http://likecooking.com Like cooking? Get ideas, get recipes, get going! Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:49:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I was cooking a large meal for friends the other day. I fancied roasting some beef, and fortuitously, a leg of beef was half price in the supermarket. As I have grown older, I have liked my beef rarer and rarer. I now prefer rare or medium rare beef, as I ... http://likecooking.com/2007/06/06/roast-beef-with-bacon-and-cinnamon-roast-potatoes/ This dish combines sweet and savoury flavours in a main meal. I normally don't like to combine sweet and meat, especially orange meat sauces which usually end up sickly sweet, sticky and the sour orange flavour is totally opposed to the juicy meat flavour. Apple based sweetness usually compliments the ... http://likecooking.com/2007/06/01/chicken-in-garlic-with-apple-and-yogurt/ I like good old American food, but making chips at home is quite a hassle, and they are not too good for you. Instead, I recommend potato wedges. You can make them easily in the oven in 30 minutes, they are not too fatty and taste great. I made some just ... http://likecooking.com/2007/05/25/perfect-potato-wedges/ In the West, it has long been believed there are 4 "flavours" - sweet, salty, sour and bitter. However, it has long been known in the East that there is another flavour - umami. Umami is a Japanese word meaning "meaty" or "savoury". It can best be described as an in ... http://likecooking.com/2007/05/19/umami-and-other-new-flavours/ I had beef carpaccio when I went to Italy once. It was really good and I wondered exactly what it was. From memory, I thought I was very thin raw beef with lemon juice on, served with rocket and parmesan. I looked up the recipe and that's what it was, ... http://likecooking.com/2007/05/14/simple-beef-carpaccio/ I wanted a pudding the other day :-) Normally I always make chocolate puddings, and would claim its not a pudding if it doesn't have chocolate in it. Therefore, in the spirit of trying new things, I wanted to make something different. This treacle tart also has two unique twists: fruitiness ... http://likecooking.com/2007/05/09/fruited-treacle-tart/ In this recipe, I wanted to try and cook with pork. Normally I don't like using pork, finding it tough, fatty and tasteless, so I tried to do something to counter each of those things. I also found an interesting way to cook and serve root vegetables. Firstly, pork can be ... http://likecooking.com/2007/05/05/boiled-and-seared-pork-with-root-vegetables/ I needed to cook something for my friends and my girlfriend. Unfortunately, she is vegetarian and they really aren't! A good replacement for meat is Quorn, a retextured mushroom protein, but I decided to be a bit more adventurous and use something based on beans and lentils. I used green lentils ... http://likecooking.com/2007/05/01/vege-shepherds-pie/ Nothing is better than freshly baked bread. It smells gorgeous, it looks fantastic, you can do all sorts of things with it, and kneading is very therapeutic. For that reason I'd recommend not using any kind of machine; it just feels better to do it naturally. (Okay, an electric/gas oven ... http://likecooking.com/2007/04/25/soft-white-butter-loaf-bread/ This dish is quite simple and was invented to be a delicious, warming supper. Gnocchi is a bit like pasta, but made from potatoes and shaped into elongated balls. You can usually find it with fresh pasta in the supermarket. It is very filling, so this dish goes quite a ... http://likecooking.com/2007/04/20/lamb-meatballs-and-gnocchi/