A big departure from my last posts - guys, who here loves to cook? [View all]

I do, it's something I have always enjoyed ever since I was quite young. My mother was always a great "farmhouse cook", growing up on the farm literally, she had to learn cooking skills at a young age to help out the family, and she learned to cook simple, comfort foods, stews, roasts, big breakfasts, that sort of thing, not fancy but satisfying, unfortunately not healthy.

All I will say about dear old dad was that he was extremely sexist, never cooked anything in his life, viewed it as feminine, as "woman's work", he of course persecuted me about the fact I enjoyed cooking as well as everything else. Never the less, I picked up great fundamentals and then expanded on them by broadening my horizons in ingredients, cuisine, and technique.

Ok, I'll go so far as to say this is at least one thing in my favor in terms of being good boyfriend-husband material, I can cook, clean, whatever, have no macho hang ups about doing any of it, and would take good care of any wife or girlfriend.

I would like to hope that boys today in general are taught fundamental life skills like cooking so they can be self-sufficient, and that sexist views of what is not "manly" doesn't interfere with this education.

I had an assignment from my dietician for my group fitness class - buy two exotic vegetables and create two healthy recipes with them.

I used an Indian vegetable known as Oppo squash, aka bottle gourd, to do a Thai style hot and sour soup:

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I used a mix of exotic mushrooms to make a quinoa "risotto" with just a little Parmesan and topped with toasted black walnuts:

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