I am always on the search for good recipes

and, yes I watch the food channel on tv when I can. I eat out at least 2 or 3 times per month (one of my many vices), and if I try something new to me and really like it, I am immediately on the search to duplicate the dish. I am not big on strictly cooking oriental/Asian food, but I do like watching "Simply Ming" on the food channel, and I have found he cooks much much more than just Asian. On a recent episode he was in the Azores and cooking in a traditional Portuguese manner. The local chef and Ming cooked "Alcatra", an oven roasted wine braised beef. It looked like it would really be good. As per the tv directions I found the online source link for that recipe and a ton more. Using the site search option for "Alcatra" will quickly find you that recipe, or you can simply click on one of the ten season indexes to peruse the many recipes offered.
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Recipes — Ming Tsai
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enjoy

 

I was forced in school to choose cooking or home ec. I had no idea if I would be alone or with someone, at that time, so I figured I should be able to eat my own cooking. I do well with a recipe, but do not experiment much.

 

I was very lucky to have two close friends that were both Master Chefs, plus I learned a lot from my Grand Mothers. It took me years to get the timing down where I could bring a dinner together with multiple items, as opposed to just a pot of good chili and fresh baked cornbread. Recipes and Cookbooks are merely a starting point. If you cook a lot, you will eventually confidently begin to modify recipes to make them yours, and to better please you. You will also be able to quickly size up a recipe when you first read it, and consider options to make it yours before you have even first tried it as written. Obviously I love to experiment with recipes.

 

I am a horrible cook. I would love to be able to just throw things together and have it turn out wonderful but it never works out. It may taste awful but every dish is made with lots of love.

 

The Sweet Potato Ravioli with Basil-Brown Butter from season 6 sounds amazing!

 

Two things immediately come to mind to make a positive reply. Pink's song, "Try try try", and the need for good cookbooks, (at least to start, and to build confidence). Almost any "Southern Living" annual cookbook from the last 30 years will contain very many outstanding recipes. They also have cooking school seminars (one night), all over the nation. They are well worth a look. I have been to two. They also give out a recipe pamphlet of every recipe and more that they cook at that seminar. The annual recipe book new runs $20-$30, used for a lot less. It has every recipe from their monthly magazine for that year (over 850 recipes in the 2009 annual I just reached over and grabbed). or you could just go to the library with some change for the zerox and copy some recipes that look good to you from their magazine.

 

I picked up a cook book called a Man, a Can, a Plan. It's not real healthy eating but it was quite interesting what you can combine for a meal.
A Man, a Can, a Plan : 50 Great Guy Meals Even You Can Make: David Joachim, The Editors of Men's Health: 9781579546076: Amazon.com: Books

I will look into Southern Living.

 

I have 20+ years of the best of southern living recipe books

 

I love Youtube for cooking. There's a Thai girl, PailinsKitchen, that has really turned me on to Thai cooking. After watching her Pad Ga Prao video I made a note to pick up Thai Holy Basil... never realized there would be so much difference between it and the ones I was already growing. Next thing I did was order seed, lol!

 

1979 is the 1st complete year annual of magazine recipes. I have it and all the rest thru 2012 ..... so 33 yrs so far. I did quit buying the magazine however. I can read it for free at my library.

 

Guacamole is fine but Avocados are too seasonal for my tastes and never fully ripe when you need them. I prefer either my hot cheesy bean dip, or my jalapeno popper cheese dip. I also do a pretty good Buffalo chicken dip. All go good with tortilla chips and beer.
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As for BBQ wings done in the oven, well I am close on this one except being the cheap sob that I am, I buy leg quarters much cheaper, trim them of excess fat and sometimes the skin, and that back section attached to the thigh. I separate leg and thigh, and use a dry rub on the pieces before baking, then toss them with 2 or 3 separate BBQ sauces, some homemade. they always please.
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The chicken tenders sandwich I will just pass on. That is hardly cooking, plus I don't do chicken tenders. However, buying a rotisserie chicken is not beneath me, and it has many possibilities that are quick and easy including sandwiches, chicken salad, waldorf salad, enchiladas, etc
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Taco Soup, hmmmm, soups, stews, gravies, and sauces I excel at. For the most part you don't need a recipe. It's a good cooks thing. I'll stack my Chili or Beef Stew up against anyones.
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$10 bucks a pound for Filet Mignon is beyond my budget. Here it ranges from $13 down to a rare $8 per pound. All too high for my appetite or budget. My favorite affordable steaks when price loss leaders at the local grocery are Ribeye, Tbone, Porterhouse, New York strip, in that order. I grill to order without complaints. You get it like you asked for it..
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BTW, recipes are merely a good place to start. This list of 5 recipes for manly men I find sadly incomplete and controversial. Sort of like the "best rifle", "car or truck", "Ginger or Maryann", etc etc. All in the eye or the tastes of the beholder. To each his or her own.