Learning to Cook

One of my life goals is to become a great vegetarian cook.  I don't have much free time but I do try out a new recipe every now and then.  An added bonus is that when you cook at home, you know exactly what goes into the food and can make your recipes a lot more healthy or diet-specific.   I own roughly a zillion cookbooks but, regardless of that, I recently acquired one more:  Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food.  

This one, along with Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, which are both one part recipes and one part technique, have only increased my desire to hone my skills.  I'm realizing that more than specific recipes, I want to learn specific techniques that I can then modify depending on what ingredients I have on hand.

Things I want to learn how to make:

-Fritattas

-Crepes

-Bread

-Paella

-Hummus

-Jam

-Empanadas

-A good basic vegetable soup and a good basic black bean soup

-Icing

-Pie

-Souffle

-Risotto

-Flan

Yum!  What would you like to be able to cook?

{Photo credit: foooooey}