We had a soft cover how-to-make-bread book from Borders years ago, and it just gave instructions on making three scaled down bread recipes, then making ropes, braiding them, turning the ends under, an egg wash after letting the loaf rise, and bake. Took a while, lots of ingredients, but not hard to do at all. :).
This weekend I made myself an egg salad sandwich for the first time. Very easy, of course. Over the years, I’d had a few from vending machines at work when I was there late. But the last home-made egg salad sandwich I had must’ve been when I was in high school, made by my mother.
When my kids were young we made a lot of stuff once for the experience. We researched at the library then tried it out. Coconut creme pie from a coconut that involved my husband and a machete. It was wonderful. Pumpkin pie from a pumpkin was good but not wonderful. We made graham crackers, ritz and soda crackers, glazed donuts, Easter leg of lamb, Christmas goose, cream puffs, kugel, dumplings, breads of various kinds, ravioli,…Anything you can think of. Most dessert was too labor intensive to repeat, but all experiments were pretty successful except for the Chinese food. Dang, the egg rolls looked fine but meh. We didn’t buy wrappers. We made them ourselves and nope. The other food was OK, but salinqmind is right. There is a reason for all those Chinese restaurants.
I make General Tso’s Chicken once a year for our traditional homemade Jewish Christmas. The sauce is easy–vinegar, sugar, soy, garlic, ginger, black pepper and chiles. The fried nuggets are a pain if you don’t have much experience deep frying. Use boneless thighs because breast meat chunks are overcooked by the time the batter is done.
Speaking of frying, I made crispy salt and pepper shrimp for the first time ever. Start with shrimp still with the shell. Dry them out on a towel, like really dry, as dry as you can. Toss with cornstarch, salt, and pepper. Then fry whole with the shell still on. If you get a hot enough pan the shell turns crispy and crunchy and delicious and you eat the whole thing shell and all. If the pan/oil is not hot enough, the shell turns soggy and rubbery and disgusting. So hotness is key.
A couple of weeks ago I made Chicken Fajitas for the first time. It had just never occurred to me to try this before.
I made duck breast for the first time Sunday. Came out a little less pink than I intended, but it was still juicy, the skin was reasonably crispy and overall I was pleased.
I have about 5 things that I can make successfully on rotation, anything else I am usually making it for the first time. Most recent was Paprika Chicken. Tried to find the recipe to link, but with no luck. It was just baked chicken with tons of paprika, thyme, rosemary, butter and lemon.
But the drippings smelled so good that I couldn’t bear to throw them out, so I made my first ever pan gravy. Just simmered with a little more butter, didn’t even need to add starch because it thickened during the simmer. MAN it was good, and I think being an accident made it even better! We poured it over the chicken and the accompanying pierogies as well.
Last week I made jerky for the first time. Marinated in teriyaki and soy sauce overnight, then into the oven at 170 with the door cracked for 4 hours. Came out just okay; I should have sliced the beef thinner and taken it out earlier, but it was a good lesson for next time. I still ate it all.
That is just what I came here to post about!! I always thought it would be some difficult, esoteric, foreign specialty item that I could never master, but lo and behold, it was so easy I make it all the time now. I always keep chicken stock in the freezer, so all I do is thaw that out and add the additional ingredients. I agree about the 20 min simmer, because you want the flavors there, but subtly. I don’t add noodles to mine, I like it pristine. I invested in a set of those little bowls and porcelain spoons that Oriental restaurants use and serve it in those. People think I’m a very deft cook indeed! lol
I recently made creamy polenta with sausage mushroom ragu and garlic fried spinach. Everything in the dish was new to me.
It was simultaneously the easiest and fanciest dish of food I have ever made.
Who knew that polenta was so easy to make? Easier than rice.
I may have mentioned before the first time I cooked for my gf. I made her osso bucco and it was fantastic. We were sitting around finishing the second bottle of wine and she asked how hard it was to make the meal.
Although it was time consuming, it was technically fairly simple. The only difficult part was finding the veal shanks. I had to drive an hour to get them.
Turns out she hadn’t recognized the veal. She didn’t eat veal. She had problems with the very idea of veal. 
Not exactly first time, but it made an enormous difference in my cooking life when, not long ago, I realized I should treat orzo like rice, not like pasta. Next time I might treat it like risotto.
An aunt shared one of those quick videos, showing how to make Dutch babies. (Curiously, the recipe does not call for any actual Dutch babies. 
) It reminded me of the German apple pancakes I had as a kid in the early-'70s. I think the restaurant was Ricky’s in Clairemont (San Diego), but it may have been another place.
So I found this recipe, and made German apple pancakes for the first time today. They turned out great! 
The cookbook I have says that German Babies can be substituted if Dutch Babies are not available. The German ones are a little plumper, not quite as stringy, but still very good. If you can get a German baby from the lower-lying regions of the country, there is hardly any difference at all!
I made a couple of new Christmas cookies this year. One was called a ‘pizzette’, which is a chocolate Italian concoction. Chocolate, almonds, coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. and dipped in a chocolate glaze, then sprinkled with coarse sugar.
The dough was extremely wet and messy. The recipe glibly called for rolling up the dough, then flattening it some and bias-cutting into cookies. HAH! It kept collapsing in a blob and trying to crawl off the counter. I was finally able to get some sort-of cookie shapes out of it, but after baking and glazing, they looked a bit like something you would pick up off your lawn. Good, though.
The other was the orange version of this recipe. They’re very nice, with a bright flavor.
After Thanksgiving, I made turkey tikka masala for the first time. It was excellent.
When a Dutch man and a Dutch woman love each other very much . . .
I learned of, and found the recipe for Dutch babies here on the dope. It’s a several times of year, special breakfast staple at the Butler household.
I’m a good bread baker, but was terrified of making pita bread for years. Turns out it’s super easy. It’s become a regular event now, if we’ve a couple of hours before we want to eat.
This year for Christmas eve, I made a new recipe. Kringle from the King Arthur site. It was a huge success, and I could see a fair number of minor changes to make it in several different ways.
Tried making some coconut macaroons for Christmas. Turned out okay, but I need to refine a few things. The outsides got too dry, and I tried to drizzle some chocolate over them for effect, but it was too thick; I need to bake them less, and put my chocolate in a squeeze bottle or something for proper drizzling.
So I needed some chicken thighs for the jambalaya last month. I was in Costo, and I ended up with a metric buttload of bone-in, skin-on Foster Farms chicken thighs. I thawed a packet out, and it contained two good-sized, and two smaller pieces. So…
Balsamic Chicken Thighs
Brown the chicken on both/all sides in a little olive oil. Reduce the heat, cover, and cook for about 25 minutes (until done). Add some minced onions and minced garlic, and cook for two or three minutes. Deglaze the pan with some white wine (I have some dry sherry in the fridge), add some balsamic vinegar and cook, uncovered, until reduced. Put some sauce on top, too.
We had it with rice cooked in chicken stock with mixed veg, and asparagus
As a bonus ‘It’s The First Time I Made This’ entry, I have scratch-made brownies in the oven. (Normally, I just use a boxed mix.)
I had bought a cute little oval baking dish on sale at Marshall’s, and wanted to bake something in it. I chose blueberry crumble, which I had never made before. I wanted crispy, pastrylike crumbs rather than soft crumbly crumbs, so I found an appropriate recipe online.
It was extremely good, but next time I’ll add a lot less sugar to the crumble on top. The crumble was as sweet as very sweet cookies, and I wanted them more pie crust-like.
So next time it will be:
1 cup flour
1/3 cup mixed white and brown sugar (not 1 full cup like the recipe called for)
1/2 cup butter
pinch salt
couple of drips of vanilla
Rub it all together, then mix in a splash of buttermilk to make the crumbs stick together slightly. Drop them in little wads and bunches all over the top of sweetened fruit in a baking dish and bake.