Creative cooking what do you like to create when you cook?

Mexican Meat Loaf.

My goal is to create something that won’t poison others or myself.
I like th KISS method when it comes to cooking.;)

Depends on what I have on hand. When I am hiking/camping I like to use the food sources that the land provides. My goal is to bring out most of the packaged food I brought in.

Cattails and dandelions are two of my favorite plants.

@WestRiverrat What have you made with Cattails and dandelions? I have never cooked with or eaten either? I have though heard of dandelion greens.

The flowers of dandelions can be used to make tea or wine. If you get them while they are yellow. They also have several other uses.

Cattails Have five edible parts, at least one of which is available in every season. The mature seedpods also make good fire starter fuel or insulation.

My goal is to use up what is in the fridge and be happy with the results…

Peanut butter Cole Slaw and lamb chops is my current specialty.

I have made some delicious hamburger goulash type meals, and some disasters! I love to be able to use leftovers in some kind of casserole, omelet, or frittata meal. Eggs help me a lot!

Yes I quite agree I have had some real failures where you call either the pizza place or the chinese place for delivery for something you can eat.

Singed walls & ceiling i’m afraid. I can draw abstract etchings using the charcoal that once was a pan, now that is at least creative.

@ucme Now that is some creative cooking!!!

@WestRiverrat Try stir frying the cattail shoots with worcestershire sauce. :)

Also, battered and fried like onion rings.

I am not that creative, but the last creative thing I made was kimchi soup. It was great. Much more filling than the usual vegetable soups I make.

I don’t cook much, but I sometimes fiddle around with putting things in oatmeal. My best one was chocolate cherry.

Mostly, I experiment with coffee or hot cocoa. Once I came up with a Toblerone-inspired chocolate, honey, and almond iced coffee for @incendiary_dan.

@hobbitsubculture Too bad my daughter doesn’t like chocolate, I would try that oatmeal recipe for the girls it sounds yummy and I make oatmeal most weekends. Yes I know you think what 3 year old don’t like chocolate but I have one that just doesn’t like the taste. If given it she will put it in her mouth then take it out and hand it back to you and tell you she don’t like chocolate.

@hobbitsubculture What about the autumn olive ketchup?

I’m a big soup lover, so lately that is what I’ve been experimenting with. Sometimes I will look up recipes online and then alter them according to my own taste or with the items I have on hand.

2 recent successes were roasted butternut squash soup with white beans and a jar of Trader Joe’s Curry Simmer sauce. I roasted the peeled and diced squash in the oven with a little bit of olive oil, sea salt and fresh ground pepper. When the squash was fork tender, I put it into the blender with a little bit of the broth and blended it until smooth in batches. Then I put the squash, vegetable broth and beans (which I blended slightly, so they were still chunky) with a jar of the curry sauce and just heated it through. I got raves for this one.

The other was a “creamy” mushroom soup with kale. Instead of using cream, I pureed white beans and added that to the vegetable broth. Then I sauteed the finely chopped schrooms with onion, carrots and celery and then threw in a cup of fresh chopped kale and let that whole thing simmer on low for ½ an hour. Deeeeelish!

Another thing I threw together was some feta cheese and some orange marmalade and a few chopped hazelnuts into a warm tortilla that I rolled up. One of the best breakfasts ever.

And when hungry for pizza and salad, I took some foccacia buns (from Trader Joe’s) sliced them open, put pizza sauce on the bottom half, added shredded mozzarella cheese, sliced mushrooms and a handful of fresh arugula (Trader Joe’s bagged arugula). I put the top half of the bun back on top and then I baked them in the oven until the cheese was gooey. You can do this with any kind of cheese and use spinach if the arugula is too strong for your taste. And next time I might throw on a pinch of Trader Joe’s french fried onions as well.

@Kardamom Omg I love soups and those sound marvolous…. Might I suggest trying pumpkin in your soups I did that this fall and they came out great. Soup is so wonderful on a cold day!

@creative1 I love pumpkin! One of my friends has been growing different kinds of squash for the last few years. That’s where I got the butternut squash from. She also grew butter-cup squash and crookneck squash. So whatever she gives me, I make a recipe out of it.

The things I’ve been experimenting most with lately are kale and exotic mushrooms, which I found out can be purchased for really cheap at our local Korean market. My best friend, who is Korean turned me on to this store. I asked him why all the mushrooms (and other produce items) were so inexpensive (compared to the same ones, same brands, even organic shrooms at Whole Foods and Henry’s) he said because mushrooms are considered staples in Korean and Asian cuisine, people won’t pay a lot of money for staples! This store is a hidden secret and that is why I have been able to experiment with lots of different things. I got a pack of organic Bunashmeji mushrooms for 99 cents for a package, the same pack and brand at Whole Foods was $3.99.

@Kardamom Sounds wonderful, I had an uncle who knew how to pick the different varieties of wild mushrooms so he would go in the woods and pick them. He has since passed from old age and not the mushrooms but they can be highly toxic if you don’t know what you are doing. Kale is great to put in soup I love it, I also love bok choy in soup.

@creative1 I would love to go mushroom hunting, but I would NEVER eat them. I would only photograph them. I could never trust even the most experienced shroom hunter. Most schrooms are grown on farms. But boy are they yummy and interesting looking! I’m embarrassed to admit that even though I’ve used a lot of exotic schrooms, I’ve never eat a chanterelle or a morel in my life. I hope to change that fact soon : )

One veggie that I’m interested in experimenting with, but have never used, is fennel. Any good ideas for fennel?

@Kardamom Morels are effing brilliant! I hope I get to hunt & find them this season. I think it’s still a bit cold in my neck of the woods. If I post excitedly later on about finding some and cooking them and then you folks don’t hear from me for a while… Well, it will have been worth it. :D