A Simple Sweet and Sour

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

One of my favorite dishes to make and eat is sweet and sour pork. I love that interplay of, well, sweet and sour in a savory context. But many of us, including myself, never think to go beyond that Chinese take-out staple when craving that flavor profile.

In comes one of my best standby meals to make when I can’t think of anything to cook, and I don’t have the time, energy, or money for a big meal. I learned this dish from Lidia Bastianich years ago, and it’s easily the most satisfying meal I make that requires virtually no energy to prepare, but pays off big in flavor. And best of all, it plays off that sweet and sour flavor marriage I love so much.

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“Bloody Brains”

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

For this week’s theme of Halloween-inspired recipes, I wanted something that was easy, an uncharacteristic quality to most Halloween project-style recipes.

First, I had to pick what I wanted my dish to look like. After thinking about dismembered appendages, demon-shaped creations and cute ghost-resembling baked goods, I decided to pay homage to one of my favorite scenes in the movie, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom. Although it’s not a Halloween movie, there are plenty of scenes in it that still give me the creeps, and my favorite is where a member of the royal court eats monkey brains from a monkey’s head.

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Cooking with Beer: Beef Stew

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

I’m an avid beer drinker, so I always have more than a few brands and styles hanging around my house at any given time. This sometimes becomes problematic when I have a lot available to drink but don’t have the time or desire to drink them all before they go bad.

My solution is one of my favorite recipes: a beef stew cooked in beer. Beer adds dimension and depth to the beef and fits perfectly in this time of year. Plus, it gets rid of some of that extra beer.

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Goodbye, Summer; Hello, Fall

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

It’s wonderful when the last waning days of summer are interspersed with cold days that snap you out of your warm weather stupor. I look forward to autumn so much that I welcome as quick an end to summer as possible. And during this season, it’s great to begin cooking slightly heartier fare than fruit-topped salads.

As with most meals I make, I took inspiration from random ingredients in my pantry that I wanted to use in some way before they went bad. This week it was sour cream, and since we also had some egg pasta lingering in the back of the pantry, the idea of making a warm and satisfying meal of stroganoff practically slapped me in the face.

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Oven-Baked Chicken in Red Wine

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

As with many meals I make on a weeknight, the genesis of the idea sparks when I have too much of something hanging around my kitchen. This time, it was red wine.

I’m a devout beer drinker and drink nothing else, except for the occasional cocktail at a restaurant or rare glass of white wine; never red. So when I was gifted with a good bottle of red wine that I knew I could never finish before it went bad, I decided to cook with it. And what did I make? Coq au Vin.

I know you may be saying, “how obvious,” and it is; but that’s where the similarities stop. I love taking inspiration from an obvious choice, like the traditional chicken braised in red wine, but changing it to my own tastes. And most importantly, make it easier to cook.

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