What simple cooking item evades you?

chivas

fab - brilliant link - am now thinking about having poached eggs for breakfast tomorrow so I can try this out!

FZwanab

Pooky wrote: »

I'm a bit of a "bung it all in and hope for the best" cook so I'm pretty much sorted with most things.....I can do yorkies, roast potatoes are crispy, my pastry is melt in the mouth......But I can not do sponge cakes - they're always flat, lop sided, slightly burnt, the consistance of fudge and look horrible........good job we don't eat them very often!

I'm another one that has problems with quantity when it comes to rice and pasta too - we always end up with too much.

I am good with rice quantities a half a cup per person is good, but pasta evades me too, I always make too much.

I also have another problem with my cooking and that is lentils in my pressure cooker as part of a lentil, tomato and bacon misshapes stew type dish. The lentils never fail to stick and burn at the bottom of the pressure cooker any ideas welcome. Also do they cook well in a slow cooker? I always microwave carrots and celery for about 10mins before adding to my slow cooker as they are always rock hard otherwise, even after 6 hours, are lentils like pebbles in the sc or do they soften up??

floyd

Can I retract my statement that I can't make muffins?

After reading hundreds of posts on here about baking muffins, I decided to buy (or rather OH did as he was fed up with me whinging about being a failure) the Susan Reimer Muffins Fast and Fantastic book.

Yesterday I made beautiful moist lemon muffins with lemon glaze and today I made the orange version. Haven't quite nailed exactly what was causing my problems but I suspect it may be Tesco selling baking powder and bicarb that is out of date! Going to try baking cookies at the weekend and see if I have cracked it

jo1972

I have never cooked a shepherds pie that didn't all collapse after I taken one serving out of the dish, I might as well just make mince and mash and save the effort. I've tried leaving the gravy in, taking it out, putting milk in the mash, leaving it out.....I dunno what I'm doing wrong

I want shepherds pie like I used to have at school, you could slice it!!

Cazzdevil

dianasnan wrote: »

I cannot make yorkshire puds to save my life.they are always flat and cakey.

I hear ya on that one! No matter what recipe/method I try they're always horrid little squidgy lumps.

abbecer

My rice usually boils to stodge or is a bit hard. I have wholegrain rice which seems even worse to cook!!

Rebecca x

scubaleopard

Pancakes-- I am always too impatient and dont let them set before I start fiddling and worrying that I wont be able to flip them HOPELESS

Pink.

jo1972 wrote: »

I have never cooked a shepherds pie that didn't all collapse after I taken one serving out of the dish, I might as well just make mince and mash and save the effort. I've tried leaving the gravy in, taking it out, putting milk in the mash, leaving it out.....I dunno what I'm doing wrong

I want shepherds pie like I used to have at school, you could slice it!!

Hi jo,

To stop the mixture being too wet I thicken the meat mixture with cornflour mixed in a little cold water, then spoon into the dish and allow it to cool so before adding the mash on top. That ususally works for me.

Pink

jo1972

Pink-winged wrote: »

Hi jo,

To stop the mixture being too wet I thicken the meat mixture with cornflour mixed in a little cold water, then spoon into the dish and allow it to cool so before adding the mash on top. That ususally works for me.

Pink

Thanks Pink! I shall give it a go at the weekend...ooooh if this works I'll owe you big time, I've only been trying to make it for 15 years :rotfl:

floyd

With shepherds pie it also helps if you take it out of the oven and leave for 5 minutes before serving. This will help things stick back together again but the pie will still be hot.
Same for lasagne, I find that by just giving it time to rest it sets just enough not to slide into a gloopy mess when I take the first portion out