How many of you ladies like to cook?

How many of you do cook nourishing meals?

I was asked recently if I preferred cooking in colder/winter or warmer/summer months. My own preference is in the fall and winter. Thats when my tastes for steamy flavorful soups and stews rises. I also enjoy one pot comfort meals that warm the soul as well as the belly!

I enjoy cooking "creative" meals. Hubby likes cooking the "meat-and-potato" meals...and makes the most amazing soups (and he always makes enough to take over to our neighbours). Since we both enjoy everything each other cooks, it works well.

We try to incorporate as much healthy nutrition as possible into every meal. We use a lot of veggies, the more colourful the better.

My favourite time to cook is fall and winter too. My favourites are also the one-pot stews and chili - both are chock full of veggies and herbs. But my all-time favourite creation is my meatloaf. The recipe is based on my Dad's FAMOUS BBQ hamburger recipe (people used to come from miles around when they knew my Dad was making his BBQ hamburgers at the cottage!). We've spent years perfecting it (Dad never wrote it down and never told any of us the secret ingredient) and we think we're as close as we're ever going to get.

If I'm not cooking dinner, I feel disoriented. Even when I went to see my family, I cooked dinner for everyone all but one night. I love various ethnic dishes, and when I'm feeling really energetic will make some of my favorite vegetarian Indian meals -- one of my faves uses cauliflower ground up fine with garlic and onion, and sauteed, and with spices.

I discovered a really easy yummy roast chicken recipe last year and cook that almost every week. I turn it every 15 minutes for about an hour and a half. I like making kung pow chicken. and I have a good recipe for a Moroccan chicken with cous-cous.

Basically, I love food.

When my kids were growing up I baked a lot -- even used to make cream puffs. Now my kids like to cook. Last summer they had a guacamole making contest and an omelet making contest. One son makes browneis, another makes chocolate chip cookies. We have a traditional family birthday cake recipe form my grandmother that my daughter now knows how to make (yellow cake with bittersweet chocolate filling and chocolate frosting).

In summer, I make an easy chicken fajita dish,and an easy tuna-spinach-tomato spaghetti sauce.

My favorite, easy, quick thing to do these days with vegetables is to broil them -- most often I do this with beets, or sweet potatoes or asparagus -- I do it in the toaster over -- slice the potatoes really thin, sprinkle olive oil and salt, and broil for a few minutes. You can also put them on salad when cold. Same with the beets. If I have the beet greens, I cook them separately.

I also love broccoli rabe (rapini), and kale and spinach, sauteed in olive oil with garlic, and then steamed.

Nope, no cook at this house. Just me and I feel like a doggone cook and waitress most days/nights. I've never been interested in cooking and only do it because I have to. Even so, I do cook healthy meals, overall.

I prefer cooking in the summer, because then I can BBQ just about everything!

DJ, all I can say is "mmmmmmmmmm". Everything you mentioned in your post makes my mouth water. I'm especially intrigued by the cauliflower dish...and I've never thought about broiling beets. Beets are one of my faves...but we always boil them, then lightly saute them in butter (gasp) and basil. How long does it take to broil beets?

EH, it's actually rather quick. You slice them really thin into rounds, and spread them out on a tray -- for me it works better in a toaster oven. Drizzle with olive oil and a little salt. Turn them over once to make sure both sides get done evenly. I'd say maybe 15 minutes? 20?

I also chop up the greens (wash well!) and saute garlic in olive oil, add the greens, a little salt, put on the lid. I use a heavy enameled pot. Sometimes I'll mix the beets and the greens together. I've actually taken that to pot luck dinners and people gobble it up. I was amazed by that one.

I've never thought of adding basil to beets, but will try that.

The cauliflower with onion dish is an Indian one called Gobhi Ka Keema. It doesn't look or taste like cauliflower at all when you're done. Oh, it also has ginger, cayenne, cumin, cinnamon, garam masala, tomatoes, and in the end you add tomatoes and yogurt. I bet you could Google that. I have a little Indian cookbook by Smita Chandra -- it's out of print but you could probably find it. Almost everything in it is excellent and relatively simple.

That's how I like to cook greens (broccoli raab, kale, spinach).

I like to cook in all the seasons. I look forward to grilling in the warm weather and having soups and crusty bread in cold weather. Most days, I cook 3 meals a day. I am an old fashion cook by most peoples standards. Nearly all of the things I make are from scratch. I haven't bake a cake from a box in over 30 years.

I too love to cook but what I enjoy the most is trying out recipes I get from friends. DJ, you have my mouth slobbering all over the keyboard. I don't like beets but I'm inclined to try that anyway because it sounds so delish.

I think the season isn't a factor for me. I just love creating. If I had a ranch, which I don't, I would love to hire Chatty, Cookie, and DJ to be the head chefs...boy, wouldn't that be something?!!!

I have always thought it would be fun to take a cooking course, too. Anyone ever done that?

Oh...oh..oh..one more thing. Want to entertain me? Give me a cookbook to read. I got one of Paula Deen's for Christmas and I do love reading it, even if she is fading in my list of "favs."

JJ -- my sister calls it "gastro-p. o. r. n " (especially the magazines with the food photos).

How many times have you bought a magazine purely because of the picture of food on the cover?!! Here's an interesting question...what foods are the most likely to entice you to buy the magazine?

Thats easy, roasts or meats with potatoes and veges all around them. Also any kind of unusual soup. I am a soup nut.

JJ, you can slice the beets very thin as DJ says but wrap them in foil with a little EVOO and some apple slices. Pop into oven. Let cook for about half an hour and open and serve.

EH I had a neighbor who was a food photographer for advertisements. Once you know the tricks, it makes in intriguing to look at t he photo, but you also know how fake the photos are! You've probably heard some of these, like using mashed potatoes for ice cream, and putting marbles in soup. In the US the FTC cracks down on this for TV commercials (well, they used to but I don't know any more) but no one regulates magazine photos. So...maybe those are rubber meats and potatoes?

Cookie, I have to agree with the fish...if I was perusing the magazine rack while waiting in line at the cashier and one mag had a picture of a roast, another had a picture of chocolate cake (or brownies, or cheesecake) and the other had a picture of fish, I admit, as much as I love fish, I would gravitate toward one of the other magazines.

This post reminds me of how much I used to cook and bake. It's when I was a stay at home mom and had time. I read cookbooks and cut, copied and tried many. I also cooked bread from scratch, yeast and all. But I rarely do this any more because life is so full. Now I have to rack my brain to figure out what to make for dinner. URG!

I especially like cooking in the spring and summer. Ross uses the grill and I do veggies and salads. I love that, but this time of year, I'm stuck. I think we had spinach salads with cut up chicken beasts three times last week.

I'm still giggling over DJ's sister's comment. Cookie, I use to take Taste of Home and have a bunch of the annual cookbooks. Do you, or did you collect those, too? I have to admit that they have great recipes...I no longer take the mag, but will pick one up at the grocery store every once in a while.

Anyone besides me use the CALLING ALL COOKS recipes books? I love those.

JJ -- my sister is a stitch, it's true.

I use Epicurious.com -- anyone else?

I don't read cooking magazines or books, so covers won't make any difference. I like cooking in the winter or on cool days because it's too blasted hot in the summer to think about eating hot anything. Everything here is nutritious.

I don't have time to surf cooking sites any more. I ask friends for tried and true recipes. Got one last week for chicken and dumplings which I'll try on a night we're taking dinner to Dad. He's a meat and potatoes kinda guy.

No, I did not/do not get the annual cookbooks. I have thought about it, however. I do have all the magazines that I had subscribed to though. I thumb through them all the time. I finally quit the subscription because I was becoming too obsessive about finding that d*** tooth pick they hid in mag! Drove me crazy when I couldn't find it.

I occasionally get Cooking Light magazine. In past Bon Appetite, etc.

But now if I need a recipe, we check these 2 priority websites:
Cooking Light magazine and epicurious.com (which is Bon Appetite and Gourmet magazine recipes combined together).

However we tend to actively look for a recipe if planning a menu for special occasion (ie. birthday, Christmas, etc.) or if there is a particular local fruit/veg in season that we don't have often but want to try something different.

I do also have a few cookbooks from past..most of it fusion cooking or all traditional ethnic cuisine dishes. But in the end, it's rare I've actually cooked from those books.

But most times, we just draw recipes from our heads and make things up abit. Between the 2 of us, we can draw upon some family-based ethnic dishes that we know off the top of our heads.

A friend of mine got me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated for Christmas. I really like it as it not only gives great recipes in it, but it gives history, instructionals, and great tips. I like reading it from cover to cover. I recently bought one of the hard back copies of Cooking Light's Annual Recipe book at a library sale. It was .25 cents. What a bargain. I'll go back and get more of them, for sure.

Cooking Light - that's what I need!

I once got the annual Southern Living cook books. They were great. All the recipes were scrumptious and the photos of the food made me drool. I recently got rid of some while going through stuff, but saved maybe two of my favorites. The book is a collection of all the reicpes that were in the Southern Living magazine for that year.

I have a freidn who has all fifty million of them - at least it looks like that many on her shelf. She's a darn good cook.

Oh I forgot to mention that I too spent many minutes looking for that darn toothpick, Cookie. Mom and I would make a contest out of it. Whoever found it first, called the other one and taunted them withe info...made them beg for the page number it was on. How funny is that? Sigh...I miss that! Never did win a blasted thing though. Did you?