Let everyone know your secret to cooking any kind of food.
Since I can’t cook, I don’t have any valuable secrets. Ya’ll are going to have to do most of the leg work here.
Chocolate chip cookies?
Crisco.
I’ve been told I make kick ass chili, and it seems to be true, as I regularly sell it at $5 a quart.
I can’t give you a recipe for it, as I change it according to my mood, what I have handy, and what my financial situation is, but there are 2 things that stay the same. I always put in 2 cups of chopped banana peppers, and a stick of cinnamon. I leave it in a slow cooker for 8 hours or so, and remove the cinnamon stick before serving. It gives the chili a sweet & spicy tang that it would otherwise lack.
Powdered cinnamon won’t work either. It’s got to be a stick of cinnamon.
Anything savory?
About half a cup of white wine.
Meat?
…There’s two ways to do it:
Super Hot, Quick, and Dry
or
Low Heat, Long, and Moist
(…it’s kind of like good sex)
Also, season your meat well… most people underseason their meat, gotta give a cut a nice massage and crust of seasoning.
sub water for skim milk. the added sugars are well worth the flavor/texture boost.
Beer instead of water. This holds true for just about everything in the kitchen, if not Life itself.
Want your cakes to be moist? As soon as you take the cake out of the oven put it in the freezer for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours.
Oddly enough, the best spaghetti sauce I’ve ever made had an odd ingredient.
Ground moose meat.
Tasted unique and great in a spaghetti sauce.
When I make macaroni salad I use sweetened condensed milk but with an extra cup of sugar for that special crunch.
Thanks for the tip, Mrs. Palin.
that video made me dry heave.
Acid & salt at the last minute will add a whole lot of zing to any soup/stew/sauce kind of thing. If you’re about to serve it and you taste it and go “Hmm it’s good but it’s not great”, take out a spoonful and sprinkle a little salt on it. Taste. Is it better? Add more salt to the whole thing.
Same thing with acid. Try a spoonful with a little bit of vinegar or lemon or lime juice on it. It’s amazing how upping the acid in something will really bring out all the flavors in a dish.
Vegan french toast: about 2 cups vanilla flavored soymilk OR chocolate flavored hazelnut milk
Mashed banana instead of egg
Generous splash of vanilla extract
Generous sprinkling of nutmeg (if using chocolate hazelnut milk, I think coconut is better here)
Brown sugar-just to taste, a little handful for me
Coat all pieces of bread (Ezekiel makes a lot of good vegan breads) thoroughly and fry until golden brown. Top with powdered sugar. Delicious.
Chicken soup: throw in a small beet at the very beginning. It makes the water red at first but after cooking for a while it turns the perfect golden-brown color. It also, somehow, enhances the chicken flavor.
Italian* food.
Keep it simple. Don’t put throw in everything but the kitchen sink. A nice pasta rarely has more than three main ingredients and often just one of two. Spend the time thus saved on find the best quality ingredients.
*This is even more true for the north than for the south, where they have a few very tasty exceptions but then those guys really know what they’re doing.
For the best pancakes ever, make the batter overnight, using only half the amount of buttermilk. When you’re ready to make them, add the rest of the liquid as soda water, mineral water, lemonade or Red Dragon ginger beer (it’s the only one that works properly!)
Oxtails- brown sugar burnt in oil. Seriously. This also works with short and beef ribs but, man, it makes oxtail stew delicious!
Minced kangaroo is great too. And no fat (for anyone who cares!)
When I make sauteed squash, I mix the salt and pepper into the onion (almost as much as squash you’ll have) right after the onion starts to wilt, then after it’s turns golden, add the cubed squash. For some reason, the seasoning takes better.
I also turn off the stove and add minced red, green and yellow peppers and cover. Comes out perfect every time.