I've been teaching myself to cook off and on for the last year or two.
I made sushi over the summer, which came out okay, except that I used arborio rice instead of sushi rice, I didn't quite roll up my seaweed enough, and I didn't have a sharp knife. So, they kind of fell apart when I was cutting them.
Here's a picture of my failure.I also attempted Spanish paella. My host mother in Spain made the best paella ever as a special treat twice per semester, and I really wanted to have it again, so I tried to cook a modified version on my own. It came out okay, if nothing like hers. I would be content just to cook the rice, chicken stock, and chorizo. That part alone was delicious.
Oh, and I also attempted Mongolian grill, with water chestnuts, snow peas, tofu, mushrooms, shrimp, peanuts, rice noodles, a bit of fresh parsley, and a homemade peanut sauce. The sauce is amazing, but I need to thin it out. My noodles end up as one big glob of delicious and the other ingredients hardly get covered. I'm loathe to use water to thin it since it adds no flavor, but I can't think of what else would do the job and not be gross.
That's about it as far as any dishes with complexity go. I make a great breaded and baked chicken, and I can whip up a good pasta dish in short order. I'm going to try to learn to bake over the summer. I make stuff with my mom every once in a while, but I don't do anything on my own besides box mixes, and I figure it's a decent skill to have.
- Jen