cook's profile


STARGAZER8383
 
Living In: Detroit, Michigan, USA
Member Since: Jun. 2006
Cooking Level: Intermediate
Cooking Interests: Baking, Stir Frying, Slow Cooking, Asian, Mexican, Indian, Italian, Healthy, Quick & Easy, Gourmet
Hobbies: Scrapbooking, Hiking/Camping, Photography, Reading Books, Music
About this Cook
I am 24, and have been cooking for as long as I can remember. My challenge now is to scale back from cooking for a family of 6 (or 5 roommates!) and master cooking one serving at a time. I'm also very health-conscious and love modifying rich dishes into healthy ones, and finding new ways to cook my newly-discovered love - vegetables! I'll never give up the cheesecake and cookies; now they're just made with neufchatel, whole grains and applesauce. :)
My favorite things to cook
As much as I love new, creative recipes, I think I get the most joy out of the comfort foods. My boyfriend raved for days over my meatloaf, and a friend begs me constantly for chicken and dumplings after I made it for a dinner party. Being relatively new to living on our own, I love giving my friends a reminiscent taste of home.
My favorite family cooking traditions
My dad did a lot of the cooking when I was growing up, and I loved helping him out in the kitchen. His recipes are famous in our family; I felt so honored to get to dump the raisins in the stuffing or choose which nuts went in that batch of Christmas fudge.
My cooking tragedies
At 17, I learned the hard way that if you over-whip cream, you get butter. I was so proud of the prospect of beautiful mounds of fresh whipped cream topping my made-from-scratch caramel-pecan pie, and subsequently devastated when I had to make a last-minute switch to Cool Wip. I'll never make that mistake again!
Recipe Reviews 17 reviews
Corned Beef Hash Cakes
I had the total opposite problem of most reviewers - my mixture was FAR too wet to make patties out of! I did add the egg AND use instant mashed potatoes and that must be the difference... I wonder how dry other people's potatoes must be that the cakes a) can be formed at all and b) crumble upon cooking. I added some frozen shredded hash browns to give mine some more bulk, then just glopped it on the griddle like really thick pancake batter. The egg helped them crisp up on the outside so they still flipped nicely... went over well at my office's weekly team breakfast!

0 users found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Mar. 18, 2009
Corn and Black Bean Salad
yum! the dressing has a great mild, sweet flavor... next time I might add some red pepper flakes to kick it up a little though. I added fresh chopped tomatoes, avocado, black olives and a squeeze of lime juice which I think bring this up to 5 stars.

0 users found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Jan. 18, 2009
Cashew Crusted Chicken
hmm... tasted good, even after I modified based on what I had on hand (orange marmalade, yellow mustard with a little horseradish) but the cashews didn't stick at all. good enough to try again though, so next time I'll try grinding the nuts in a coffee grinder rather than chopping them. I also thought it needed salt, even with salted nuts. it went really well with Sugared Asparagus (from this site).

0 users found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Jan. 13, 2009
 
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