The most joyous part of cooking, for me, is doing different things and playing with flavors; essentially, just having fun. Most of the experience and knowledge I’ve gained in terms of cooking and baking is basically just finding recipes and going rogue with them. The entertaining part of this is, my parents both seem to stress about cooking if they don’t have an exact thing in mind. For example, my mom abhors cooking, the polar opposite of myself, and when she cooks dinner, she can never think of what to do unless it’s “spaghetti and meatballs” or “chicken noodle soup” and its exactly those things. However, when I cook dinners, I first figure out what we have in the refrigerator and pantry, taking a little inventory goes a long way. Then I just grab things I think are yummy and then start cooking. What’s most important when you cook is making food you enjoy eating and doing things in new ways. There’s plenty of ways to improve your cooking every day. An example of something i find fun to cook and eat is below.
One of my favorite things to cook for dinner and favorite things to eat is what I call my “egg roll in a bowl” and basically, you just take vegetables and ground meat and cook it. My go-to’s are shredded cabbage, carrots, broccoli, and whatever else we have, as well as ground pork or turkey. I usually start by browning the meat with garlic, onion, salt, pepper, chili powder, and maybe cayenne pepper powder too. Once the meat is cooked, I add all the vegetables right on top the cover the pan, and let everything steam until softened, then give it all a good mix and add teriyaki sauce and soy sauce to taste, we usually have hoisin sauce so we add that too. The fun part starts at the table for this dish, because I quickly add some sort of crunchy toppings like wonton strips or fried onions, then sriracha and sesame oil, and everything turns to magic on your taste buds.