# Cooking is hard



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

I know. I know. But its not about cooking. Its about household chores and the skills to do them. 

I find taking a knife and an onion and creating a diced or chopped or minced onion very difficult. I am good with my hands. I have done maintenance work all my adult life. But that is hard as all getout. 

Whats hard for you? Bill, get your mind out the gutter


----------



## WolfWalksSoftly (Aug 13, 2004)

Let me help you out.


[YOUTUBE]aYLat1Y-BxQ[/YOUTUBE]


----------



## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Dicing an onion is easy. I just peel them down past the dried skin after cutting the ends and then place my strain colander under the kitchen faucet with the small diameter spray nozzle attached and the water misting and use my folding tactical knife to checkerboard slice the onion and then cut the diced cut part as a slice and work my way through the onion possibly switching to dice pattern cutting side wedges as the onion gets smaller.

When done, I drain the diced onions and use them in cooking or as a hot dog condiment.

No watery eyes, mess or cut fingers.


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

WolfWalksSoftly said:


> Let me help you out.
> 
> 
> [YOUTUBE]aYLat1Y-BxQ[/YOUTUBE]


Just press here one time and your onion will go everywhere. GUARANTEED!!!

You, too, can have onion in the dishwasher, clothes dryer, even in the dog food bowl. Just PRESS HERE!!

Order today.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I thought you came with that other kitchen utensial that no kitchen should be without. A WIFE?? lol IF I cant MW it, eat it out of a can, or fry it, It don't get ate.


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

My wife works. I do not. Not right now anyhow. I am doing house chores as well as caring for the animals.


----------



## Clem (Apr 12, 2016)

Cutting onions is am experience in patience. Just do it, and enjoy being alive and learning new skills. That burning in your eyes won't do any permanent damage, so just experience it and accept that it's there now, but will be done soon as you are done with the onions.


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

Has nothing to do with eyes. Completely has to do with knife handling. I can clean anf skin a deer and cant cut an onion. This has given me a greater appreciation for all the ladies who make it look easy.


----------



## CajunSunshine (Apr 24, 2007)

Here's how I do it...wham-bam..._done,_ as shown in this easy-to-follow instructional tute. It tells you how to use the onion rings to your advantage and quickly end up with a nice pile of finely diced onion. If you follow these steps, you will soon be a pro!

Tip: store onions in fridge, 'cause cold ones make you cry less. 


http://www.wikihow.com/Dice-an-Onion



.


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

Cajun, yeah the wife does something like that. Pretty slick. Looks easy. It just isnt. Guess I am a clutz.


----------



## bjba (Feb 18, 2003)

Gadgets are the answer let electricity do the work. Mini food choppers will ease your lack of skill. WalMart has them from less than $20.00 to more than you want to know. Gadgets turned me from an oh my god is that food, cook to a cook who gets requests. Check them out.


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

bjba said:


> Gadgets are the answer let electricity do the work. Mini food choppers will ease your lack of skill. WalMart has them from less than $20.00 to more than you want to know. Gadgets turned me from an oh my god is that food, cook to a cook who gets requests. Check them out.


Haha. I used a chopper/dicer on celery for tonights stew to make sure the kids could not identify the ingredient. I like gadgets.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I like gadgets too.


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

Gadget. Mantoy. Same thing.


----------



## Suncatcher (Aug 11, 2015)

Just takes practice, like anything the more you do it the better you get..


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

hmmmmmmmmmmm So that's my problem lol. ooooppppps, like he said, Gotta lift my mind lol.


----------



## DKWunlimited (Sep 11, 2006)

Suncatcher said:


> Just takes practice, like anything the more you do it the better you get..


Exactly and if you get too frustrated, stores DO sell them already sliced and diced in the produce or freezer departments.


----------



## whiterock (Mar 26, 2003)

I saw a contraption the other day when a guest. Oblong plastic box with two sizes of cutting blades and lid. Quarter and put on blades and push the lid down. Made fast work of enough onions, tomatoes and peppers to make a mixing bowl of pico de gallo in less than 5 minutes. Saw one in HEB caouple of weeks ago for about 12 or 15 $. Will break the lid if you don't quarter the onions though. Would make some good diced potatoes for frying up for breakfast potatoes though. Par boiled of course.


----------



## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

I found it interesting to see in the obituaries under the famous deaths section that a Canadian who passed away in his 80s invented and sold a Veg-O-Matic in Canada around the same time Ron Popiel invented and started peddling his in the in store demonstrations.

I guess the trademark laws for cheap gadgets in the 1950s were less ironclad between the two nations.


----------



## Nsoitgoes (Jan 31, 2016)

whiterock said:


> I saw a contraption the other day when a guest. Oblong plastic box with two sizes of cutting blades and lid. Quarter and put on blades and push the lid down. Made fast work of enough onions, tomatoes and peppers to make a mixing bowl of pico de gallo in less than 5 minutes. Saw one in HEB caouple of weeks ago for about 12 or 15 $. Will break the lid if you don't quarter the onions though. Would make some good diced potatoes for frying up for breakfast potatoes though. Par boiled of course.


That's called a mandoline. Works OK but then you have to clean it. Practice your knife skills - or as suggested above get an electric gizmo to slice, dice, chop or whatever (then you have to clean it, too...)


----------



## WolfWalksSoftly (Aug 13, 2004)

Mandoline? You can play music on that too right? ;}


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

I've always enjoyed cooking


----------



## roadless (Sep 9, 2006)

I enjoyed cooking for and with someone.
Just for myself not so much.


----------



## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

A little guy like this: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Freshware-Mini-Garlic-Chopper-KT-410/46892551 can do a little chopping pretty easily without turning your onion into a liquid like some food processors will do.

But I will ask, is there a reason you're wanting to chop the onion very finely? No big deal if you do, just wondered.

I cut my onions totally wrong. I think most any real chef would chastise me if they saw me do it. I hold it and rotate the onion, slicing off little chunks or slivers of what might be considered a "radius". (I hold the onion in one hand, my knife in the other.) I tried to find a youtube of someone doing it that way but couldn't see anyone else doing that. My mom & dad tease me about cutting the onion that way saying things like, "it's so thin you won't be able to taste it", mostly just poking fun. I like onion, I just don't like thick crunchy pieces of it. So I make those thin little slivers to lay carefully on my sandwich so that it's all thinly and evenly covered. OCD... (sigh), just OCD... LOL!!


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

Its not so much that I want to cut it thick or thin or any such way. My way is kinda like drlling a hole in a board with a cannon. It frustrates me because I have always been decent at learning a task, dancing aside. But this? This I think I will never master. I am OK with that btw, and the wife is getting tired of the kids being very vocal at dinner about liking my food better, so its working ok so far. 

What is missing is what everyone else finds hard that might not feel like it should be hard. Bill has a thread about scribing a line he might find hard. Anyone? Noone? Now is your chance to kinda poke fun of yourself.


----------



## roadless (Sep 9, 2006)

Is your knife sharp?
That can make a huge difference in cutting .


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

Yes, they are very sharp moderately expensive knives that were a gift to the wife. It s definately me that sucks. Not the knives.


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

Fine. Dancing. In my almost 50 years, I have met more than one woman who thought they could teach me to dance. The last was a runner up to the Miss Texas thingy and made her living teaching people to dance. So for weeks, I would meet her at her house for 1 on 1 lessons. 

She was wrong.


----------



## WolfWalksSoftly (Aug 13, 2004)

Check out videos of The Galloping Gourmet. He was a good chopper of stuff among other things lol


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I taught myself to dance back when I was a freshman. Mom wanted me to go to (The Frog Hop), the biggest dance place for kids in St joe Mo. Held in round 1000 kids. I KNEW by watching a danch show on local TV that I could not dance. She thought that since I had taken tap dancing lessons in GS, early on, and she had taught me how to do the box step, I was ready.
I took a big mirror, and laid it long ways, at an angle on the floor and against a wall. I turned on the radio, and tried to do what I had seen on TV, mixed with my tap dancing. I finally got something that I thought was pretty good, and never looked back. My first X knew how to dance. Heck knows what the 2nd witch knew, and I taught the 3rd how to do the Lindy and dance the bop, as in AG, and Grease.
Later after I started going to a country bar and dance hall, I learned how to do whatever its called where you sort of waltz, but its 2 steps with one foot, and one with the other. 
Never did learn line dancing. Boot manure Boogie.


----------



## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

I'm with you on the no dancing thing, I must have about 3 left feet...

But it never stopped me from willingly making a fool of myself on the dance floor...


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Its not scribing a line that is hard. Its scribing a line that is on a curve, on boards that aren't cut on a curve that vexes me. I got it fingered out tho, in buying one of those tools/gadgets that has 2 doz different blades, and you release a nut which holds the blades tight, move them into the curve while holding the holder straight, the retightening the nut, and you have your curve at the outer ends of the blades. Then take the holder and lay it straight across the board and scribe the line as made by the blades. Sleezy Peezy


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

roadless said:


> I enjoyed cooking for and with someone.
> Just for myself not so much.


I enjoyed cooking for the kids when it was just us and I've always like to entertain and cook for friends. The last few years I've come to realize that I really like myself and it's OK to spoil me, I deserve it. It's nice to buy organic fruits, veggies and dairy to go with quality meat and bread. Then come home and prepare something yourself. People spend money on more stupid stuff.

I really, really like growing what I eat !


----------



## Suncatcher (Aug 11, 2015)

oneraddad said:


> I enjoyed cooking for the kids when it was just us and I've always like to entertain and cook for friends. The last few years I've come to realize that I really like myself and it's OK to spoil me, I deserve it. It's nice to buy organic fruits, veggies and dairy to go with quality meat and bread. Then come home and prepare something yourself. People spend money on more stupid stuff.
> 
> I really, really like growing what I eat !


Oh I totally agree with you! I absolutely love to cook. Whether it's for others or just for me. I really love to bake too. I enjoy it all so much that i went back to college and got my associate in culinary arts. I won baking competitions when I was in culinary also. I work in accounting so I had no intention of making it a profession but I enjoy it that much. It's just a wonderful feeling to have someone mmmm'ing over something I made for them.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Took cooking in 4H as I and bro intended to be hermits. I made a cake. That was in the late 50s. Never used a bit of it since, and still cannot loose weight.


----------



## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

FarmboyBill said:


> Took cooking in 4H as I and bro intended to be hermits. I made a cake. That was in the late 50s. Never used a bit of it since, and still cannot loose weight.


 I learned to cook from my father who was assigned as a mess sergeant during Korea and a family friend who was the high school home economics teacher.

She convinced me and her son to take the precursor of her concept of home ec/ bachelor's housekeeping skills by promising us we would be excused during the 'strictly female issue parts of the class, we would be the only two guys in class with 30 girls willing to help us to learn to cook, that she was his mother and he lived at her home after 3 PM and my mother and her agreed that I would be one of the lab rats for the experiment for the same reason she gave her son.

Even with the deck stacked against us , the other guy and I were receptive as we had both selected the BOE typing class with IBM electric typewriters instead of the manual typewriter class by claiming electric typewriters were closer to the computer terminals our vocational study used and as we both were shooting for white collar jobs, business office skills would serve us better when in fact we both just wanted to be the only guy in a typing class with 30 girls instead of a class 2/3 full of guys.

My flirting odds were better when we were in BOE as my GF wasn't in my class but she was in my lab rat trial bachelor's housekeeping skills class 
and she kept most of the girls in class from helping me with my cooking tests and eliminating any flirting opportunity I had except some with her.


----------



## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

Actually, I kinda think I would enjoy at least some parts of culinary school. I have watched quite a few youtube videos that show cooking certain things and gone on to try them. Some did better than others. And some, I've gone on to modify the recipe into something that works for me. 

Cooking seems to be more forgiving than baking.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I took typing one and 2. I don't see how you would have any time for flirting. Mrs josiphene> Kiefer kept our noses to the blue books, and our fingers on the typewriters.
we only had 2 electric typewriters, and only the fastest got to use them. I got a 50 word pin, so I never even looked at them.
I did see a carriage slide across the floor once when it didn't stop at the preset place.

Jay, what were the ( Feminine issues) in a home ec class. I thought it was just cooking?

Girls made cookies for us once. Woodworking class was down the hall from Home Ec.
We ran them through saws, and beat on them with hammers. Never did get any more ookie after that. lol.
The same teacher, (I think) that ran Home Ec, also ran girls Phsd class. she got the girls, OR they got her to want to get us boys to dance with them. We wouldn't do it, although I wanted to in the worst way, as I had been going to a dance hall every fri for a couple years, and knew I could dance circles around the rest of the guys, which would make me look good around the girls, but it didn't happen.


----------



## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Bill,

When your 17 year old boys in a traditionally all female class and the teacher gives you a pass because the hour of the class is not cooking and as she said "female personal issue topic that would be inappropriate for we males and embarrassing for all", we didn't ask any questions, just took the pass and tried to figure out how to sneak my car out of the parking lot to play hooky for our home economics and our study hall fishing at the creek or hanging out at the pool hall before sneaking back on campus to get his car and our girls to go home for the afternoon.


----------



## WolfWalksSoftly (Aug 13, 2004)

Putting salt in the sugar container and sugar in the salt container resulted in some fun times in my Bachelor Living class. You would have thought that the people who knew me wouldn't have been surprised. After that week (yes I did it twice) the taste test was always in effect before measuring.


----------



## frogmammy (Dec 8, 2004)

One time my DH got excited about some football game and called me in while I was putting together a pumpkin pie for our Thanksgiving dinner. 

Turned out, the pie was more exciting than the game because I'd forgotten that I'd *ALREADY* put all the spices in the mix before being called to see the game, so they all got measured in a second time. Neither one of us ever knew that a pumpkin pie could be that HOT.

Mon


----------



## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

FarmboyBill said:


> She thought that since I had taken tap dancing lessons in GS, early on,


Bill: You took tap dancing lessons in Girl Scouts?
Really?


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

LOL lol Grade School. When grease came out, I bought a pair of locomotive boots, and tok the heel caps off the dance shows and had them put on the heels of the E Boots. They had a brass round piece that fit inside the steel cap. made a schilocking noise as I walked


----------



## whiterock (Mar 26, 2003)

Nsoitgoes said:


> That's called a mandoline. Works OK but then you have to clean it. Practice your knife skills - or as suggested above get an electric gizmo to slice, dice, chop or whatever (then you have to clean it, too...)


 NOpe, what I'm talking about isn't a mandoline, I got one of them. This deal is like a die cutter with two cutting dies. Got a pampered chef chopper that works good on some things, I use it on peppers and pickles and such, use a knife on most things.


----------



## Terri (May 10, 2002)

As long as we are talking about cooking? If you set up a fan the onion fumes will be blown away from you, and your eyes will not tear up

However, when you are making cornstarch gravy never, EVER mix up the baking powder and the corn starch!!!!!!!!


----------



## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

If you have sharp knife, its simply "practice, practice, practice..." I have gotten quite good at chopping raw veggies since pretty much living on them after diabetes diagnosis over year ago. Watch the cooking shows. Most of the trained chefs have quite good knife skills. Tape jacque pepin and rewatch him cutting stuff, I know he is quite good. Then again he has spent a lifetime practicing. I do cringe at the one Indian gal with her serrated knives kinda struggling. Serrated knives are saws, not knives. She is even a fan of buying pre-chopped veggies... I have feeling most people are like that. I know it used to be real struggle before I taught myself to properly sharpen a knife. And though you can use small knives like paring knife, its really easier to use a 7 inch or bigger chef knife on a cutting board. Just takes getting used to doing it the better way. The knife does have to be very sharp, or you will hurt yourself.


----------



## Raeven (Oct 11, 2011)

I learned how to cook because my birth mother served garbage for us to eat. The really sad thing was, she *could* cook -- she just mostly preferred to ruin food before serving it. There's a whole long story there I won't go into, but let's just say I had a strong motivation at a very early age to learn how to prepare decent food. I started messing around around in the kitchen in earnest around age 9.

Had some spectacular failures.

One was a spaghetti sauce that was going pretty well with ground beef and sausage, onion, garlic, stewed tomatoes and the correct herbs. Problem was, I didn't understand that the thickening agents for tomato sauces were the additions of tomato sauce and/or paste, together with an extended gentle simmer period. I'd failed to add those ingredients, and my sauce was watery.

I'd watched my mother thicken gravy with a flour and milk slurry, so in my young mind, it made sense to try that. The sauce turned an unappetizing pink with white lumps in it. I didn't realize how long I'd have to cook it to cook out that raw flour and of course the milk didn't help. Looked like the dog's breakfast... the second time around.

Couldn't get anyone to eat it, and neither did I. LOL, I still remember the ugly color, though!

Tomato-based products do seem to be where I get into trouble when I am careless and don't pay attention to cooking temperatures. My absolute worst cooking failure happened on a camping trip with my husband and parents. I enjoyed serving ridiculous meals out in the woods, prepared over a campfire. I decided to give them Osso Buco with polenta, then creme brulee for dessert. Threw all the ingredients together to let the Osso Buco stew gently over coals while we went off fishing for awhile. 

Oh, gawd. The coals were way too hot, and the main dish was ruined. Well, 'ruined' is an understatement. It was welded onto the cast iron Dutch oven like some unholy coating designed by a materials science engineer suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. You couldn't get near it, let alone clean it off. My husband had to practically sand blast the Dutch oven in order to render it usable again. Thirty dollars' worth of veal shanks burnt up like something they recovered at Pompeii. We had to make do with hot dogs and polenta. At least the creme brulee was a success.

My dad and step mom still talk about that meal. Not in a good way.

Re knife skills, I agree with *HermitJohn*. Watch a pro and pay particular attention to how they hold their knives. Most use a chef's style knife and grasp the blunt side of the blade where it meets the handle for much better control as they chop. It works great. May feel awkward at first if you're not accustomed to doing it that way, but take the time to cultivate good knife skills. It will serve you well for a lifetime -- literally. 

Do also get into the habit of straightening your edges each time before you use the knife, have them professionally sharpened at least once a year and never, ever scrape what you're chopping aside with the blade of the knife. Take half a second to flip the knife over and scrape with the blunt side. Your knife blades will keep their edge much longer.

And remember, like they say... if you're not failing, you're not challenging yourself.


----------



## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

I cooked todays mothers day meal. Saturday night I made a from scratch German choc cake which we ate today. I was not impressed by it at all. We were discussing how it had an unexpected flavor. Wife gets up and goes to the spice cubbard and drags out the bottle of vanilla I used and brings it to me to read the Almond extract label. Mystery solved.


----------



## CajunSunshine (Apr 24, 2007)

I am dying laughing! :hysterical: Yup. Every great cook has great failures. Well, hey, we can't be perfect ALL of the time!





Raeven said:


> ....Had some spectacular failures.
> 
> ...I get into trouble when I am careless and don't pay attention to cooking temperatures...
> 
> ...


 


.


----------

