The Cookery Thread

[Steve]

Yes, it's here at last - the food thread. Share your favourite snack or meal recipes. Are you handy in the kitchen with a packet of pasta, some rice and some tuna? Then share your culinary secrets with us (no need to write out full recipes - if you just have a handy tip then that will be welcome too).

Some of our members will be students and some soon-to-be students so budget recipes are especially welcome. My student days are far behind me but I'm a bachelor so I'm pretty handy in the kitchen. Hobson's choice really - learn to cook, or go hungry, so I learned how to cook a long time ago. Right, I'll start with my favourite baked potatoes recipe.

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Baked potatoes with bacon and herb filling - tasty and cheap.

Ingredients:

potatoes
bacon
mixed herbs
pepper
kitchen foil

Method:

Wash the potatoes but don't peel them

Using a sharp knife, cut a deep cross into the spud but without quite cutting all the way through

Sprinkle some mixed herbs into the spud (just a quarter teaspoon or less)

Now pack the spud with as much bacon as you can squeeze in there

Sprinkle bacon very lightly with pepper

Wrap in foil and place in the oven (centre or above) at gas mark 5 (375°F, 190°C) for 40mins (small spuds) or 50 mins (medium) or 60 mins (large)

Notes:

You don't need full bacon rashers so if you're cooking on a budget then buy one of those packs of bacon pieces from the supermarket at half the price or less

No need to add salt - the bacon is salty enough already

If you want to, you can reduce cooking time in oven by pre-heating spuds in microwave first (but be sure to cut them first or pierce the skins with a fork otherwise they'll explode)

When cooked, they'll be a little dry so add a sauce or a half can of baked beans or a half can of peeled plum tomatoes. Yummy or what. Put the other half of the contents into a container and pop them into the fridge, where they will keep for a couple of days
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[Samantha]

Wow that's clever. I can't cook to save my life, well I do a little better if there's instructions. The time I blew up the microwave was when I went on faulty memory. Anyway, only two years till I will be cooking for myself so I guess I better learn. Thanks for sharing Steve!

[Crimson Sunrise]

I love cooking, the only problem is i dont have the time. I just bake cookies now and then though lol

[Vicarious]

I watch the Food Network all the time, yet I don't cook that much. But the other day I made this rice pudding from a recipe and it was divine.

Rice Pudding with Vanilla Bean, Orange and Rum

5 cups whole milk
2/3 cup Arborio rice or other short-grain white rice
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons dark rum
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
Orange segments

Combine the milk and rice in a heavy medium saucepan. Scrape in the seeds from the vanilla bean; add the bean. Bring the milk to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the rice is tender, stirring frequently, about 25 minutes. Mix in the sugar, rum, and orange peel. Discard the vanilla bean. Cook until the mixture thickens, 5 to10 minutes longer.

Spoon the rice pudding into bowls. Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 5 hours. Serve with orange segments.

[reepicheep]

all purpose risotto

chop up any veggies you like, stick them in a pan in with sunflower oil for a minute or so, boil the kettle for stock. pour in a few cups of rice, crumble a stock cube in and make stock to pour over rice and veggies. if using meat, stick it in after that, fish when you've cooked it completely. put on simmer and let it be for up to 20 mins, stirring occasionally. voila!

if you can't be bothered, stick a toast on ;)

[reepicheep]

a very useful tip for stale bread, crumble them into breadcrumbs and homefry your own fish and chicken ;)