What's your cooking confession?

pwurple

Meringues. f-ing meringues are my enemy. My pavlovas turn into brown squidgy leaking messes. Lemon meringue pie = watery fail.

I'd like to blame the oven, but I've tried them in at least 4 ovens. I just mess them up every time.

ectoraige

Porridge. I can make oaty gloop, and I can make oaty quicksand. I cannot make porridge.

Animord

ectoraige wrote: »

Porridge. I can make oaty gloop, and I can make oaty quicksand. I cannot make porridge.

That's not a fail! I like oaty gloop. The soupier porridge is the better!

Loire

MissFlitworth wrote: »

I am very fond of but I have *on occasion* thrown a pot or baking dish in the bin because I really, really didn't want to wash it. And the less said about the curry sauce bain maries at the end of a bad day back in my burger flipping years the better

Ditto! I was in IKEA over Xmas (which is a treat living in Cork) and I saw these shiny new baking trays. Anyway I put 2 into the trolley and herself says "What's wrong with the ones you have?" "They keep burning things" says I

Straight into the bin when I got home with them

Loire

We had friends for dinner once and I made fillets on the BBQ. In fairness I had them marinading all day in wine & garlic (and thought of my last boss when belting them tender) so they were gonna be nice. Anyway, my friend really like his steak and asks where I got it. "The English Market" says I even though they were Aldi's finest

I'm generally an honest person and these were good friends who wouldn't have minded either way, but I was just having a bit of fun

Doing the washing up later herself says "God those steaks were divine, much better than the ones you normally get in Aldi"

Minder

My name is Minder and I'm addicted to buying cookery books.

Faith

Minder wrote: »

My name is Minder and I'm addicted to buying cookery books.

Me too! I'm worse though - I have a whole shelf of cookery books, but I never, ever use them. A bookshop in town is having a huge sale on older stock and I planning on going in to buy more cookery books. I just LOVE buying them and looking through them, but whenever it comes to trying something new, I automatically look online for a recipe .

Not offering advice to anyone in particular, but it's important to cook potatoes from cold water. This helps reduce lumps, just in case anyone was missing that trick .

Minder

I started with a shelf in a small bookcase.
Then a couple of shelves.
Then the bookcase was full up.
So I bought another bookcase.
Then another.
I've catalogued 570 cookbooks on LibraryThing - that was in 2012.
Waiting on a delivery tomorrow.

dee_mc

Faith wrote: »

Me too! I'm worse though - I have a whole shelf of cookery books, but I never, ever use them. A bookshop in town is having a huge sale on older stock and I planning on going in to buy more cookery books. I just LOVE buying them and looking through them, but whenever it comes to trying something new, I automatically look online for a recipe .

Not offering advice to anyone in particular, but it's important to cook potatoes from cold water. This helps reduce lumps, just in case anyone was missing that trick .

I have a drawer under my bed which is so full of cookery books I can no longer open it But like you, I automatically look online for recipes!
I've also got a full drawer of EasyFood, BBC Good Food, etc food magazines which very very rarely get looked at!
In any case if I love a recipe I write it in to an old hard-back notebook (covered in various food splashes!) and make a note of any modifications I make to each recipe etc - I like to think that notebook will be a family heirloom, provided people can actually read my handwriting!

dixiefly

I hate cracking eggs.

I try to make bread reasonably regularly and usually get the wife or the daughter to crack the eggs, though last weekend I was brave and did it myself.

Animord

dee_mc wrote: »

I have a drawer under my bed which is so full of cookery books I can no longer open it But like you, I automatically look online for recipes!
I've also got a full drawer of EasyFood, BBC Good Food, etc food magazines which very very rarely get looked at!
In any case if I love a recipe I write it in to an old hard-back notebook (covered in various food splashes!) and make a note of any modifications I make to each recipe etc - I like to think that notebook will be a family heirloom, provided people can actually read my handwriting!

I have my mother's and my grandmother's versions of these, also copies of Mrs Beeton with maybe a hundred years of peoples notes in them. I LOVE them so much!

MissFlitworth

I never bake but I own expensive gel food colourings, so many different type of sprinkles, those little wax paper pleated cupcake cases that take serious effort to track down and lots of other ridiculous things. I have a stupid amount of stuff that does nothing but look pretty in photos of food (genuinely, have a drawer in my kitchen that looks like Pinterest vomitted into it) and I almost never use any of it!

Finally forcing myself to use up decorative food picks, striped paper straws, packets and packets of fancy napkins, expensive plastic picnic cutlery etc. but every time I do I get deep regret in case an 'occasion' comes along that I will *need* cocktail umbrellas for and I won't have any more of them.

<heads off to ebay>

Loire

Minder wrote: »

I started with a shelf in a small bookcase.
Then a couple of shelves.
Then the bookcase was full up.
So I bought another bookcase.
Then another.
I've catalogued 570 cookbooks on LibraryThing - that was in 2012.
Waiting on a delivery tomorrow.

:eek:

leahyl

Whatever about cooking eggs, I can't even crack an egg without the yolk splitting and going all over the frying pan...

fiddlechic

Yeast bread. I can do fabulous pizza bases from yeast. Bread rolls barely OK. Actual loaves a disaster.
Have tried baking in the Aga and 2 different electric fan ovens. Fresh yeast, dried yeast - 2 different types. Bought Tim Allen's Ballymaloe bread book to try and perfect it - no luck.

Have a bread machine now - and while it's nicer than a few days old sliced pan; it's still not great.

I keep meaning to try the artisan 5 mins a day bread, but haven't gotten around to it.

pampootie

Faith wrote: »

A bookshop in town is having a huge sale on older stock and I planning on going in to buy more cookery books.

Which one? I too need to expand my collection of unused books while relying on BBC food for all my recipe needs

Faith

pampootie wrote: »

Which one? I too need to expand my collection of unused books while relying on BBC food for all my recipe needs

Haha

Liam Russells on Oliver Plunkett Street are apparently renovating their upstairs sale department, and there's an extra 50% off everything up there. I haven't been in yet, but they have quite a good selection of cookery books up there - usually older stock or ones that are discounted from the publishers from the start, but I've spotted some great ones up there in the past.

Animord

I have The Songs of Sapa on my coffee table in the sitting room - such a glorious book and I have never cooked anything out of it. It is truly shameful and I publically declare that I am going to actually cook something from it in the next two weeks. Well, soon anyway.

In fact I am going to make a New Year resolution to cook from the cookery books I own rather than use the internet all the time.

Who is with me?

Princess Peach

Minder wrote: »

I started with a shelf in a small bookcase.
Then a couple of shelves.
Then the bookcase was full up.
So I bought another bookcase.
Then another.
I've catalogued 570 cookbooks on LibraryThing - that was in 2012.
Waiting on a delivery tomorrow.

I am addicted to reading cookbooks. I read through my own while I eat my meals, and love nothing more when visiting someone's house than to flip through any interesting cookbooks they own.

Can I come over?

GoodBridge

I brine 4 euro chickens and tell visitors they're organic

misslt

Also can't poach an egg...for myself. If I'm doing one for himself, it will come out perfect, when I do my own, I just can't.

also use bisto and oxo cubes for everything!

aaaaand I think the Very Lazy garlic and chili and ginger is the best invention EVER.

duploelabs

I'm a professional chef and I can't remember the last time I made a Roux with butter

Animord

duploelabs wrote: »

I'm a professional chef and I can't remember the last time I made a Roux with butter

You make it with something else? or you don't make it?

GHOST MGG

been a professional chef for over 20 years with a msc in culinary arts and currently studying towards a phd in molecular gastronomy and for the life of me everytime i make a chocolate fondant i can never get it exactly right with my first mix..just one of those things..arghhh

5unflower

Salad dressings! For a while I was convinced I would some day master the art of making a vinaigrette and tried and tried and tried...I have now resigned myself to the fact that salad dressings in my kitchen will always come from a package. I usually stock up on Knorr Salatkrönung when in Germany, which is a dried mixture that is mixed with water and oil and tastes like a dressing should taste. The real confession about this is that I have on occasion lied about this to my guests who were amazed by the nice dressing...

duploelabs

GHOST MGG wrote: »

been a professional chef for over 20 years with a msc in culinary arts and currently studying towards a phd in molecular gastronomy and for the life of me everytime i make a chocolate fondant i can never get it exactly right with my first mix..just one of those things..arghhh

Only just lost the perfect Fondant recipe that never failed, but I was the same as this

duploelabs

Animord wrote: »

You make it with something else? or you don't make it?

Just use oil instead of butter, same quantities

dr.bollocko

I've got some really expensive japanese steel knives that I insisted on getting cos I wanted the best. Like hundreds of quid.
Now they're not sharp any more because I don't know WTF to do to sharpen em without destroying em.

I also have a myriad of other crap I NEVER use. Loads a kitchen gadgets. Wasted sitting there.

Also, most of the time I buy recipe books as food porn and never make anything out of them.

homemadecider

dr.bollocko wrote: »

I've got some really expensive japanese steel knives that I insisted on getting cos I wanted the best. Like hundreds of quid.
Now they're not sharp any more because I don't know WTF to do to sharpen em without destroying em.

I invested in a really good Japanese steel Santoku knife last year. My confession is that when my OH got it sharpened by our local butcher recently it was WAY TOO SHARP and I cut myself about 4 times in a week! I've told my OH not to sharpen my knife anymore, I like it slightly blunted so I don't chop my fingers off

Lovely Bloke

homemadecider wrote: »

I invested in a really good Japanese steel Santoku knife last year. My confession is that when my OH got it sharpened by our local butcher recently it was WAY TOO SHARP and I cut myself about 4 times in a week! I've told my OH not to sharpen my knife anymore, I like it slightly blunted so I don't chop my fingers off

:eek: Why have I never thought about this.

We got a decent set of knives from my chef friend as a wedding present, and I was afraid to open or use them because I hadn't a clue how to sharpen them.

Now, I use the honing steel before I use them every time and they're in pretty good nick still. I can actually feel the difference if I don't use it. I've been worried about when I actually need them sharpened, what I'd do.

You've given me a really good idea there, thanks.