I thought I’d share some photos of my dinner which is a rice noodle beef stir fry with ingredients from the Japanese supermarket:

Tags: cooking, dinner, japanese food

One of the things that I really need to work on is learning how to cook better. I am just not a natural cook. Even when I follow a recipe, things often turn out only “okay”. I rarely make food that comes out tasting delicious. Despite this, I prefer to cook at home than to dine out because it costs less and it tends to be healthier if you know what you’re doing. Because of this, I think that I should learn to cook a little bit better.

Rice is something that I’m learning how to make better. I don’t know what my problem is but I can never really make rice that tastes great. I often make it too tough or too tender. I’m thinking that a rice cooker would help with this problem so I’ll probably invest in one in the near future. I’ve learned over time that having the right tools in the kitchen makes a big different to good cooking.

I’m also thinking that it would be a good idea to explore different types of rice recipes. For example I was just reading about some different Irish Rice recipes. Most of them include ingredients that don’t appeal to me (like canned cream of mushroom soup) but I found one that has fresh ingredients that sounds pretty good. I’ll have to see if I can actually make it taste right in my own kitchen!

If you’ve got any good rice recipes then send them my way!

Tags: cooking, how to cook rice, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, rice, rice recipes

One of the funnest blog carnivals that I’ve been a part of recently was a blog carnival called Make It From Scratch which, as the name suggests, consists entirely of posts about things that you can make yourself. A number of these posts were recipes for things that you can cook, including my recipe for vegetarian bigos.

Other recipes that can be found through the links at this blog carnival include recipes for almond milk, peanut butter balls, pasta carbonara, fruit tarts, tiramisu, pizza, pecan tassies, chocolate cake, chocolate mousse and even sauteed gourds and Irish potato candies. In addition to these recipes there were some other food and kitchen tips on things like dicing onions and canning.

Food isn’t all that you can make from scratch though. Other cool posts in this carnival were about kitty litter, fabric softener, paper flowers, cork mud mats, recycled Easter baskets and even how to make a chicken waterer. Don’t they all just make you want to go and make something?! That’s what I’m about to go do …

Tags: bigos, blog carnival recipe, cooking, diy, hub pages, kathryn vercillo, make it from scratch