re: Are you a natural when it comes to cooking??

I think i'm somewhat of a natural. Obviously i didn't start that way. But i learned from watching my mom. Then, when i got to college, i'd call her up for recipes or how to cook something, and when i went home i'd get her to cook soemthing and watch and take notes.

I'm 33 now, with a wife and a son (6 months old) and i do the majority of cooking. Weekends are for the good meals. Weekdays are quick tasty meals. My weekday standards are P90X chicken (chicken thighs with molasses, lemon juice, garlic,and worcestershire) with broccoli and pasta sides, shake and bake porkchops, easy quesadillas, and almond and parmeson crusted tilapia.

Weekends are the big meals. The well crafted Gumbos, Jambalayas, Spaghetti, etc... are done every other month, rotating. These are meals that take at least an hour or more to cook. Gumbo takes about 4.
I also experiment with new dishes that i love now; oxtail stew, rabbit sauce piquante, wine braised beef short ribs, wine braised chicken with shallots and pancetta, Orecchetti, Meatballs and Kale with Pine nuts, Fettucinni, roast quail, etc...
Every other week or so i'll get the urge to cook something new that is somewhat fancy. I cooked something with lemongrass for the first time, and it was fantastic. Never realized how close to lemon lemongrass tastes. The Chinese stir fry didn't go over too well. My stainless wok is not stick resistant, and caused me to burn a bunch of shite. Chinese is the hardest thing to cook, IMO.

Right now, i'm currently crafting a multi-course beer dinner menu to cook for family friends. I'll start a thread on that later. This weekend i'm making one of the dishes to try out. It's called Coq Au Biere.

I have found i can cook almost anything if i have a recipe. I'm not too great at winging it though, unless it's for simple stuff, like gravy's, gumbo's, etc...

One of my pride and joy meals is my smoked duck and sausage gumbo. I've posted the recipe before, buy i smoke the duck in the smoker, collect the fat in a drip pan, and use that fat for the roux. It's incredible. And if my wife will ever let me do it again, i'm going to cook Gumbo Z'herbes again. I cooked it once and it was fantastic. Wife doesn't care for greens, though.

One of my new favorites, however, is cooking with brussel sprouts.