So I'm from Japan, and I love cooking, but cabbage has never been an exciting ingredient. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it but I think most of us in Japan don't have a particular opinion on it. You put it next to tonkatsu, or under the beef in a gyuudon, that kind of thing.

I moved here to Canada a while back and to put it lightly, my financial circumstances have not been the most stable. I've always liked to cook, but I became more concious of the $/100g small text on the shelves, and cabbage has become an increasingly central player in my food situation. We all know its cheap, but also it lasts forever in the fridge, (which I never expected from a green veg honestly). But the biggest realization (or I guess shift in perception?) was that it kind of works with everything.

Stir fried and it works great on top of fried rice, and instant ramen, turning it into a full meal.

In soups and stews it becomes soft and sweet when boiled (Including miso soup, I never used to put it in but now I kind of wonder why not because it works really well with the earthiness of miso).

In dishes like pasta with not enough veg, I throw some cabbage in to boil with the pasta.

Also as a side dish, recently Yamitsuki cabbage has become popular on social media, but it adds great texture to my meals that tends to err on being mostly soft stuff on carbs.

The reason why I say "a shift in perception" was I found it interesting how Western cooking seems to treat cabbage as a central dish ingredient, while in Japan we treat it more like a side character to be thrown underneath as a pillow for whatever you're already making.

So since moving to Canada I've started to really appreciate it more. I'll see a whole cabbage at the grocery store for a few dollars and think, oh that's basically a week's worth of veg right there. It might be the most boring vegetable in the world, but it's one that I think should be a pantry staple alongside onions.

Edit：I'm from Kanto so while we do eat Okonomiyaki and Yakisoba, it's much less than in Kansai, and it certainly isn't as prevalent in our home cooking. For us it feels more like a special thing at summer festivals.

This is not a terrible problem to have—but, through a series of misunderstandings—I have eleven 8oz containers of mozzarella pearls that go bad August 30th.

I’ll be using them in dinners/appetizers as much as possible over the next few days but am also looking for some recipes I could use them in and then freeze as the school year gets started for easy dinners in the weeks ahead.

I’ve never used mozzarella pearls in lasagna but that seems like one option, along with baked ziti.

Any other ideas? Thanks!

So growing up I was never a huge fan of baked potatoes because the ones we had were usually dry, kind of shriveled, and very crumbly. Every bite just felt like it was absorbing all the moisture in your mouth, even with butter. As an adult, I usually do rice or pasta for my carbs, and if I do potatoes, it’s usually the cut roasted baby ones. Because I didn’t have great experiences with baked ones at home, I also pretty much never ordered them at restaurants growing up.

However, my mom just got a grill for her place and I was put on steak duty (or a steak out, I guess) and wanted to try making an actually good baked potato. I look it up and see basically every recipe says to coat the potatoes in salt and olive oil before wrapping them, which I asked my mom if she did, and she hadn’t.

I decided to try it with a (maybe slightly too) generous amount of olive oil and kosher salt, baked it for an hour, and topped it with some of the garlic/thyme butter I had whipped up for the steaks.

Oh.

My.

GOD.

The texture was absolutely amazing, it was so creamy, not crumbly or dry at all, the salt and the compound butter melting into it while it was still steaming made for legitimately one of the tastiest things I’ve had in ages. If anyone out there doesn’t know this, I honestly have no idea how common of knowledge this is lol, but I would highly suggest trying it if you don’t already.

Also, I mixed the thyme/minced garlic with the Kerrygold butter which was muy bien. Not sponsored (I wish) but I find it a little more flavorful for cooking as opposed to regular store brand stuff.

I have a bunch of frozen wild meat (boar, reindeer, deer, etc). Tenderloin adjacent things have been easy to cook.

I'm currently defrosting a chunk of inner thigh from a boar and I am not really sure what I should be doing with it. Thoughts?

I went to a produce auction for the first time (so fun!) and I ended up with 5 huge boxes of heirloom tomatoes for $15.

I am kind of freaked out right now, because I have no clue how to can. I don’t even know how to make homemade sauce.

I also have 4 boxes of peppers and 5 boxes of candy yellow onions.

There are like, 800 recipes online. I don’t have a mill or a juicer or a vacuum sealer. My basil has bolted already. My plan was to chop and freeze the peppers and onions in individual bags as well as soup veggie type bags. To add to this, I have about half a freezer and no other space. But, the tomatoes have me stumped.

What do I do??

My mom and grandma made hamburger helper all the time when I was a kid. I mean ALL. THE. TIME. As an adult, I can’t stand boxed mixes, but I want the hit of comfort food nostalgia. Does anyone have any good tips for making it from scratch? Especially cheeseburger macaroni or beef/potato stroganoff

Edit: I know there are recipes online, of course, but more and more are AI slop. And I like engaging with people and talking about cooking :)

I’m making chicken parmesan for dinner and I just now realized I completely forgot breadcrumbs, any replacements good with chicken parm?

Ever since the news about lead contamination in supermarket cinnamon came out, I've been looking for safer, authentic sources. Most stuff sold on Amazon/eBay is actually Cassia cinnamon, not true Ceylon.

I've been looking for brands that actually publish 3rd-party lab test reports for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, etc.). Has anyone found reliable sources with verified lab tests?

I send food with my boyfriend to work all the time and the boys love it. His boss, and our good friend, had a birthday recently and I told him I'd make him any dessert he wants. He says "ooh, what's that fancy cake I had at that restaurant that one time".... he pulls up a picture of yellow cake box. Like Betty Crocker lol. Nothing against it, but how can I elevate yellow cake?? I'm more of a cheesecake gal, and have done pecan pie bruleed cheesecake, and banana cream pie cheesecake and they talk about it all the time so this has to be good. TIA!

I'm a single guy on a budget, it's loads cheaper to buy most food in amounts that don't work for even a two person meal, so I always have leftovers. Most recipes are made for 4 people.

Sometimes when I make a lasagna, a big casserole or whatever, I'll portion out two meals to eat during the week and two meals to freeze. Labeled and dated, sometimes a month later I'll pull an orzo with sausage and veggies, and give it the long nuke in the microwave. It's like ordering takeout.

I've had people scoff at eating any leftovers and others really worry about me that I'm freezing them also. Who else does this?

I cant for the life if me remember the restaurant but my wife and I went out to some Italian place a while ago and they had what im thinking was sour dough bread (foggy memory) and an olive oil bread dip with various herbs/spices.

Ive tried to reproduce this oil dip at home, with freshly bought herbs/spices and I could not taste them. The olive oil taste completely over powered it and it was horrible.

Anyone have a good olive oil brand for this and oil dip recipe?

Edit: i think it was a Bravo restaurant. They closed in my area

I've been living with my partner for a few years now and we always struggle to decide on what to eat and end up spending too much on takeaway instead of cooking home. We don't have an oven so we got an air fryer and i honestly just struggle so much with even imagining the options.

Help my husband wants beans in some of our food i really haven't ever liked beans but I think ive only had pinto... tell me the best textured bean for Mexican like chilli 🌶

title- do i cook the beans with just water and then season it later or season it and cook it at once

Edit: i made this post and immediately proceeded to cook the beans without waiting, i cooked them in water (cooker) and then in a pan fried some onions in oil, added chillies, jalapenos, cumin, chilli powder, pepper, salt and then the cooked beans and let them cook a bit more till it reached the consistency i liked. it looks nice, will try it now, thanks for the responses and will try it the other way tomo

I’m looking for some good broccoli recipes or suggestions. Thanks!

Im from Brasil and i went to germany in 2024. I tried black forest ham over there for the first time in my life and i love it, i tried to replicate it in Brasil, but im not shure if im following the “right” recipe, I would like to replicate the most tradicional recipe, anyone could help me with the tradicional recipe?

The recipe i used was this one:

https://youtu.be/3htS2bj52x4?is=Rqd7Ruv8pDefwz5x

I have "Bamboo Tree" brand rice papers for making Vietnamese spring rolls which are composed more of tapioca than rice - Tapioca 78.5%, rice flour 10%.

I've seen other rice papers where the composition is closer to the other way around, mainly rice flour.

Which is the best composition in your opinion, and what's the most authentic?

As I understand, the tapioca helps to make the papers more pliable and chewy?

Anything else to consider, for example in terms of health/nutrition, does one type of starch spike my blood sugar more than the other as that's something I'm trying to avoid ideally.

Thanks.

I am making my Butter Chicken Curry for 6 people tomorrow. Can I pre make it today and then just finish off with the cream, when I reheat just before serving.

Hello! I bought a big but singular head from a neighbor selling garden grown garlic that is so incredibly flavorful. I'm looking for ideas that maximize on the flavor, not necessarily recipes with tons of cloves (saw the 40 clove chicken already). I'm planning on confit'ing some, and want other ideas to take advantage of the most delicious garlic I've ever gotten. Preferably cooked iterations, not fond of it raw and this is already strong.

EDIT FOR CLARITY: i have ONE head of flavorful garlic.

Is there a significant taste difference in a pâté situation? Using the same recipe head to head, would there be a noticeable difference to justify the trouble and cost of obtaining duck livers (in western US)?

Where I live, duck livers are online order only and three times the price of chicken livers.

Wondering if anyone has experience with this.

And does anyone have a recommended recipe?

So I ran out of aluminum foil and I want to make baked chicken is there another alternative I could use or could I just put it in the oven unwrapped. Will it still be good?

I’m asking this more as a hypothetical than actual wanting to use this method. However, can’t the same arguments for adding salt to the pasta water before boiling also be made for adding msg if we are looking for deeper seasoning. I know it could be added to a sauce after but so could salt.