John's Online Cookbook

Welcome to my cookbook. I will share with you some of my favorite recipes and tips for entertaining. This is not intended to be a complete cookbook teaching the neophyte the basics nor an advanced treatise on cooking. It's just a collection of my favorites, which will grow over time as I discover new recipes and get old ones typed in. The best online source for recipes I've found is rec.food.recipes archive site. Indeed, some of the recipes here I pinched from rec.food.recipes. In the spirit of the Internet, let me make the following offer - if you take a recipe, leave one as well.

I tell people I only know how to cook ten things, which isn't true, but really that's all you need to entertain successfully. The trick is in choosing which ten dishes to make. I enjoy unusual foods, which typically means ethnic cooking, so my ten dishes would include familiar dishes like lasagna but also exotic dishes like Thai curry. One advantage to an online cookbook is that I can have sample menus with links directly to the recipes.

I also have learned to cure meats and make my own sausages - I built a sausage stuffer with parts from the hardware store, and design help from Alan Kilian and have a smoker (heavily modified from the original) for making pastrami; smoking other meats like turkey; and sausages like weiners, Polish sausage, salami, jerky, etc.

Keywords

Desserts | Meats | Ethnic | Menus

Desserts

Some say "Life is short, eat dessert first." I think you can make a reputation for yourself as a good cook through desserts better than any other way. Perhaps it's because dessert it the last part of a meal (quote notwithstanding), and therefore the last impression on your mind. Perhaps we all simply have a sweet tooth.

baclava
biscotti
chocolate chip cookie
macaroon cookies
pavlova
caramel rolls
Better than Sex cake
Chocolate Brownie Pie
chocolate sauce
Fun with Filo

Meats

Nearly everything I've learned about curing meats and making sausages comes from a single book by Rytek Kutas called "Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing". It really opened my eyes to how it's done. Mr. Kutas also runs a mail order business selling supplies to the home sausage maker. Write or click for a free copy of their catalog.

The Sausage Maker
1500 Clinton St
Bldg 123
Buffalo, NY, 14206-3099

716/824-6510
716/824-6465 dept #714

pastrami
pickled fish
Italian sausage
breakfast sausage

Ethnic

I own a variety of ethnic cookbooks teaching the cooking of countries like Italy, Mexico, Germany, Thailand, China and more. Where I use a recipe, I'll give the source.

Thai green curry
Thai bamboo & beef salad
stuffed mushrooms
hummus
Stuffed pasta shells
tostada
Couscous
German potato salad
Chow Mein
Basil Tomato Spaghettini
Deep Dish Pizza
Broccoli Penne
Pretzels