When you cook, what do you cook?
 

I have travelled quite a bit and eaten in restaurants in many different countries, but am curious about what people around the world like to cook for a typical meal when they are at home. I'm not talking takeout or heating up a frozen dinner. I mean, when you're cooking from scratch, for yourself or your family (not a formal dinner party or anything), what do you enjoy making and eating? I'm not looking for recipes here, but at least a little detail please (e.g., if you make roast chicken and potatoes and salad, what do you like to season the chicken with, how do you prepare your potatoes, and what kind of greens/salad dressing do you use?) Just hoping to get some cooking inspiration and maybe add a little zest to my regular reperoire. Also please say where you live. Thanks.<BR>

I like to make lasagna, and besides adding beef and cheese to it, I like to add spinach. I also like to make beef stroganoff, and many chicken dishes. I especially like to use marinades. One of my other favorites is to make chicken enchiladas from scratch. Sometimes I also pull my wok out and make various Chinese dishes. <BR><BR>Years ago, I used to go to a friend of mine's mother's home for Easter dinner. She always used to make roast potatoes. The family is Italian. Even though I have the family's recipe, I was never able to get my roast potatoes to taste like my friend's mother's. I even used the same type of potatoes, but I think it had something to do with the gas stove they have, and mine have always been electric.

We eat mostly fish and salads. A favorite is broiled Chilian Sea Bass. I use but an arrangement of differant kinds of lettuce along with broccoli, calflower, beans, cucumbers, grape tomotoes,& walnuts. Or... meat (grilled lamb, steak, chops) with veggies or salad. Tonight it's grilled tuna with a sauce made of roma tomatoes, capers, onions,& garlic over the top. We also like pasta salads with shrimp or crab and brown bread. Everything is served with wine! Yummmmmm We live in Indiana.

We live in NYC.Tonights dinner will be leftovers.I am making a Salmon salad Nicoise with the grilled Salmon we had last night(mixed greens,red onion,hardboiled eggs,boiled potatoes,green beans,and a light lemon vinagrette).And champagne:)<BR>Blueberry buckle(cobbler) for dessert~

Roast chicken - sometimes I stuff it with a couple of lemons; sometimes I rub it with Moroccan spices; sometimes I poke sage leaves under the skin; sometimes I stuff it with celery, carrots and onins, and roast it with potatoes, onions and bay leaves.<BR><BR>Red beans and rice - finally found a decent andouille, otherwise, a good Italian sausage.<BR><BR>Pasta and sauce - sometimes it's homemade marinara (canned tomatoes, oregano, the usual onions, peppers, garlic, fresh basil right at the end); sometimes a cream sauce with mushrooms and onions.<BR><BR>Thick porkchops (those skinny ones are good for stirfry) or pork loin - marinated in apple juice or cider, onions, garlic, Chinese Five spice powder, soy sauce.<BR><BR>And, sometimes, I make a giant sandwich with baby greens, good tomatoes, onions, peppers and good deli meat on a hoagie roll.

We only eat fish and chicken.In the summer we grill as much as we can.That would be chicken ,fish,portabellos,onions,all of which are good in a meal or as elvira does, in a sandwich,we like ours on foccacia bread.<BR>My husband makes a mean spaghetti with lobster sauce.<BR>I make the easy things, salads with everything in them,chicken roasted with potatoes and carrots and lots of spices.<BR>But I am the baker in the house, so there are usually home made desserts.<BR>Tonight is salad,olives,goat cheese,olive bread,and dessert will be mango sorbet with lemon cookies.

You people are making me hungry, but Elvira wins. What time should I come over, Elvira?

Just got back from the Farmers Market so tonight we are have marinated cucumber and onions, roasted beets, squash and chicken on the grill with cantaloupe for dessert. We both like to cook and we usually like to use seasonal products. Tomorrow I am picking blueberries at the local blueberry farm so...

Our garden is just beginning to bear here in Alabama, so, of course, every day we have some of what was picked that day. Right now, lots of green beans, yellow squash, okra, and, glory of grories, tomatoes! We have Romas, cherries, grapes, and regular ones. Our main course is usually grilled (almost anything, but recently shrimp, catfish, pork ribs, chicken, etc.) We also like to grill the vegetables in a basket over the hot coals--a little olive oil, some onions, maybe mushrooms, and fresh basil added. The corn (Silver Queen, the best!) is not ready yet. The raspberries have come and gone, and the blueberries are just turning that beautiful dusty silver blue and should be ready very soon. Yum!<BR>

Tonight I'm picking up Thai to go with champagne (french) ... my partner and I've been burning the candle at both ends, trying to work, travel and help USA win. So, tonight it's restorative food and what I anticipate to be some raher funky dreams. The back breaker was the cat's urinary tract thing today - helped me decide to start it off with a martini. If it had been up to me, I'd have fixed him a cranberry cocktail of some sort. Have a good evening all.

The ol' standby is broiled chicken parts with lemon/pepper spice, rice pilaf and an interesting salad with lots of different additions. For father's day made hubbie's favorite, fried chicken with the broccoli salad recipe from one of the fodorite's GTG, yum, and the mushrom on toasted baguette, also from this site. Made swordfish recently and added a tablespoon of sherry and basted with lemon/butter sauce. The sherry gave it a nice bite! Since I live in Ct and have a three hour commute!! four days a week, dinner is usually VERY simple and often delivered. Try to make more interesting meals on the weekends.

Bobbie<BR>Would you mind sharing the broccoli salad recipe? and Alex the roasted beets? Thanks!!

I try to recreate a dish I had in Florence, but it never seems to taste the same.... <BR><BR>Put a layer of arugula on a plate and sprinkle it with olive oil. Next place a perfectly grilled porterhouse steak that has marinated in olive oil and garlic. Next a layer of shaved Parmigiano Reggiano, and then finally a sprinkling of lemon juice.

Get a whole chicken and rub it inside and out with butter, add Chinese Five Spice over the top, pour a little orange juice inside and outside of chicken. Cover with salt, pepper, orange slices and you can put some orange slices inside too. Put it in a medium/low temp oven and let roast for a few hours. Add more OJ if it gets dry. Delicious with greens and rice that has been cooked with a little OJ and almonds in the water.

A version of chicken with oranges, or pollo con naranjas. Dust chicken pieces with plenty of cinnamon and clove, brown, set aside. Saute every onion you own (and most of the garlic) till almost brown, put the chicken on top, add a cup (250 ml or so) of orange juice, cover and simmer for 45 min. or so. Garnish with orange slices and serve over rice. Goes well with a Marguerita but then what doesn't?

Jeez, Suzanne. Didn't read yours when I wrote mine. Pass the OJ and a drumstick, okay?

Maybe we should get together, John, and have an orange chicken extravaganza, all Fodorites invited, your place or mine?

Dinner tonight was pasta with fresh tomatoes (from the market), garlic (from my neighbor's garden) and basil (from my herb garden) followed by a roasted pork filet coated in garlic and herbs from the garden (oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, chives, parsley) and drizzled with local olive oil. <BR><BR>Green salad with a walnut oil vinaigrette to accompany the cheeses - roquefort, salers and a young goat cheese. Local red wine( Mas d'Eole) <BR><BR>I live in Maussane-les-Alpilles in Provence.<BR><BR>Patricia

PB,I am skipping the salad and just hopping on a plane,we will be there for dinner!<BR>Sounds too good to miss:o)

Grilled pork tenderloin (the other white meat) marinated in olive oil and rosemary. <BR><BR>Served rosemary with grilled yellow and red bell peppers, vidlaia onions, zuchini squash and portabello mushrooms that have been marinated in olive oil and herbs de Provence.<BR><BR>Grilled corn on the cob, soaked in water, and grilled with the husks on.<BR><BR>For starters, grilled French bread with chevre cheese spread on the bread and black olives.<BR><BR>Washed down with a nice Chateauneuf du Pape.<BR><BR>All in all, mighty tasty!<BR><BR>US