Cooking from scratch

[2CheekyMonkeys]

I made pork chilli con carne for nachos from scratch (cept I used our store bought corn chips from cupboard) AND I added cooked quinoa (however the heck you spell it) and it was pretty good! :-)

[Junglemum]

Cool, thanks. So how much of that all combined do you use when making tacos?

The same as a packet mix... just enough to coat the meat. a couple of spoonfuls i guess? you can double/triple/quadruple the recipe and just store it in a jar.

[Junglemum]

i agree about taste.com - good site but when you're a beginner, you type in one phrase and SO MANY recipes for that come up, it is confusing to know which one to use. I typed in carrot cake and got SO MANY recipes pop up.

some great ideas in this thread, of simpler books. (eg less recipes for the one thing).

thanks for starting this thread Ginger. i need it too.

Gigi -i search on taste and then i click on the tab to sort by rating. It then gives you the highest rated recipe in your search, i figure it's more likely to be good if lots of people have tried it and gave it good feedback. :-)

[Cass72]

I bought Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her recipes are so easy to follow and, the best part is that she has a lot of "master" recipes that you can incorporate into other recipes. Everyone in the family now eats every pea that I put on their plate. DH would NEVER eat peas, so I made them a la Julia and he loves them!

I also got a couple of good cookbooks from the library, The Cook's Book and Mastering the Art of Baking. Again, a lot of "master" recipes and showing you how to do different things. I have put both books on my christmas "wants" list!

Oh, and lastly, I inherited my mum's Cordon Bleu Cookery Course books. They were published back in the 60s and show you step by step how to make amazing meals and even have the forward planning thing - the Christmas dinner one has a do this on this day thing. I've often seen these in vinnies and salvos shops or second hand book stores.

BTW, Women's Weekly recipe books are pretty failsafe.

[Mak]

There is a great blog too - the $120 food challenge and also the A beach cottage blog has some really easy recipes as well. I think the key is to just try and give it a go! Doesn't matter if it is not perfect first shot! I try to do a new recipe every week or so.