harborshore | I HAVE NO FOOD ICONS. TRAVESTY.

I picked the chocolate cake option for the last question because, well, chocolate cake! But also because if my mother or I cook something that my father doesn't recognize, he throws a hissy fit and won't eat it. My father is, at times, a very adult child. I'm just glad I'm used to it at this point.

Oh god. That would be tiresome, yes. I'm glad you're used to it! And I WILL convert the chocolate cake thing, t'is most delicious.

I fry things a lot! And have actually set fire to parts of kitchens before, but insist on cooking anyway.

Also om nom nom that looks amazing. *_*

So have I! I should have made that question ticky boxes, shouldn't I. :D

IT WAS SO GOOD. I love spring and all the fresh fresh produce that is procurable at decent prices, it's fucking awesome. STRAWBERRIES.

I'm always in favor of recipe swapping! And talking about food/cooking in general. I finally got myself a proper recipe journal (that is, a spiral notebook solely dedicated to adventures in foodstuffs) and I'm having a blast filling it up with goodies. The kitchen is my zen place. ♥

Breakfast today was Life cereal with almond milk and the last of the raspberries. Lunch is leftover baked cheese experiment from last night (consensus: tasty but a bit too lemony) and sugar snap peas. Dinner is still anyone's guess, but since it's Friday, I'll probably go out with besties.

I did want to clarify, though, that I'm not strictly vegetarian, but it was the closest approximation, so I went with it. I've cut out red meat pretty much entirely (I've had it maybe twice in the last six months?), as well as poultry, but I still eat fish, and I could never give up dairy. My love of cheese runs way too deep.

I'm trying to eat more organic and whole foods, and less processed crap, but a) organic is pricey, and b) I can't deny the convenience of mass-produced food products. And my favorite kinds of foods depends a lot on the time of year, I think. Richer, heavier foods in the winter, lots of salads in the summer, etc. But I do really love throwing bits and scraps of leftovers together and making something new and delicious with them. THAT might actually be my favorite kind of food--experiments that go well. :)

Also! I baked a breakfast cake last weekend! And it turned out REALLY yummy, if a little... wet in the center. /o\

Cooking and baking is my destressing activity of choice. It's especially great when you're studying just a little too much, because it's such a different way of working, you know? YAY FOOD.

Well, dairy is okay for vegetarians! The fish is where you don't quite technically qualify. But yeah, I meant that question to be about what all you eat--I barely ever COOK meat, but I eat it. :D After my dietary issues of the last year, there's no way I would cut anything out of my diet (except things that cause an immediate relapse, such as potato chips).

Seasonal is true--processed foods is one of the things more likely to cause a relapse, so I've definitely had to cut them out. As much as I can, anyway. Also, yes experiments!

Huh, what's a breakfast cake?

I think the technically correct term is pescatarian? But sometimes it's just easier to say I'm a mostly-vegetarian who eats fish. :P

I do still get the (very) occasional hankering for red meat, but the last time I indulged it my stomach revolted, so I think abstaining is/was the right call.

And it's SO much easier--for me, at least--to eat better in the summer, when my fave fruits and veg are in season and the produce section of the market is like HEAVEN. The crisper in my fridge is pretty much full to bursting right now. :D

This is the breakfast cake recipe I made--twice now! I think I might whip up another batch of batter tonight and make muffins with it instead of a cake.

God, that looks DELICIOUS. Om nom nom chai.

I can't eat potato chips. I mean, I love them, but eating them makes my stomach go, "uh, no," and kickstarts a relapse of the old troubles. French fries are iffy, but I cannot completely stop eating them, I cannot. The kind of Asian food that doesn't have a lot of sauces works amazingly well, though, so sushi is not out, thankfully.

It still needs a bit of adjustment to my personal taste (more sugar, more spice, maybe some dried cherries?), but it's fabulous recipe.

I had sushi with the fam last night, and my cousins and I were saying how it's hard to feel bad for eating too much of it when it's just grains, fish, and vegetables. I would be the SADDEST if I had to give up sushi. Or french fries, for that matter. :\

My nickname is the microwave gourmet. I loathe using the hob and the oven so I cook everything in the microwave, mostly sort of pan-asian things. Noodles in broth with vegetables, that kind of thing. People tend to be impressed by the kind of meals I can make in the microwave.

Lately I've become quite interested in baking, but my problem is that I'm pretty much phobic of touching eggs. I can eat them just fine, but the idea of touching the shells creeps the fuck out of me. Thus, I'm on the search for simple vegan recipes instead.

Today I've eaten, uh: 1 chocolate poptart, 2 apples, noodles in beef broth with orange peppers. Not sure what I'm going to have for dinner! maybe pizza with aubergine and spinach.

I have some vegan recipes in my journal under the "cranky vegan asshole" tag. also idk if you can get egg replacer in the uk, but it's basically a starch mixture that serves the same binding purpose as eggs, so it works really well for cakes and cookies and whatnot.

*looks mildly horrified* The microwave? Really? That's pretty impressive, actually--I'm pretty much unable to use it for anything but heating leftovers, and even that can go terribly wrong. Pan-asian though, that's awesome. Asian food that isn't enormously spicy/doesn't have a lot of sauces seems to be what works best for my troublesome stomach.

I would STRONGLY suggest you check out

thesamefire's recipes. For a while she was single-handedly enabling my cookie therapy and every recipe she's sent me is both super-adjustable if you're missing ingredients and super-tasty.

Mmmmmmm pizza with aubergine and spinach. Also, you're better at making sure you have fruit than I am. Though it's easier this time of year: om nom nom strawberries.

My answer for "How often do you cook your own food" is because I literally only cook once or twice a week, but I make a week's worth of food at a time.

I also don't count things like "toasting a bagel" or "boiling pasta" as cooking.

So I PREPARE almost all my own meals, probably all but one or two a week.

I should have phrased that better! I was actually thinking about you when I wrote that question.

Ahaha, neither do I. Making toast: does not count.

PS. Lunch: aubergine/red bell peppers/carrot/ginger/garlic/mango chutney with rice in wrap. Potentially also asparagus, haven't decided.

When I do eat...I have terrible, terrible eating habits. I either never do, or I don't eat enough veg/meat.

I live with one vegetarian full time - who, by his own degree, is in charge of most of the cooking - and another part time. It means I often don't eat meat for a few days, which has a bad habit of me becoming anemic. And then my dad spends about three months shoving steak down my throat. And I love steak, but there's only so much a girl can take - especially when she has my issues with rare meat. (I can no longer eat lamb, for example, which sucks, because I love lamb. ;__;)

My granny's mother was a cook in service though, and she taught my granny, who used to cook and bake - especially bake - all the time. Apparently, it's something I've inherited (along with a hell of a lot of other things). Only she was older, and sicker by the time I started, so I'm feeling this out myself. And that is all long hand for, I would love to see recipes you have, especially for baking, because that's where my heart truly lies. :D I've thought of opening a cake shop, every now and then.

Um. I realise you didn't ask for all this. In my defence, I've just had tea. (Double-posting is always acceptable.)

Wait, what about supplements? And seriously, if you're having vegetarian meals, there are totally ways of making sure you have enough iron. Unless you're actually anemic all the time, in which case you should be having supplements. *frets*

A sandwich/cake shop is something I've totally thought of opening. Never very seriously (it would involve getting up too early, oh lord), but man, it would be a lot of fun.

Oh, no hon, don't worry about it. Those days only come around once every month or so, usually between big shops. Normally I'll have something. Even if it is only a few slices of bacon at lunch - red meat, right? :)

(Besides, I've seen those iron supplements, because my dad takes them sometimes, and those things are disgusting. I'd rather just take the sugar-coated ones the doctors give me when I go to them. I know it sounds silly, but I have issues with pills. :/)

There is that. On the other hand, I could do with the motivation.

(Who is that in your icon? She looks awfully familiar. Also, kudos. ^___^)

Well now I'm hungry! I'm totally serious about stealing you and making you cook for me, you know. ♥

I cook once a week and my mum cooks from scratch once or maybe twice a week and the rest of the time we live on ready meals from the supermarket - I used to eat way better when I was uni because we'd cook properly ever night in order to avoid studying!

You can steal me any time, I was serious about that too. ♥

I have a lot of super-easy recipes, actually--one being the asparagus pasta I think I told you about, in which you basically don't have to do much at all and it takes about fifteen minutes and is SO DELICIOUS. Again, not adverse to being stolen, but, you know.

I'm not allowed ready-made meals--processed foods make my stomach thing worse, so in order to, like, keep eating milk chocolate, I'm cutting out as much other things as I can.

(deleted comment)

Did you always do that, or is that a thing you started doing later?

i LOVE when people post about food! even if it's about how badly they eat. i just find it fascinating! i think it's the mamabear in me. :P

basically we are omnivores, but i have kids with diet restrictions (no gluten or dairy) which affects everything, and then i'm also a bit of a whacko herby type so am big on eliminating chemicals and colours and preservatives and sugar blah blah yawn.

however, that means that the food you described there looks AWESOME. i love fresh, good food. a lot of the meals we have are just plain plates full of vegies. YUM!

and i get really excited about good strawberries. mmmmmmm!

Dude, eliminating super-processed foods is GREAT. The real stuff tastes so much better! :D It's a luxury though--living in a place where that's accessible and cheaper than the processed crap.

Me tooooo. I like meat, but I rarely cook it for myself.

I have some in the fridge again, god, so amazingly good.

we are lucky to have access to such great fresh food. there are two farms around here that specialise in chemical free and 'almost chemical free' fruit and veg. all the other stuff is way more expensive, but i just try and limit that and cook mainly fresh. plus we hardly ever ever eat out which brings the cost down a lot.

it's one of my biggest stresses, though. how much money we spend on food. /o\

I love cooking! I made this ridiculous custard tart with fresh raspberries last week (six egg yolks in the pastry alone!) and the week before, my first ever swiss roll.

And I also love making anything with yeast. And stews. And I like doing a roast, because it makes me feel like a proper cook, but I don't get the chance to massively often. I love the zen of risotto-making, the joy in really simple dishes and the satisfaction in doing with complicated.

I LOVE that kind of baking, that's awesome. *bites lip* Do you have the recipe accessible? The chocolate cake thing I talked about above has three eggs in the cake part and two yolks in the frosting, and oh my god, it's the best thing in the world. Real butter too, om nom nom.

Stews and soups are awesome--I love cooking you can just leave to itself for an hour or so. I've never been able to cook meat really well, so I'm intrigued by the roast thing, as well as the risotto, just because I've never tried to make a real one but have done fake versions with leftover rice.

I cook probably 3-5 times a week, where cook means preparing something from scratch, not popping something in the oven. I usually end up doing the oven thing lately.

a quick and easy and super tasty recipe is this lemon chicken spaghettini > http://food.chatelaine.com/Recipes/View/Lemon_Chicken_Spaghettini

nom!

Sometimes time just isn't on our side! I'm not allowed ready-made meals, super-processed foods set off relapses, so I resort to things like "tuna omelette" or sandwiches when I don't have time.

That looks AWESOME. I did a thing with frying asparagus and lemon and then adding the pasta to the frying pan--delicious.

I always like to see new recipes. I can convert as I need although I'm in favour of a cake recipe. I really like cooking even though I'm finding some of it a challenge because of my increasing list of voluntary dietary restrictions.

An omnivore with voluntary diet restrictions? :D Yeah, all restrictions are challenging, for sure. I shall convert and post the cake recipe, it's seriously amazing.

In January I knew I had to do something to get healthy so changed my eating habits. No sugary stuff, chocolate, crisps etc. Since then I've been cooking much more often. I can't say I enjoy it as such but I don't hate it. I eat a load more fruit and vegetables, too.

Fresh pineapple, nom nom nom.

That's awesome! The fruit and vegetables, I mean. Isn't that part great this time of year? So much good stuff! And thank GOD healthy doesn't mean boring, necessarily. I once watched some sort of TV show where they were changing people's eating habits, and everything they got to eat was disgusting. Meanwhile I stared at my avocado sandwich and wondered a little.

I have fresh strawberries in the fridge, and I just found out they're not required for tonight. Mmmmmm.

Trufax: I am incapable of cooking any Chinese food at all. /o\ Pasta and pizza are the easiest things in the world to make! Any thing else, not so much.

Now I'm hungry again.

Hee, really? OH YOU. I think I could do Chinese food the way my advisor in college does it--lots of frying, basically. But it wouldn't be as good as when she does it, seriously. That woman is a brilliant cook.

I shouldn't make fun, though--I basically suck at preparing the meat-and-vegetables sort of food (traditional in my country). except for porkchops.

Aha, I prepare most of my meals, but the thing is that I LOVE SANDWICHES, love them with all sorts of interesting ingredients, and I eat them a lot but I wouldn't consider that cooking, per se. :P

Dude, sandwiches are THE BEST. And they can totally be semi-cooking! I mean, the prep can be pretty fiddly. :D

I HAVE NO FOOD ICONS. TRAVESTY.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject