General Chat

That made me laugh Maggie.

:-D :-D :-D Bob.

At least, in those days, cookery lessons were cookery lessons, and not 'bring in a pizza box, and we'll spend the lesson re-designing it', like when my girls were at school :-(
I had to go out and buy a bl**dy pizza, (something I never bought) so they had the poxy box :-|

"I am not having you two as the only two boys in a class full of girls" So said the deputy head of my grammar school when we applied to do cookery, and he put us in the art class. We were the only two boys in a class of twenty. And he was gay, as it turned out. My mate that is, not the deputy head. I'm sure you all wanted to know that..

I grow all my own veg on my allotment so is in the pot within about half hour or less ..... :-D.

Sprouts go in hot water without lid,

Prepared greens, spring cabbage,sprouting broc go in about 2/3 TBLS hot water with lid on.Cauli is lid and cold water.

Summer Nante carrots cooked without lid,winter ones with a lid.Swede with a lid.

Runner and dwarf beans( which is glutting now) in hot water without lid.



All spuds go in cold water with a lid.

\Veg I have frozen is put in warm water with lid.(dont freeze carrots though)

I dont steam a mix of veg as the mingle of tastes isnt nice to me.

JoyLouise, I cook to eat - not show off!! :-D

I cook meals from scratch - but it's meat veg and spuds, not this and that in some sauce disguising the food I've selected.
The grandchildren are dropped off on a Saturday morning when their mum has to work - and 'Oh' they didn't want breakfast at home, they want bacon and sausages at granny's - not outdoor bred ethically sourced sausage and bacon - though that's what they get.

I don't bake - not too fond of cakes - apart from Malteser cakes - but that's just one huge chocolate fest :-D
My grandson's dad is a 'top' chef and well, a bit of an ****hole.(hence no longer married to my daughter).
He was on masterchef once, and in an article on him recently (sponsored by the hotel he works for), he gave the wrong year he was on the show - one of his sons was born when he was on it - and he got the year wrong :-| Tw*t

Being able to cook, and use fancy words doesn't make anyone any better than anyone else.
I'd, like you, rather just cook a meal (in as few pans as possible) and get on with life!!

Rollo, just read your last post - 15 minutes?

Your OH made the sauce and the mousse and I would hope you rinsed the vegies and washed the potatoes to rid them of any insecticide residue (unless you can be 100% certain they were grown without such use, ie grew them yourself).

Add all of these time-consuming tasks together - so, how long from scratch to plate do you think? :-D

Maggie, I agree that we are all capable of putting some sort of meal together.

Personally, I believe if you can read, you can cook but it doesn't hold my interest much, I'm afraid. I have to be in the mood and usually there are plenty of other things I'd rather be doing - playing with grandchildren (but I have baked with them of course as it's fun for them), reading, coffeeing with friends, generally lazing about especially in the summer ..... and so on.

The cooks who rise to the top, I think, are those who love to cook and are prepared to put hours of learning into it. You can put me right if I'm wrong there Maggie, with your family background.

However, having said all that, I always, ALWAYS, make my own pavlovas.

I think you'll find, Rollo, most of us are capable of throwing together liver, spuds and a veg. I do it most evenings.

I'm a pretty damn good cook. As you felt the need to mention another 'exceptional' relation/friend, I'd just like to 'mention' that my mother was Cordon Bleu trained, and my father in law was King George VI's chef, so between us, the ex and I were/are capable of creating quite good - no, excellent, dishes.
I won't eat veal, but regularly enjoy fallow deer liver - not red deer - too strong for my palate, spuds and beans - but, I don't like haricot beans (or broad beans for that matter) - does that make me a 'pleb'?
I also prefer 'plain' food. To my mind, if you need to smother it in a sauce, there's something wrong. Gravy's fine though, as it doesn't have to cover the food.

So, I believe we're all capable of throwing together meat, spuds and a veg, and it really doesn't matter which meat is used - some people hate offal - as long as the person eating it finds it tasty!!

Oh - and I will reiterate - your point about 'not boiling the beans' (as you assume others' do) the thread is about hot water or cold, lids or no, not what we had for dinner, how much better we assume our palate/culinary expertise is to others' or how long it was cooked for!!

Bob, you could freeze some runner beans - we have in the past. My mother used to put them in well salted kilner jars for many a year as she didnt have a freezer. Beans tasted excellent once well rinsed to get rid of salt and then cooked

We used to, MANY years ago,put the veg in cold water and bring to the boil then simmer for about half hour. I do the bulk of the cooking and have done for some years but use an electric steamer. Most veg go in there from cold for 30 mins and thats that. Very simple and only one power source used. Apart from frozen peas I dislike veg that are cooked in microwave

what was I told ?

'nuttin by my father who was busy feeling collars for the met and my mother running a hospital. I was brought up by a French granny and a school which did not have any kind of cooking lessons on the menu. With granny I soon found out what tasted good and at skool what didn't but you had to eat it all in 10 mins anyway :-(

I picked up how to cook as a fresher from another student. He is now rich thanks to his cooking skills so obviously he asked the right questions.

I didn't, was unsufferably lazy and expected the slacker's reward of a third. Maybe something sunk in here and there but as I had no idea how to answer most of the finals questions I just wrote down a critqiue of the questions and answered those (my own ) instead. I got a first from which I learned not to worry too much about other people's questions but stick to your own.

T May is a good example - "brexit means brexit". And then ? Keep 'em guessing.

The British have many fine qualities as a nation but cooking has never figured very highly and whatever the Brits themselves may think "good plain food" boiled beef and Yorkshire Tea have never really caught on with "them darn furriners" many of whom do not own a saucepan, toaster, kettle, means to boil an egg or a steamer Neither have they ever tried sliced bread, mild Cheddar cheese Marmite or HP Sauce. The French and Spanish are keen on potatoes but don't use English cooking methods. Or Irish ones com to that.

Diplomats were writing home complaining ( and importing comestibles in large quantities) all the way back to Tudor times.

All I can say is that it is quite a bit easier to find something spicy on the Holloway Road than runner beans.

enjoy - tonight I am on my tod so will cook for one - veal liver, fine haricots verts from Kenya (thank you Waitrose ) with a brief sojourn in saucepan one (never brought to the boil already hot, no lid ) and mini-potatoes with skins given a go in saucepan two (lid on start from cold). Sauce from fridge knocked up by OH - creme fraiche, cognac and Chanterelle mushrooms. This will be lubricated with a half bottle of St Emilion Gran Cru 2011 followed by raspberry mousse also by OH extracted from the fridge.

On past experience it will take around 15 min and leave me with the evening for other things..

Going back to the original post, if that is all we are allowed to comment on - It doesn't matter one bit.....!

Mmm - fresh runner beans, all alone.
If a vegetable is tasty, why cover it in 'sauce'?

My runner beans have just started producing and now we have a glut. So it's runners for dinner every day now until October. Ten minutes max in boiling water. We had a cook on the fire station once who thought cabbage needed two hours! My Mum's way of cooking most greens was to threaten them with boiling water.

Okay Rollo, so you think we need cooking lessons, do you?

BTW - cooking in a microwave doesn't start with a saucepan either. :-D

Interesting if somewhat patronising and off- topic comment on what YOU do - avoiding a saucepan, and, obviously - to your mind - superior to what anyone else could do - but not what I asked!! :-)

Try reading the initial post :-D

it is a feature of what the English call cooking that it takes ages as well as taking much of the joy and goodness out of the ingredients. Doing something better doesn't take long - I frequently cook for myself though I rarely start with a saucepan, water and a debate over wther to boil or not or the pros and cons of having the lid on.

It is really easy to fix a decent meal for one more quickly than putting a frozen ready meal in the oven or firing up the microwave.

I saw ain interesting program recently about animals bringing up their young in the Scottish Highlands. The otters for instance learned from mum and were doing fine. The English learn from mum too but not as well as the otters.

There is a now out of print book written by Len Deighton which is as good as anywhere to start.

http://goo.gl/q3xAdQ

Oooh - haven't had Potatoes Anna for years - I do them as individual portions in a muffin tin. I usually steam veg (not potatoes) on the hob, but also like roasted veg, especially peppers, courgettes, squash, sweet potato etc.

Hmm Rollo, so you presume we don't try/have never tried those sort of things.?

All very well, but not when a person has just got in from work, or if you're cooking for one!! :-\
...and the question wasn't about what sort of food you eat.

Inspector Green,
I actually don't really like microwaved food.
I don't eat frozen veg very much, and tend to defrost food in the fridge.

My question was about whether you put veg in cold or hot water, with a lid or without, not how long it's cooked for - that is a matter of personal taste :-D

These days most veg, apart from new spuds, is better cooked in the microwave - in fact this, and defrosting, is what we use ours most for.

Forget what you grandma told you - she overcooked everything by a factor of ten.....!

There used to be a tale in my wife's family about sprouts. Her Nan, who was in domestic service at the age of 14 and worked in hospital catering for many years used to set her alarm for 6am on Christmas Day so she could get them on for 8am to make sure they would be ready for dinner at 1pm.

dear oh dear

try these

http://www.epicurious.com/tools/searchresults?search=french+vegetable+side+dish

yummy
:-)