored version again unless I double the recipe, as it's the chocolate I'm a fan of and it made the amount I was expecting.

The next breakfast item (if not next, soon) will be the fluffy Furret pancakes, I just need to find whatever it is I separate the egg whites from the yolk, 'cause Mom says we have one but I didn't ask what it looked like (thought it was the fine-mesh strainer but I dunno).

 

[GoPro]

Good on you making effort on how to cook and bake. Making food is a skill that everyone should devote some time to. Keep at it and have fun.
You definitely picked some challenging dishes for your first steps. Keep in mind that a lot of cookbooks that use pop-culture ties as a gimmick are not the best at being instructional. They tend to be barebones or assume that person reading them knows common cooking techniques. I would read up on then and watch some cooking videos.
Congratulation on crepes, they can be surprisingly challenging due to the technique involved.

Here's some some unsolicited advice in response to some things you have mentioned.
- Vanilla bean bits in paste do not affect the end product. They are there for aesthetics mostly to get that authentic vanilla specks look. Vanilla pastes are mostly vanilla extract, sugar, and thickeners with some vanilla bean bits. It does not matter much whether you use paste or extract. Extract tends to be less expensive, more common, and works better in baked goods in my opinion. Vanilla bean pods are often not worth the effort save from few uses. Vanillin based flavorings are very basic and lack complexity of beans, paste, and concentrates.
- Dark cocoa powder is a an ultra processed cocoa powder to reduce acidity, and to improve favor and texture. Its also sold in stores as "ultra-dutch processed powder."
- Bread flour and all purpose four differ and substituting one for the other will be noticeable in most cases. Main difference is the higher protein amount in bread flour. This will affect the taste and texture of whatever you bake.
- As many have said, de-seeding peppers limits the heat. Sugar, salt, starchy foods, acidic ingredients and fatty ingredients reduce heat too. So does roasting the peppers. Still, it's best to go easy on spicy ingredients first, taste the sauce you are making, and then increase hot ingredients as needed based on that.
- If you eat something too spicy, there are other options besides milk. Any fatty paste will do really as capsacin (compound that makes things spicy) is fat soluble. Peanut butter, sour cream, and greek yogurt all work well.
- San Marzano tomatoes are a bit overrated and overpriced for what they are. Lots of them on American market are lying about being San Marzanos anyway. It's better to try using several brands of cannned and boxed plum tomatoes sold in your area and pick the one you like best.
- Flipping crepes was tough because they were too thick and not quite ready. When I make crepes I lift the pan up before I put the batter in (that slightly slows down cooking as I add the batter). Then, I tilt the pan as I pour in batter slowly, to make sure that it spreads into a very thin layer that coats most of the flat pan surface. Then set the pan on the flame. Flip once the top is almost dry and edges are caramelized. The porous look you got is what you see when you put a layer of dough thick enough to make a pancake.

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.

Different brands of kitchen scales have different levels of sensitivity. Ozeri Pronto kitchen scales are easy to find, reliable, and an affordable option that can weigh things down to a single gram. You could also look for a tea scale if you need to weigh small quantities of ingredients often.

The next breakfast item (if not next, soon) will be the fluffy Furret pancakes, I just need to find whatever it is I separate the egg whites from the yolk, 'cause Mom says we have one but I didn't ask what it looked like (thought it was the fine-mesh strainer but I dunno).

Good luck! You should be in a good shape for these now that you already made crepes.
There are many types of separators. Most of them have something that holds the yolk and space for whites to pour out. I haven't seen any mesh ones , but there are ones that look like coils.

You can get by without them too. Your hand, a slotted spoon, or anything that will hold the yolk while giving white cracks to flow out of will work too.

Or a simply pour egg from one half of a cracked shell to the other. Keep the yolk in shells and let white pour out into a bowl below. Do it until almost all eggwhite is gone from shells.

 

[DankSmoker]

Do one of the One Piece recipes next, I want to see how dumb they are.

 

[RACISM]

"Ah shit."

They're called pancakes here, and there's a saying about them. Pancakes are like children - you always fuck up the first one. So that's absolutely normal. They all look tasty, would eat.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Do one of the One Piece recipes next, I want to see how dumb they are.

They're supposed to be the actual foods Sanji made in the series up to I think Wholecake, and they look legit. I want to start off with the easier recipes in it, like bean sprouts stir-fry and some blue-cheese penne recipe, for example.

They're called pancakes here, and there's a saying about them. Pancakes are like children - you always fuck up the first one. So that's absolutely normal. They all look tasty, would eat.

They looked like pancakes but they were as thin as how crêpes should be, and tasted as such. But yeah, think I had gotten the hang of it by the seventh crêpe.

Oh wait, derp, you mean where you live you call crêpes pancakes. Ohhhhh because you say "hotcakes" instead.

 

[DankSmoker]

Oh wait, derp, you mean where you live you call crêpes pancakes. Ohhhhh because you say "hotcakes" instead.

Call them flapjacks or I will murder you

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

Cooking is all about trial and error. Certain things are all about figuring out what you like to cook and how to do it. Doing it perfect isn't the best way to learn.

I'd recommend Jacques Pepin and Chef John for videos on cooking. Jacques is a great educator for cooking and a lot of the basic Youtube stuff will help you with small techniques. https://youtu.be/bqKq0bQHnZU

 

[Kari Kamiya]

The oven is still out of commission and I think my lemon's about to go bad soon, and so tonight I wanted something simple.

Contrary to what I've said, I've made some penne stuff here and there as I practiced my sauces. Penne is my favorite pasta noodle, so I was pretty happy to see it was a recipe in one of my weeb books. And it's rather simple.

Yet I think I fucked up by choosing to double the recipe from two servings to four, thinking "Hurr durr I want to make something for my brothers, maybe this time they'll eat what I make!" only for them to go "Uhhhh no we'll make our own food", and you can see why I consider my husband to be my only hope in my journey of learning how to cook. Of course, hindsight's telling me that I don't think I had needed to double anything else except the pasta, and milk and cream.

Reason I say that is because the blue cheese might be a bit overpowering. I've never had it before, never knew what it tasted like (and Mom questioned yesterday "Why do you have blue cheese?" when she looked in the refrigerator), so I don't know how strong it can get. My husband had blue cheese in the past and describes it as a bit of a weird waxy spice. I figured it had a smell but the parmesan is more stinky than blue, least I think so.

But the cooking itself practically went off without much of a hitch, even with my forgetting about how much pasta can boil water over. The ham I was the most concerned about because it says "1/4 inch pieces", but I don't know if it's quarter-inch in length, or quarter-inch in thickness. "LOL that's what you get for being a poorfag in not getting real ham!" I imagine the book giggling as it notices the sandwich slices I pull out instead of a proper thicc boy.

I started worrying after I had poured in the ham and penne into the mixture that the sauce wasn't going to thicken up, but that happens naturally as it cools, and I think the sauce turned out alright, even with the presence of blue cheese.

This was my husband's bowl, and he mentioned the blue cheese was the most mild he had ever tasted, yet I think it got more overpowering as it cooled. That's why I question if doubling the recipe across the board was an entirely good idea or not. I don't know what else to use the remainder blue cheese for, so I'm planning on remaking this later next week using the rest of it up and sticking to the original two servings numbers, even though it's just barely under the amount it asks for (50 grams). It could also just be the parsley leaves, though they've only been unopened in the refrigerator since yesterday, but they're rather stiff than I thought they would be. It might be another culprit.

I also for the heck of it tried to add a bit more of a spicy angle with cayenne powder to my second refill (partially to cover up the blue cheese) and lol I don't think that was at all necessary.

Unless I heat the pasta back up on the stove for when my parents get back, I don't see my mom doing a taste test of it even though I'm somewhat curious about her opinion on the taste. But yeah, definitely think one of the tweaks I'll be doing in the future is to hold back a bit of the blue cheese, or find something that'll complement it without compromising it.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Update: I can confirm doubling the recipe the last time definitely accentuated the blue cheese. What was left over was a little below what it was asking for, but the taste was much milder and it tasted better as a result. Hubby said it was more waxy and less spicy, which he thought was good. Still have plans on experimenting with other cheeses in its place, though.

 

[DankSmoker]

Update: I can confirm doubling the recipe the last time definitely accentuated the blue cheese. What was left over was a little below what it was asking for, but the taste was much milder and it tasted better as a result. Hubby said it was more waxy and less spicy, which he thought was good. Still have plans on experimenting with other cheeses in its place, though.

Wait does he think blue cheese is spicy or is he talking about the black pepper? I think you shouldn't listen to any of his opinions if you want to get better at cooking. Oh the cayenne, add rosemary and thyme instead.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Wait does he think blue cheese is spicy or is he talking about the black pepper?

He's not great at describing the sharp taste of blue cheese, so he says it has a "spice" to it (I was confused, too). It's possible he's mistaking it for the black pepper, I eyeballed it both times, but he didn't notice a "spicy" taste to it this time. I think it really is just because there was less of the blue cheese this time around.

 

[Kurt Eichenwald]

Is the pie done yet?