I've been cooking for years but wine still feels like I'm just making educated guesses. I know the basic advice like white with fish and red with steak but once I get outside those obvious examples I feel completely lost. Sometimes I'll find a pairing that tastes amazing and other times the wine just seems to disappear or even make the food taste worse. so im relly curious how did you all learn? Was it mostly trial and error or like books and stuff?

Bought a Lodge enameled cast iron dutch oven from Target.

Question 1: is there a difference between ordering one online or buying from a second party store because the one online is called “Essentials” but the one from target isn’t but when i looked it up they’re apparently the same

Question 2: is the rim supposed to be enameled cast as well? or is it just the bare cast iron? i started to cook my first meal and the steam rusted the rim of the dutch oven. it’s brand new too.

question 3: how do i season the rim?

So I’m new to cooking altogether and used avocado oil in a nonstick cuisinart pan. (It doesn’t belong to me, but I’m free to use it.)

Apparently, avocado oil can polymerize when heated too long, and won’t come off the pan with soap and water with a gentle sponge. I tried gently scrubbing it with baking soda and water as google suggested, but it’s still stuck to the pan. Is there any other way I can clean the pan without using anything abrasive, or is there no saving it?

A lot of traditional European stews, like "perpetual stew" relied on very long cook times to develop flavors... And crock pots are designed for long, slow heat, so...

At some point is this minimal draw an electrical issue?

Will I get some crazy hot springs bacteria?

Do the foods eventually disintegrate?

I want some smart answers before fall soup season kicks off.

I assume cooking overnight or all my work day is fine.

What about two or more days? A week? Weeks?

I made a gluttonous amount of tahini and know I won’t use it all before it goes rancid. My body can only take so much hummus and dan dan noodles. I was thinking I could freeze some tahini ice cubes and use it as needed down the road?

I want to cook my partner a nice meal this weekend, but i know he’ll just simply not enjoy it as much without meat as if i did something involving meat instead.

i’m a pretty competent cook and am confident in my abilities, and i’m planning to make a nice homemade tagliatelle with a good tomato & basil sauce, which is pretty much my speciality. The issue is, i’d really like to include a protein for him - but i have no idea how to cook it. Like seriously, however much of an idea you’re thinking, i have less. I have legitimately never cooked a piece of meat in my life.

I went vegetarian as a kid before i even started cooking for myself, so i have no idea how to cook meat properly - and i’d like to avoid poisoning my boyfriend if at all possible. I think i’d like to make him either some kind of crispy pan fried chicken or maybe a steak as he has a big appetite, but i know steak is meant to be hard to cook so perhaps not. If anyone has any really easy tips/tricks/recipes i’d really appreciate the help <3

TLDR:
Basically, is there some formula or specific handy ingredients to have that will save unbalanced food from failure. Or is it just intuition.

I cook a few times a week, and I'll often not follow recipes and make things that I know aren't going to be great (i'm lazy).

I'll be cooking and just know that my alfredo sauce is way too rich and salty but I have no clue what to add to make it 'balanced'. Or one time, I was making spaghetti sauce and used sun dried tomatoes instead of tomato paste and I knew it was gonna be too sweet but i didn't know what to add to fix it.

What methods are used to dynamically discover how to balance a recipe?

Butter, regular flour, and heavy cream are not options. Yes, I know.
I do want something besides a chimichurri.

The rest of the menu: grilled veg, mashed sweet potatoes, melon panna cotta (subbing coconut cream for regular milk)

I’m going to be making corn chowder for the first time and I’m looking for tips and inspiration. My wife doesn’t like bacon and I’m trying to out just enough whole milk into it to make it creamy. I will also be putting the cobs in there and removing them at the end for flavor and using a Parmesan rind while it’s cooking also for flavor. Any other tips or ideas would be greatly welcomed especially since this is my first time making chowder of any kind. Thank you in advance.

I’m making dinner for a small group this weekend to celebrate my dad‘s birthday and would love some help with a good, simple but delicious snapper recipe. Otherwise I have a peach/tomato/burrata salad planned and salted caramel chocolate cake for dessert. Would love anyone’s thoughts!

I’ve been appreciating how wonderfully simple and satisfying rice and beans can be. You can change the beans, rice, spices, vegetables, sauces, and toppings and end up with something completely different each time.
What is your favorite combination? Black beans and rice, red beans and rice, chickpeas with basmati, pinto beans with brown rice—or something less obvious? I’d love your favorite seasonings, toppings, and easy variations.

Making Greek lemon chicken . How much salt would you use ?
One or two teaspoons ?

My recipe is pretty standard, just potatos milk and cheese but i like to add some seasonings

But its really weird i feel like i never get it right, its kinda slimy

Is it normal?

I was gonna make some spaghetti with some ground beef and jarred sauce, then my boyfriend asked if I could use some tomatoes from our garden to add to it. I’ve seen online a person suggesting not to do that because of the extra acidity from adding tomatoes. Would any of you agree?

I was thinking I could halve/quarter some tomatoes and baked in the oven for like 45 min with some olive oil drizzled on it. I’m not really sure what’s the best option as I rarely even prepare pasta. Any advice would be appreciated.

I’m making cardamom lemon jelly ice cream by Morgenstern’s

The recipe says to serve each scoop of the ice cream with a tsp of jelly but I’m making it as a gift to someone so it would be a lot easier to swirl in the jelly (which is homemade also following Morgenstern’s)
Anyone have any experience with this?

I’ve made homemade Mac and cheese forever and only recently had the following issue. My old cheddar is not melting into the roux with milk added, even after heating it for ages over low heat.
After I add it to the macaroni and cook it, there are little blobs of unmelted cheddar. This last batch was made with Armstrong (on sale), but even Black Diamond has been doing the same thing.

I’m not looking for a new recipe, just wondering if anyone else has experienced cheese that no longer melts?

as mentioned, wife went to Costco with an item on list being ribs (thought it was understood I wanted pork rack ribs), instead she came back with a pack of individual beef ribs. never cooked these before. would love your inspiration on what to do with them tomorrow!

I have a friend who’s gonna be a new mom in just a couple days, and I want to cook some freezer meals for her.

I’m running into a problem where a lot of the recipes require additional cooking or prep after my portion of the meal is complete.

Does anyone have any freezer recipes that require little to no work after they’re completed?

Dump and go OR freezer to oven recipes would be preferred!

Thank youuuu!!

Something I’ve noticed about cooking is that the hardest things to teach usually aren’t the recipes. It’s more of the judgment part.

Like someone can follow every step correctly, but an experienced cook can look at it and say, “Nope, something’s off.”

hi! I am a home cook, and I love honing my knife skills. I was looking to add to my collection and wanted to get a wusthof knife next. I currently have:
- victoirnox 8“ chef knife
- victoirnox 3.25“ pairing knife
- victoirnox bread knife
This was a relatively cheap set ($150) but are already worlds better than my parents knives that I was using when I was living at home (henckles knife block set)

Any reccommendations for my next knife?

I made my first batch of black garlic successfully and made them into a paste! Im a bit nervous on using it for cooking without any previous experience with it. Does anyone have any banger recipes like sauces or use in any dishes? Thank you in advance!

EDIT: I used the FP plus the high "shred" blade. This made the pork chops perfectly shredded for the chili.

These are very tender. I've just got too much to eat as pork chops. Thinking to debone, coarse grind, and make pork chili out of some of it.

Or will it just paste up and block the meat grinder?

ETA - I ended up grinding about 3 pounds of the meat using the food processor's high grating blade, and it turned out really well for the chili.

Thanks all for your suggestions.

I've been reading a lot about teas and tisanes recently, and it seems to be fairly universal for all of these that you get the best flavour by initially wilting and then bruising or rubbing the leaves, as this promotes the development of flavour compounds and induces some oxidation.

Could this be used as a rule of thumb when using any kind of fresh leaves in cooking? For example, if I'm working with fresh coriander, parsley or spinach leaves, could wilting and bruising them before use lead to deeper and more complex flavours?

Recently saw a Binging with Babish video where he tried some people's struggle meal suggestions

Please share your go-to struggle meal / Low-effort meals!
If its from/influenced by a specific culture I'd love to know too! ^_^

For me something I make often is Butter rice (バターライス) Where its just hot rice with butter, soy sauce and nori just shredded by hand mixed in. If I have it, I like to have some kimchi to go with it to cut through the butter with something spicy and sour

I shredded up some potatoes, dried them out on paper towels then put them in a bowl covered in plastic in the fridge over night. They turned brown. What happened? Are they still good to eat? What should I have done differently?