I suck at cooking
January 4, 2024 12:01 PM Subscribe
I want to suck less at cooking. I want to try simple, cheap, easy meals for 1 more regularly. I'd like a cookbook or one or two websites I can have as go-to resources. Please help.
I suck at cooking. My mom sucked at cooking. Her mom sucked at cooking. It's not in my wheelhouse AT ALL, and whenever I try doing anything it ends up being unnecessarily expensive to buy all the ingredients, tastes mediocre at best, and I'm left with too much that ends up getting wasted. I feed myself eating out/getting take out, and by mostly eating fruit and yogurt and salads at home.
I'm impatient, don't have the intuition or basic learnings that my friends seem to have, I'm on a budget, and really don't like having to eat leftovers more than once. Assume I don't understand the difference between roasting and baking or frying and sautéing or mincing and dicing. If I can swap celery salt with regular salt and still have an okay dish, then I need the recipe to tell me that so I don't blow $10 on celery salt or whatever. Assume I need the resources I'm seeking to tell me what kind of oil I need to cook with, not just 'oil' bc I almost set my house on fire using olive oil vs avocado oil once or something stupid bc I assumed 'vegetable oil' was just oil made out of vegetables? I don't fuckin know. I need HELP.
I want to try to get through my mental block by trying one or two recipes a month that are cheap, don't require intricate cookware or ingredients I'll only use once, don't assume any prerequisite knowledge, aren't just rice-and-beans recipes, and that I don't have to cook in bulk to get value from, and that I could maybe serve to a friend and not be embarrassed.
I have two pots (large and small), two pans (large and small), various shitty knives, and I think like a tiny cookie sheet and a tiny roasting pan somewhere (to go with my tiny oven). I will not be purchasing any mixers or food processors or air fryers or anything that costs money or takes up space for this experiment. My stove and oven are gas and basically impossible to control the temperature of (blame NYC apartments), so I really can't be doing anything that requires precise temps either. I don't have a dishwasher either, so really would like to keep it as simple as possible.
I don't have any dietary restrictions but I'd like to avoid anything too heavy on beef/pork and I'm very sensitve to spice (even mild spice tends to cause the sweats for me). I'd love to lean away from anything too pasta-forward as well, just to keep those carbs in check. I love cheese. I don't love soup, but I'll maybe cook it once a year if I feel like it.
I also don't want to have to comb through a bunch of sites or try to remember to log your personal recipes, so I'm mostly looking for one or two go-to resources (cookbooks or websites) that have a majority of the kind of thing I'm looking for.
Thanks in advance!
I suck at cooking. My mom sucked at cooking. Her mom sucked at cooking. It's not in my wheelhouse AT ALL, and whenever I try doing anything it ends up being unnecessarily expensive to buy all the ingredients, tastes mediocre at best, and I'm left with too much that ends up getting wasted. I feed myself eating out/getting take out, and by mostly eating fruit and yogurt and salads at home.
I'm impatient, don't have the intuition or basic learnings that my friends seem to have, I'm on a budget, and really don't like having to eat leftovers more than once. Assume I don't understand the difference between roasting and baking or frying and sautéing or mincing and dicing. If I can swap celery salt with regular salt and still have an okay dish, then I need the recipe to tell me that so I don't blow $10 on celery salt or whatever. Assume I need the resources I'm seeking to tell me what kind of oil I need to cook with, not just 'oil' bc I almost set my house on fire using olive oil vs avocado oil once or something stupid bc I assumed 'vegetable oil' was just oil made out of vegetables? I don't fuckin know. I need HELP.
I want to try to get through my mental block by trying one or two recipes a month that are cheap, don't require intricate cookware or ingredients I'll only use once, don't assume any prerequisite knowledge, aren't just rice-and-beans recipes, and that I don't have to cook in bulk to get value from, and that I could maybe serve to a friend and not be embarrassed.
I have two pots (large and small), two pans (large and small), various shitty knives, and I think like a tiny cookie sheet and a tiny roasting pan somewhere (to go with my tiny oven). I will not be purchasing any mixers or food processors or air fryers or anything that costs money or takes up space for this experiment. My stove and oven are gas and basically impossible to control the temperature of (blame NYC apartments), so I really can't be doing anything that requires precise temps either. I don't have a dishwasher either, so really would like to keep it as simple as possible.
I don't have any dietary restrictions but I'd like to avoid anything too heavy on beef/pork and I'm very sensitve to spice (even mild spice tends to cause the sweats for me). I'd love to lean away from anything too pasta-forward as well, just to keep those carbs in check. I love cheese. I don't love soup, but I'll maybe cook it once a year if I feel like it.
I also don't want to have to comb through a bunch of sites or try to remember to log your personal recipes, so I'm mostly looking for one or two go-to resources (cookbooks or websites) that have a majority of the kind of thing I'm looking for.
Thanks in advance!
Came here to recommend the Bittman book as well as a great place to start.
posted by leslies at 12:09 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
posted by leslies at 12:09 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Ha - third vote for Bittman's book, or the one I have which is How To Cook Everything Vegetarian. I'm not a vegetarian but I wanted to expand my range of what to do with things that weren't meat product-based.
posted by queensissy at 12:17 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
posted by queensissy at 12:17 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Try Budget Bytes - they are generally budget-conscious recipes and they usually have a section explaining the ingredients and tools and why you use them and possible substitutions. They have a bit of an emphasis on batch meals but there's lots of recipes that are just for a few servings. I recommend the white bean and spinach quesadillas and African peanut stew.
posted by phlox at 12:22 PM on January 4 [17 favorites]
posted by phlox at 12:22 PM on January 4 [17 favorites]
Do you have an open salad bar or a grocery with a salad bar near you? One of my best cooking for one life hacks is to hit up the salad bar for a single serving of raw, prepped, and pre-cut veg. I don't need a whole ass broccoli for a stir fry, I need, like, a handful.
Yes, buying veg like this is more expensive, but for me when I factor in the 1) significantly reduced waste of buying something I will not use before it goes bad and 2) the significantly reduced labor of prepping it, salad bar comes out way ahead every time.
posted by phunniemee at 12:28 PM on January 4 [7 favorites]
Yes, buying veg like this is more expensive, but for me when I factor in the 1) significantly reduced waste of buying something I will not use before it goes bad and 2) the significantly reduced labor of prepping it, salad bar comes out way ahead every time.
posted by phunniemee at 12:28 PM on January 4 [7 favorites]
I agree that Bittman is great for techniques (I also have his How to Cook Everything Vegetarian). Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat is a great resource for becoming a better intuitive cook - she does provide recipes, but half the book is learning about (you guessed it) how salt, fat, acid, and heat impact cooking - and how once you know this, you can get better at cooking sans recipes.
Finally, I recently got access to NYTimes cooking for free via my work, and it's really great - you can add recipes to your "box" so it makes returning to recipes you like easy, and they have a lot of simple to medium complexity recipes, and a lot of recipes with basic ingredients. The community is also nice - people will leave helpful notes about what ingredients they subbed or adjustments they've tried. I've cooked a handful of their recipes so far and have been very pleased with the results so far.
posted by coffeecat at 12:31 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
Finally, I recently got access to NYTimes cooking for free via my work, and it's really great - you can add recipes to your "box" so it makes returning to recipes you like easy, and they have a lot of simple to medium complexity recipes, and a lot of recipes with basic ingredients. The community is also nice - people will leave helpful notes about what ingredients they subbed or adjustments they've tried. I've cooked a handful of their recipes so far and have been very pleased with the results so far.
posted by coffeecat at 12:31 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: Turns out I have the "How to Cook Everything" The Basics book, but all the recipes call for minimum of four servings, sometimes as many as 12. Is it really just so simple as cutting the portions of ingredients down to 25% of what a 4 serving dish calls for to make something for myself alone or is it more complicated than that?
posted by greta simone at 12:34 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
posted by greta simone at 12:34 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
It is in fact that simple, until you are figuring out how to get a quarter of an egg. I usually cook for 2, but we also bring leftover lunches to work, so I usually cook for four servings. If I get sick of something I'll toss it in the freezer and serve something from the freezer from the last time I got sick of something.
posted by advicepig at 12:37 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
posted by advicepig at 12:37 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
It's also useful to cook something a few times in near succession so you can learn, last time was too dry, try stopping a bit earlier, or in step, I wish I had the veggies already cut up and ready.
Actually, that's another tip. It's super useful to read the recipe from start to finish and figure out if there are ways to have all the things you need to cut already cut. If the carrots and potatoes go in at the same time, you can cut them up and put them in the same bowl. It can add up in dishes, but it saves a fair bit of stress.
posted by advicepig at 12:40 PM on January 4 [6 favorites]
Actually, that's another tip. It's super useful to read the recipe from start to finish and figure out if there are ways to have all the things you need to cut already cut. If the carrots and potatoes go in at the same time, you can cut them up and put them in the same bowl. It can add up in dishes, but it saves a fair bit of stress.
posted by advicepig at 12:40 PM on January 4 [6 favorites]
Consider getting one of the meal planning boxes once a month or so. As a single person cooking for one I love that each box gives me 3 meals with 2 servings each. Dinner and then lunch the next day is perfect for me and doesn't leave me with tons of leftovers. (I also am not a huge leftover fan). Its improved my cooking skills because the recipes (and each step) are illustrated and all of the ingredients are included (almost all, butter, salt, pepper, and oil are often needed). DM if you are interested, I can send you a code for a free box to try.
posted by museum nerd at 12:40 PM on January 4 [10 favorites]
posted by museum nerd at 12:40 PM on January 4 [10 favorites]
I wonder if you might like a book like “Cooking Basics: Recipes and Tips to Cook with Confidence”, which is the book I learned to cook with. It doesn’t assume you know anything and has a nice progression of recipes that can build your confidence and enjoyment in the kitchen.
posted by stellaluna at 12:40 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
posted by stellaluna at 12:40 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
In my experience, the main challenge with reducing recipes is that they can cook more quickly or dry out in a big pan when you make less than the recipe calls for. So if you were making 1/4 of a soup or a sauce in your big pan, you'd need to watch it very closely - better to switch to a small pan.
Otherwise, you may get some flavor changes but it won't be, like, poison or something.
posted by Frowner at 12:42 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Otherwise, you may get some flavor changes but it won't be, like, poison or something.
posted by Frowner at 12:42 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
I own "How to Cook Everything", but the sheer size intimidates me. When I was first on my own and solely responsible for meals, my go-to was "Betty Crocker Cooking Basics". The entire point of the cookbook is easy recipes with common ingredients.
posted by epj at 12:44 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
posted by epj at 12:44 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
I, too, hate(d) cooking and found it frustrating and confusing, and I deeply resent(ed) the tendancy of recipes to just assume I knew what some thing meant. Two things that really helped me on my cooking journey:
Help! My apartment has a kitchen takes an extremely hand-holding approach to everything, and that helped me a ton in my earliest days of cooking. It's a varied cookbook and most of the recipes are for 2-ish people or generate a modest amount of leftover, and it leaves nothing to chance - explaining everything.
I also have had huge success with cooking boxes. Plated (of blessed memory) and now Marley Spoon arrives once a week, I take things out, I follow the instructions, I end up with food. You will however want a "cooking buddy" on call or on hand to answer some questions if, eg, you aren't sure what "simmer" means. However, since you can view all the recipes in advance, this helps a lot to filter out "that's too damn confusing." Also, most of these kits really are intended for 2+ people; if you don't mind having a second meal's leftovers, it may work well for you too.
I found "How to cook everything" intimidating and frustrating, and frankly I still do. I think that the theory Bittman presents is all well and good but I don't want the damn theory, I just want to be guided through making a damn dinner. Others have found it extremely useful; I did not.
posted by Tomorrowful at 12:46 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
Help! My apartment has a kitchen takes an extremely hand-holding approach to everything, and that helped me a ton in my earliest days of cooking. It's a varied cookbook and most of the recipes are for 2-ish people or generate a modest amount of leftover, and it leaves nothing to chance - explaining everything.
I also have had huge success with cooking boxes. Plated (of blessed memory) and now Marley Spoon arrives once a week, I take things out, I follow the instructions, I end up with food. You will however want a "cooking buddy" on call or on hand to answer some questions if, eg, you aren't sure what "simmer" means. However, since you can view all the recipes in advance, this helps a lot to filter out "that's too damn confusing." Also, most of these kits really are intended for 2+ people; if you don't mind having a second meal's leftovers, it may work well for you too.
I found "How to cook everything" intimidating and frustrating, and frankly I still do. I think that the theory Bittman presents is all well and good but I don't want the damn theory, I just want to be guided through making a damn dinner. Others have found it extremely useful; I did not.
posted by Tomorrowful at 12:46 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
We recently picked up two cookbooks that fit the bill, Crip Up the Kitchen, and The Sad Bastard's Cookbooks.
I'm also a fan of Leanne Brown's Cookbooks, specifically Good and Cheap, which is available as a free pdf.
I also recommend trying out one of those meal planning box services, at least for a little while. I did Blue Apron for about six months, and it was a huge help in getting over a lot of the hurdles you described above. I'm not an amazing cook or anything, but I can trust myself in the kitchen to make something palatable without cause for alarm.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 12:47 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
I'm also a fan of Leanne Brown's Cookbooks, specifically Good and Cheap, which is available as a free pdf.
I also recommend trying out one of those meal planning box services, at least for a little while. I did Blue Apron for about six months, and it was a huge help in getting over a lot of the hurdles you described above. I'm not an amazing cook or anything, but I can trust myself in the kitchen to make something palatable without cause for alarm.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 12:47 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
My recommendation is to download the NYT Cooking app, find three dinner recipes that look appealing to you, and master those three recipes before moving forward. Like literally just cook those for a month or something.
Here's the theory why:
1. You can pick three things that require similar spices so you're not buying a million spices.
2. Just focusing on one meal means you aren't trying to overhaul your entire eating life while learning how to cook.
3. It feels good to master something. Much better than just cooking recipe after recipe and not even knowing if it's good, or if it's better than it would have been if you'd made it before you started trying to learn to cook.
Once you've mastered three recipes you'll have some kind of foundation. It won't be the Bittman "you have knife skills and a food vocabulary and a pantry full of staples" type of foundation, but it will be a foundation, and a more attainable one.
posted by kensington314 at 12:50 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Here's the theory why:
1. You can pick three things that require similar spices so you're not buying a million spices.
2. Just focusing on one meal means you aren't trying to overhaul your entire eating life while learning how to cook.
3. It feels good to master something. Much better than just cooking recipe after recipe and not even knowing if it's good, or if it's better than it would have been if you'd made it before you started trying to learn to cook.
Once you've mastered three recipes you'll have some kind of foundation. It won't be the Bittman "you have knife skills and a food vocabulary and a pantry full of staples" type of foundation, but it will be a foundation, and a more attainable one.
posted by kensington314 at 12:50 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Leafing through the Bittman book, I saw a recipe that looked good, but here are examples of thoughts when reading it in italics that make me want to shut it all down and go to the bodega for a sandwich:
Spanish-Style Lentils with Spinach:
2 tablespoons olive oil What kind of olive oil? Does it matter if it's EVOO or not?
Smoked Chorizo I don't really like chorizo, so what's a good substitute that won't make me need to alter the recipe?
1 medium onion But what kind of onion? Red? Yellow? White?
1 cup dried brown lentils, rinsed and picked over WTF does picked over mean??
Put in large pot What constitutes a large pot? The picture shows a ceramic le crueset style pot, will my shitty aluminum pot fuck this up over medium heat how do I know if it's medium enough bc my stove basically has barely visible flames or flames that jump 4 inches up and nothing in between
Stir occasionally literally what does this mean? Every 5 seconds? every 5 minutes?
Examples like this make me think "The Basics" are not basic enough, bc I have no intuition or training to know the answers to these kinds of things.
I don't need someone to specificially walk me through the answers to each of the questions but it's just to show an example of the issues I run up against when trying to learn this stuff. So I think I'm looking for a resource that is even more basic than Bittman.
And nothing will make me want to quit cooking forever than spending 45 minutes and 45 dollars just to have to throw it away bc something is burned or I use the wrong onion or whatever.
Thanks for the other recommendations so far!
posted by greta simone at 12:52 PM on January 4 [6 favorites]
Spanish-Style Lentils with Spinach:
2 tablespoons olive oil What kind of olive oil? Does it matter if it's EVOO or not?
Smoked Chorizo I don't really like chorizo, so what's a good substitute that won't make me need to alter the recipe?
1 medium onion But what kind of onion? Red? Yellow? White?
1 cup dried brown lentils, rinsed and picked over WTF does picked over mean??
Put in large pot What constitutes a large pot? The picture shows a ceramic le crueset style pot, will my shitty aluminum pot fuck this up over medium heat how do I know if it's medium enough bc my stove basically has barely visible flames or flames that jump 4 inches up and nothing in between
Stir occasionally literally what does this mean? Every 5 seconds? every 5 minutes?
Examples like this make me think "The Basics" are not basic enough, bc I have no intuition or training to know the answers to these kinds of things.
I don't need someone to specificially walk me through the answers to each of the questions but it's just to show an example of the issues I run up against when trying to learn this stuff. So I think I'm looking for a resource that is even more basic than Bittman.
And nothing will make me want to quit cooking forever than spending 45 minutes and 45 dollars just to have to throw it away bc something is burned or I use the wrong onion or whatever.
Thanks for the other recommendations so far!
posted by greta simone at 12:52 PM on January 4 [6 favorites]
Healthy Cooking for Two (or Just You) was where I got my start (I am not an enthusiastic cook but I feed myself adequately) - I found it very approachable. The "healthy" is very much informed by the 80s/90s "it's healthy if it's low fat" situation, so it might be kinda carb-forward overall but there are a variety of dishes in it. Not every recipe was a winner but I never had one completely fail on me if I followed it correctly. It also has tips for equipping your kitchen and stocking your pantry that are reasonable for someone living on their own with a small kitchen.
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:52 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:52 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Also just to address an obstacle that new cooks often have: don't be afraid of salt and fat. We have a lot of cultural training to avoid these things as unhealthy, but if you cook any random meal with a salt that is truly "to your taste" and a bunch of oil or butter, it will probably still be healthier for you than any version of the same meal prepared outside your kitchen.
So unless you have strict health reasons not to do salt and fat, then you should salt and fat away. Add a teaspoon of salt, taste it, and then add a pinch more if it seems to need it. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and then see if more olive oil would be nice.
So many times when I'm over at someone's place and the food is bland, they have procured all these beautiful fresh ingredients and I'm puzzling over why it tastes like cardboard, and it's always because they're afraid of salt and oil. But then you go to someone's house and they drop like three tbsp of butter into a pan before they even take any ingredients out of the fridge and you know you're in good hands.
posted by kensington314 at 12:57 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
So unless you have strict health reasons not to do salt and fat, then you should salt and fat away. Add a teaspoon of salt, taste it, and then add a pinch more if it seems to need it. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and then see if more olive oil would be nice.
So many times when I'm over at someone's place and the food is bland, they have procured all these beautiful fresh ingredients and I'm puzzling over why it tastes like cardboard, and it's always because they're afraid of salt and oil. But then you go to someone's house and they drop like three tbsp of butter into a pan before they even take any ingredients out of the fridge and you know you're in good hands.
posted by kensington314 at 12:57 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: And promise I'm not trying to threadsit, but I've tried the cooking boxes, but I'm currently only trying to cook something like once a month, not multiple times a week. I used to get them and end up throwing so much of it out bc I didn't cook them in time, so not ready for those again until I feel comfortable committing to cooking that often. I also don't love the amount of waste those things generate with their packaging.
posted by greta simone at 12:58 PM on January 4
posted by greta simone at 12:58 PM on January 4
Just to answer a few specific things:
I think that "rinsed and picked over" is the kind of recipe text that comes from a time when mechanization didn't get all the pebbles and stems out of stuff. Just give it a rinse in a colander and move on.
For your purposes, any of the three main grocery store onion colors are fine for basically every application. Get used to using onions and then revisit the question in a year, or five years, or never.
"Big" can just mean "large enough to hold enough of this liquid with at least 30% empty still so it doesn't boil over" or "big enough that something has some room to breath if I'm searing it."
Just use any old oil, canola oil for cooking, or EVOO, or regular olive oil or whatever. For salad dressing use olive oil of any kind you want. There are all kinds of feelings (and dubious health claims) people have about oils, and some of those feelings are translated into recipes, but oil is oil. It helps you saute things. Keeps things from sticking to the pan. Adds flavor in some more advanced applications. You can develop feelings about oil once you've learned to cook.
Basically take the stakes of the recipe, and cut the stakes in half. It will be edible. The next time you make it, it will be more edible. And so on.
posted by kensington314 at 1:06 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
I think that "rinsed and picked over" is the kind of recipe text that comes from a time when mechanization didn't get all the pebbles and stems out of stuff. Just give it a rinse in a colander and move on.
For your purposes, any of the three main grocery store onion colors are fine for basically every application. Get used to using onions and then revisit the question in a year, or five years, or never.
"Big" can just mean "large enough to hold enough of this liquid with at least 30% empty still so it doesn't boil over" or "big enough that something has some room to breath if I'm searing it."
Just use any old oil, canola oil for cooking, or EVOO, or regular olive oil or whatever. For salad dressing use olive oil of any kind you want. There are all kinds of feelings (and dubious health claims) people have about oils, and some of those feelings are translated into recipes, but oil is oil. It helps you saute things. Keeps things from sticking to the pan. Adds flavor in some more advanced applications. You can develop feelings about oil once you've learned to cook.
Basically take the stakes of the recipe, and cut the stakes in half. It will be edible. The next time you make it, it will be more edible. And so on.
posted by kensington314 at 1:06 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
thank you so much for this question. your follow up with the question in italics is 100% me, and i hope someone has some great resources to share with us. i also cook for 1 and it's bullshit so if i'm not eating out or picking up, i'm eating cheese sticks and fig bars.
one question that may direct answers further: is your oven one of those like half size apartment ones, not a standard full size oven you'd see in a house? like, you could fit a bread pan in there, but not a pizza pan?
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:06 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
one question that may direct answers further: is your oven one of those like half size apartment ones, not a standard full size oven you'd see in a house? like, you could fit a bread pan in there, but not a pizza pan?
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:06 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Nthing Budget Bytes. Bitman is good too - it taught Mr Bluesky to learn to cook something other than pasta.
posted by bluesky43 at 1:07 PM on January 4
posted by bluesky43 at 1:07 PM on January 4
I know this suggestion might not work for you, but I just want to put it out there...
If you really are just looking to cook once a month or so, what about posting your questions about the recipes here? I think people would enjoy helping you. The only reason I'm not answering your questions is because I think it would annoy you, because you were using it as an example of your thought process - not because it would be really onerous to answer them.
And since you're cooking so infrequently, getting direct answers to these questions could be more efficient than you trying to develop that intuition from experience.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:08 PM on January 4 [22 favorites]
If you really are just looking to cook once a month or so, what about posting your questions about the recipes here? I think people would enjoy helping you. The only reason I'm not answering your questions is because I think it would annoy you, because you were using it as an example of your thought process - not because it would be really onerous to answer them.
And since you're cooking so infrequently, getting direct answers to these questions could be more efficient than you trying to develop that intuition from experience.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:08 PM on January 4 [22 favorites]
If you really are just looking to cook once a month or so, what about posting your questions about the recipes here?
I second that emotion.
posted by kensington314 at 1:09 PM on January 4 [6 favorites]
I second that emotion.
posted by kensington314 at 1:09 PM on January 4 [6 favorites]
Your questions about the details in the recipes are 100% valid and reasonable and point to a different issue, which is that somehow generally you want to get comfortable with "how cooking works." In my experience there are two pathways:
1. Commit to experimentation. This can lead to a bunch of bad meals but if you try a yellow onion one day and a red the next you will eventually see patterns and learn that you have developed an opinion, which with time will include "in this kind of cooking it doesn't matter, but in this kind I prefer red." This process is guaranteed to be slow and frustrating and possibly expensive if you're not game to eat all your learning opportunities.
2. Get a cooking mentor. I personally don't think this is possible from a book for all the reasons you say. There are two folks on YouTube I would start with: Kenji Lopez-Alt and Claire Saffitz, for different reasons. You're not necessarily watching their stuff because you're going to cook it, but to learn process and vibe. Kenji has hundreds of GoPro 1st person videos of him whipping up all kinds of quick stuff, and it's an amazing demonstration of what it looks like to be comfortable in a kitchen. He also explains a lot along the way. Claire Saffitz is a very good technique explainer and in particular (a) does a great job of explaining what's important to be picky about and what can be loose and (b) emphasizes learning how food cooks - eg, the cookies are not done because the timer hit 15 minutes, they're done because you can smell X and feel Y when you touch them. She does this for lots of silly things cookbook authors turn into timings or weird jargon. You can read "beat until stiff peaks form" forever but until someone shows you what they're talking about by literally putting a whisk in front of your face you won't really know.
posted by range at 1:09 PM on January 4 [10 favorites]
1. Commit to experimentation. This can lead to a bunch of bad meals but if you try a yellow onion one day and a red the next you will eventually see patterns and learn that you have developed an opinion, which with time will include "in this kind of cooking it doesn't matter, but in this kind I prefer red." This process is guaranteed to be slow and frustrating and possibly expensive if you're not game to eat all your learning opportunities.
2. Get a cooking mentor. I personally don't think this is possible from a book for all the reasons you say. There are two folks on YouTube I would start with: Kenji Lopez-Alt and Claire Saffitz, for different reasons. You're not necessarily watching their stuff because you're going to cook it, but to learn process and vibe. Kenji has hundreds of GoPro 1st person videos of him whipping up all kinds of quick stuff, and it's an amazing demonstration of what it looks like to be comfortable in a kitchen. He also explains a lot along the way. Claire Saffitz is a very good technique explainer and in particular (a) does a great job of explaining what's important to be picky about and what can be loose and (b) emphasizes learning how food cooks - eg, the cookies are not done because the timer hit 15 minutes, they're done because you can smell X and feel Y when you touch them. She does this for lots of silly things cookbook authors turn into timings or weird jargon. You can read "beat until stiff peaks form" forever but until someone shows you what they're talking about by literally putting a whisk in front of your face you won't really know.
posted by range at 1:09 PM on January 4 [10 favorites]
The trouble with cooking only once a month is that intuition that you say you lack about the above comes from lots of repetition. Knowing how often to stir often comes down to not wanting the items to stick to the pan or to scorch. Knowing the right size pot comes down knowing the final volume of ingredients as well as leaving enough room so that it doesn't boil over and enough room so you can stir without spilling it.
Instead of making a set main dish recipe perhaps focus on something immensely flexible like roasting root vegetables or something easy like grilled cheese sandwiches. Those are flexible too since you can add condiments or deli meat as you like it.
posted by mmascolino at 1:12 PM on January 4 [7 favorites]
Instead of making a set main dish recipe perhaps focus on something immensely flexible like roasting root vegetables or something easy like grilled cheese sandwiches. Those are flexible too since you can add condiments or deli meat as you like it.
posted by mmascolino at 1:12 PM on January 4 [7 favorites]
Bad title on this book, but it's been really helpful for me: Two Dudes, One Pan
The idea is that every dish only uses one pan, and everything is organized around like, only the saucepan, dutch oven etc. You'll need like a mixing bowl or cutting board too obviously but generally the complexity is really reduced by this limitation. Generally the portions are not large either - enough for 2 or 3 maybe but not a big family dinner.
I've made the asparagus risotto from it a dozen or more times and it's been a huge hit every time. Plus it's super easily scaled up and down, still good the next day, etc. And dead easy to make. Chili and other soups that freeze well are another good option, you stash the extra in serving-size glass tupperware bowls in the freezer and just warm em up on demand. It's still food you made so it's "free" even if it isn't "fresh," but how fresh is the canned chili or Campbell's soup?
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:14 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
The idea is that every dish only uses one pan, and everything is organized around like, only the saucepan, dutch oven etc. You'll need like a mixing bowl or cutting board too obviously but generally the complexity is really reduced by this limitation. Generally the portions are not large either - enough for 2 or 3 maybe but not a big family dinner.
I've made the asparagus risotto from it a dozen or more times and it's been a huge hit every time. Plus it's super easily scaled up and down, still good the next day, etc. And dead easy to make. Chili and other soups that freeze well are another good option, you stash the extra in serving-size glass tupperware bowls in the freezer and just warm em up on demand. It's still food you made so it's "free" even if it isn't "fresh," but how fresh is the canned chili or Campbell's soup?
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:14 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
I came in to second the recommendation for the Budget Bytes website. Most of the recipes are for 4 servings, but you can modify it on the site. Since the site has somewhat of a budget focus, I find that the ingredients tend to be more "typical" for the American kitchen and less likely to require a 1/4 tsp of something you'll never use again. Also, the author will point out substitutions that you could make in the text above the recipe, if applicable, and also sometimes link to other recipes that are similar or that go well with the recipe. Also, since the site is budget-focused and meat tends to be expensive, the recipes often use less meat than typical or are vegetarian with the option to add meat.
However, I will warn that the Budget Byte's creator/main author likes spicy foods. But, she notes in the recipe intros instances where you can reduce or eliminate the spice or, alternately, where you really need (for example) the sriracha for flavor as well as spiciness. If I were you, I'd avoid the latter recipes.
As for your follow up questions in italics, I think some of the answers will come with trial and error. But I also want to mention that cooking is not baking. What I mean is that (for the most part) baking is more of a science and you really do need to follow recipes. (For the most part) cooking can be more improvisational. For example, to your comments in italics, I'd say the type of onion might alter the flavor a bit, but probably not too much, assuming you like the kind of onion you're using. And you can probably use your pot fine and probably stir every minute, or every five minutes, or maybe only twice, and it would probably turn out fine. (Also, every lentil recipe tells you to pick them over, presumably to make sure a tiny pebble isn't in there. I've never done so and am fine, but YMMV.) I will say, if you don't like chorizo, I'd probably start with a non-chorizo recipe since it is a pretty key component of that example.
I also wonder if you might find recipe videos useful so you can watch someone prepare a recipe. Unfortunately, I don't have any recommendations, but maybe youtube/insta/tiktok might have some suggestions.
posted by Caz721 at 1:18 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
However, I will warn that the Budget Byte's creator/main author likes spicy foods. But, she notes in the recipe intros instances where you can reduce or eliminate the spice or, alternately, where you really need (for example) the sriracha for flavor as well as spiciness. If I were you, I'd avoid the latter recipes.
As for your follow up questions in italics, I think some of the answers will come with trial and error. But I also want to mention that cooking is not baking. What I mean is that (for the most part) baking is more of a science and you really do need to follow recipes. (For the most part) cooking can be more improvisational. For example, to your comments in italics, I'd say the type of onion might alter the flavor a bit, but probably not too much, assuming you like the kind of onion you're using. And you can probably use your pot fine and probably stir every minute, or every five minutes, or maybe only twice, and it would probably turn out fine. (Also, every lentil recipe tells you to pick them over, presumably to make sure a tiny pebble isn't in there. I've never done so and am fine, but YMMV.) I will say, if you don't like chorizo, I'd probably start with a non-chorizo recipe since it is a pretty key component of that example.
I also wonder if you might find recipe videos useful so you can watch someone prepare a recipe. Unfortunately, I don't have any recommendations, but maybe youtube/insta/tiktok might have some suggestions.
posted by Caz721 at 1:18 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Good writers will emphasize places where the recipe cannot be changed or is finicky. If it doesn't matter, you will often see more vague writing. In all of the cases you described above with the lentils, the writing is vague in no small part because anything will work. Red onion, yellow onion, EVOO, regular olive oil, fancy pot or aluminum.
However, what I came in to suggest is that you don't start with books at all, but rather look to the wealth of experience on YouTube. For example, KQED has oodles of videos of Jacques Pepin cooking simple and tasty food, like this one for lentils and chicken. Or if you like Mexican food, Rick Bayless has a ton of great videos and his Mexican Everyday books are almost always quite simple recipes. I'm sure there is plenty more out there for easy cooking. But based on the thoughts you had, I bet watching people do the same cooking would help you see the bigger picture of the recipe.
posted by Schismatic at 1:25 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
However, what I came in to suggest is that you don't start with books at all, but rather look to the wealth of experience on YouTube. For example, KQED has oodles of videos of Jacques Pepin cooking simple and tasty food, like this one for lentils and chicken. Or if you like Mexican food, Rick Bayless has a ton of great videos and his Mexican Everyday books are almost always quite simple recipes. I'm sure there is plenty more out there for easy cooking. But based on the thoughts you had, I bet watching people do the same cooking would help you see the bigger picture of the recipe.
posted by Schismatic at 1:25 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
Here was a great MEFI thread full of great advice.
Here was my advice from the thread for someone who wanted to get started with simple cooking in a very small kitchen that she needed to equip:
Best answer: Have on hand basic fresh and frozen ingredients someone else chopped.
Fresh pre-chopped onions; pre-peeled garlic; frozen, microwaveable brown rice; bags of frozen veggies of all types for sides, stir fries; sheet pan meals. (you can also buy fresh pre-cut broccoli, etc. make something with it then store rest in zip freezer bags for another time; pre-sliced beef, chicken, pork in many butcher cases at the supermarket to be combined with frozen veggies and pre-mixed bottles of Asian stir fry sauces. Boxes of chicken and veggie broths in cabinet then in fridge when partially used.
Always have on hand olive and one other kind of cooking oil that doesn't burn as fast (safflower, corn, canola, etc); complete array of very small containers of spices (online Penzy's is great) in a drawer.
Set-up: One big good knife; two decent paring knives; kitchen scissors; 2 different size synthetic cutting boards; bottle of oilive oil; salt and pepper. Keep these on the counter closest to stove.
Every time you cook, line up all your recipe ingredients ahead of time in the order you use them. Fill a dishpan with hot, soapy water in the sink and drop in prep dishes as you use them to wash or to put in dishwasher later. (hand wash/dry or put in dishwasher as you wait for food to cook) Consider prep, cooking, eating, and clean up as ONE process.
Master 3-4 soups; 3-4 stews; 3-4 stir fries; 3-4 sheet pan meals, and rotate. Make two meals at a time and eat the other a couple days later or freeze it (in labelled dated container).
Newbies and reluctant cooks often buy too much food, e.g. bags of onions and potatoes, which they wind up throwing out because they hate grocery shopping. Buy very small quanties of fresh ingredients like onions, fresh vegetables, fresh meat and fish so you consume fresh ingredients in the same week. Clean out your fridge of leftovers once a week; clean out expired stuff in the freezer on the first of the month.
Everything everybody else said about having a dedicated prep space with a synthetic cutting board, a good knife, a couple paring knives as close as possible to the stove. Get a small wok, a good, heavy no-stick frying pan, a small no stick sauté pan, a small le Creuset type Dutch oven (Marshall's has very affordable, small colorful Cuisinart ones all the time, which you can proudly leave on the stove so it's always there.) You can make a small sheet pan meal with precut everything in a good toaster oven--so easy and delicious. Check out Melissa Clark's sheet pan meals. I line my sheet pan with foil for easy clean up.
I love to cook but totally get why many people don't. With so much prep ingredients in fresh veggie sections or frozen case, you can cut out half the drudgery.
posted by Elsie at 11:48 AM on June 16, 2021 [2 favorites +] [⚑]
I disagree that the best way to start is with Mark Bittman's book wonderful though it is. TMI. To get started, think more in terms of "assembling" prepared, precut foods and adding just one cooked item you master--salmon, chicken, tofu, egg. Someone upthread said hit the salad bars. So assemble a spinach salad from a salad bar then add a piece of cooked salmon from a recipe or cooked chicken breast or some wonderful lightly toasted goat cheese rounds or a couple hard boiled eggs. Or adapt Melissa Clark's sheet pan recipes from New York Times only do it all with pre-cut veggies: already cut-up butternut squash, pre-cut frozen peppers, pre-chopped onion. Roast them a bit Mel in olive oil, salt and pepper, Melissa's suggested herbs. You can even do this in a decent toaster oven. Then add a couple Italian sausages, or salmon, chicken, or tofu that's been marinated or seasoned per Melissa.
posted by Elsie at 1:26 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
Here was my advice from the thread for someone who wanted to get started with simple cooking in a very small kitchen that she needed to equip:
Best answer: Have on hand basic fresh and frozen ingredients someone else chopped.
Fresh pre-chopped onions; pre-peeled garlic; frozen, microwaveable brown rice; bags of frozen veggies of all types for sides, stir fries; sheet pan meals. (you can also buy fresh pre-cut broccoli, etc. make something with it then store rest in zip freezer bags for another time; pre-sliced beef, chicken, pork in many butcher cases at the supermarket to be combined with frozen veggies and pre-mixed bottles of Asian stir fry sauces. Boxes of chicken and veggie broths in cabinet then in fridge when partially used.
Always have on hand olive and one other kind of cooking oil that doesn't burn as fast (safflower, corn, canola, etc); complete array of very small containers of spices (online Penzy's is great) in a drawer.
Set-up: One big good knife; two decent paring knives; kitchen scissors; 2 different size synthetic cutting boards; bottle of oilive oil; salt and pepper. Keep these on the counter closest to stove.
Every time you cook, line up all your recipe ingredients ahead of time in the order you use them. Fill a dishpan with hot, soapy water in the sink and drop in prep dishes as you use them to wash or to put in dishwasher later. (hand wash/dry or put in dishwasher as you wait for food to cook) Consider prep, cooking, eating, and clean up as ONE process.
Master 3-4 soups; 3-4 stews; 3-4 stir fries; 3-4 sheet pan meals, and rotate. Make two meals at a time and eat the other a couple days later or freeze it (in labelled dated container).
Newbies and reluctant cooks often buy too much food, e.g. bags of onions and potatoes, which they wind up throwing out because they hate grocery shopping. Buy very small quanties of fresh ingredients like onions, fresh vegetables, fresh meat and fish so you consume fresh ingredients in the same week. Clean out your fridge of leftovers once a week; clean out expired stuff in the freezer on the first of the month.
Everything everybody else said about having a dedicated prep space with a synthetic cutting board, a good knife, a couple paring knives as close as possible to the stove. Get a small wok, a good, heavy no-stick frying pan, a small no stick sauté pan, a small le Creuset type Dutch oven (Marshall's has very affordable, small colorful Cuisinart ones all the time, which you can proudly leave on the stove so it's always there.) You can make a small sheet pan meal with precut everything in a good toaster oven--so easy and delicious. Check out Melissa Clark's sheet pan meals. I line my sheet pan with foil for easy clean up.
I love to cook but totally get why many people don't. With so much prep ingredients in fresh veggie sections or frozen case, you can cut out half the drudgery.
posted by Elsie at 11:48 AM on June 16, 2021 [2 favorites +] [⚑]
I disagree that the best way to start is with Mark Bittman's book wonderful though it is. TMI. To get started, think more in terms of "assembling" prepared, precut foods and adding just one cooked item you master--salmon, chicken, tofu, egg. Someone upthread said hit the salad bars. So assemble a spinach salad from a salad bar then add a piece of cooked salmon from a recipe or cooked chicken breast or some wonderful lightly toasted goat cheese rounds or a couple hard boiled eggs. Or adapt Melissa Clark's sheet pan recipes from New York Times only do it all with pre-cut veggies: already cut-up butternut squash, pre-cut frozen peppers, pre-chopped onion. Roast them a bit Mel in olive oil, salt and pepper, Melissa's suggested herbs. You can even do this in a decent toaster oven. Then add a couple Italian sausages, or salmon, chicken, or tofu that's been marinated or seasoned per Melissa.
posted by Elsie at 1:26 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
America's Test Kitchen has a book aimed at kids that I think you might find helpful. It's not going to give you all of those details in every recipe but it's more basic than most basics cookbooks and it has a section up front that explains what a lot of those things mean that you may find helpful.
To that I will add this: unlike baking, cooking is a very imprecise science. The answer to many, many of your questions is 'it doesn't matter that much' because if it did matter, the recipe should have specified. So, for example, with the pots, if you specifically needed a heavy bottomed pot, the recipe likely would have said so, so your pot is probably fine assuming it holds the ingredients. You can pick an answer that seems reasonable to you for most questions and have things turn out basically okay. Could they be better? Probably yes. Could they be worse? Also yes. Will you be able to eat the result? Almost certainly and even if you can't, you probably own bread and peanut butter.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:29 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
To that I will add this: unlike baking, cooking is a very imprecise science. The answer to many, many of your questions is 'it doesn't matter that much' because if it did matter, the recipe should have specified. So, for example, with the pots, if you specifically needed a heavy bottomed pot, the recipe likely would have said so, so your pot is probably fine assuming it holds the ingredients. You can pick an answer that seems reasonable to you for most questions and have things turn out basically okay. Could they be better? Probably yes. Could they be worse? Also yes. Will you be able to eat the result? Almost certainly and even if you can't, you probably own bread and peanut butter.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:29 PM on January 4 [5 favorites]
I got this book - The Secret of Cooking: Recipes for an Easier Life in the Kitchen - for Christmas, so just starting my way through it, but it's wonderful and reassuring and helpful.
Smitten Kitchen is my go-to recipe site. Everything I've cooked from there has been great, and she cooks out of a small NYC apartment kitchen, so might be relatable.
posted by maupuia at 1:29 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
Smitten Kitchen is my go-to recipe site. Everything I've cooked from there has been great, and she cooks out of a small NYC apartment kitchen, so might be relatable.
posted by maupuia at 1:29 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
jacquilynne, your ATK book link is a dead link, just FYI.
posted by kensington314 at 1:33 PM on January 4
posted by kensington314 at 1:33 PM on January 4
Quite frankly all of what you want out of the gate will be difficult. The reason a lot of people can cook meals quickly/without much fuss is practice. Last night I made a broccoli/rice/salmon meal pretty easily because I make that meal once a week.
The US government has a lot of basic recipes because they're trying to appeal to the entire country: MyPlate
My mom has always been a great cook, and when I think about it, she cycled through about 15-20 recipes that she had learned to cook well through practice. She told me that practice, and reading through the recipes before starting were probably the most helpful things you can do. She really only cooked out of about 5 or so cookbooks for decades (specifically Betty Crocker), until she and my dad started getting more adventurous with online recipes.
For my purposes, I substitute a lot. My goal is to make a pretty good meal for myself and my boyfriend, realizing it might not taste exactly the way the author/cook/chef intended.
For example, I usually use onion powder instead of onions. If the recipe says to chop a vegetable to one-inch pieces, I don't worry if they are exactly one inch. I frequently google "[food] substitute" if I don't have or want to pay for a certain item. You'd be surprised how many items you can sub.
Also, I think the biggest mistakes people make is, if they are cooking meat, they overcook it because they are worried about undercooking (which is where a meat thermometer is helpful) or they don't keep an eye on what they're cooking. You really do have to stay in the vicinity of the kitchen when cooking. (I suppose using a crockpot is the exception.)
Nthing budget bytes, and NYT cooking is great, but it's not free. Would also recommend watching cooking videos.
posted by girlmightlive at 1:35 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
The US government has a lot of basic recipes because they're trying to appeal to the entire country: MyPlate
My mom has always been a great cook, and when I think about it, she cycled through about 15-20 recipes that she had learned to cook well through practice. She told me that practice, and reading through the recipes before starting were probably the most helpful things you can do. She really only cooked out of about 5 or so cookbooks for decades (specifically Betty Crocker), until she and my dad started getting more adventurous with online recipes.
For my purposes, I substitute a lot. My goal is to make a pretty good meal for myself and my boyfriend, realizing it might not taste exactly the way the author/cook/chef intended.
For example, I usually use onion powder instead of onions. If the recipe says to chop a vegetable to one-inch pieces, I don't worry if they are exactly one inch. I frequently google "[food] substitute" if I don't have or want to pay for a certain item. You'd be surprised how many items you can sub.
Also, I think the biggest mistakes people make is, if they are cooking meat, they overcook it because they are worried about undercooking (which is where a meat thermometer is helpful) or they don't keep an eye on what they're cooking. You really do have to stay in the vicinity of the kitchen when cooking. (I suppose using a crockpot is the exception.)
Nthing budget bytes, and NYT cooking is great, but it's not free. Would also recommend watching cooking videos.
posted by girlmightlive at 1:35 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
my stove basically has barely visible flames or flames that jump 4 inches up and nothing in between
I feel like the issues with your stove aren't being addressed here. If your descriptions are literal, that stove is broken and even the most seasoned home cook would have difficulty with it. If you truly have nothing between a bare simmer and a rolling boil available, yeah everything is going to be raw or scorched. Any chance of a new working stove?
posted by CheeseLouise at 1:40 PM on January 4 [7 favorites]
I feel like the issues with your stove aren't being addressed here. If your descriptions are literal, that stove is broken and even the most seasoned home cook would have difficulty with it. If you truly have nothing between a bare simmer and a rolling boil available, yeah everything is going to be raw or scorched. Any chance of a new working stove?
posted by CheeseLouise at 1:40 PM on January 4 [7 favorites]
I will not be purchasing any mixers or food processors or air fryers or anything that costs money or takes up space for this experiment.
Full disclosure: the meal I mentioned above, the salmon I made in an air fryer, the rice I made in a Cuisinart version of the InstantPot, and the broccoli was from a frozen bag which I microwaved--I didn't use my stove at all. I understand that space and money is a concern, and it might not be possible to access these items, but CheeseLouise is right that if you don't even have a properly working stove, cooking will be harder.
posted by girlmightlive at 2:05 PM on January 4
Full disclosure: the meal I mentioned above, the salmon I made in an air fryer, the rice I made in a Cuisinart version of the InstantPot, and the broccoli was from a frozen bag which I microwaved--I didn't use my stove at all. I understand that space and money is a concern, and it might not be possible to access these items, but CheeseLouise is right that if you don't even have a properly working stove, cooking will be harder.
posted by girlmightlive at 2:05 PM on January 4
I agree with a few above: I think a kids cookbook would be perfect for you. Simple 'put-it-together' recipes will give you some go-tos. Then as you make those more often, you might switch it up. You might not even need your crappy stove for many of them. If you have a bookstore nearby, this would be something best looked at in person. They should have all the kids cookbooks in a separate section. Leaf through them and grab one that has a few recipes that you'd be interested in making.
Also, yes, if you came to MeFi with a recipe with questions and suggestions, I'd be happy to help walk you through the recipe. If you do this monthly, by the end of the year, you'd have 12 new dishes to make.
posted by hydra77 at 2:12 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Also, yes, if you came to MeFi with a recipe with questions and suggestions, I'd be happy to help walk you through the recipe. If you do this monthly, by the end of the year, you'd have 12 new dishes to make.
posted by hydra77 at 2:12 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
I feel bad suggesting something that isn't what you asked for, but if you like watching video, I think mainlining a bunch of America's Test Kitchen episodes (there's a whole channel on Pluto TV, which is Paramount's free ad-supported streaming service), you'd pick up a bunch of the background knowledge (what's a simmer? why this type of onion instead of that? why not olive oil for sauteeing? Do you really have to worry about x when making y?) that cookbooks don't spell out for various reasons. And if you don't like the ATK crew, Good Eats and Jacques Pepin also drop a lot of this kind of knowledge as they work.
posted by smirkette at 2:18 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
posted by smirkette at 2:18 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Sorry, this is the link I meant for the ATK: The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs: 100+ Recipes that You'll Love to Cook and Eat
posted by jacquilynne at 2:18 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 2:18 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
Look, I think you're going to want to eventually have slightly better equipment, but the first thing is to figure out what you truly want to eat on the nights you are cooking. Are you cooking at home for budget reasons, to have low-key nights at home more often, because you actually want to learn to make delicious food, or some combination of those reasons? What could you make that would satisfy those reasons? Only you can answer.
Smitten Kitchen is also my first web stop when I'm looking for a recipe. Her lazy pizza dough recipe is my standard, and she has good results when I have something I want to cook but haven't made often (like, I will search "short ribs" on her site rather than googling because I want to bypass all the shitty seo-driven recipe sites).
The first cookbook I ever owned was Fanny Farmer, and I think one of the standards (Settlement Cookbook or Betty Crocker are others) will contain explanations and advice that will help you with the foundations.
I agree that if you just wanted to occasionally throw an Ask in about specific recipes, this is a pretty enthusiastic bunch of folks, it might be fun.
I hope you find a way to do this where you get more and more out of it as you go along.
Eventually your tools will start to matter to you, I think a good knife and a couple of heavy-bottomed pots at least. They do make some difference! But don't do that first. First, think of something you want to make at home more than you want to eat in a restaurant.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 2:25 PM on January 4
Smitten Kitchen is also my first web stop when I'm looking for a recipe. Her lazy pizza dough recipe is my standard, and she has good results when I have something I want to cook but haven't made often (like, I will search "short ribs" on her site rather than googling because I want to bypass all the shitty seo-driven recipe sites).
The first cookbook I ever owned was Fanny Farmer, and I think one of the standards (Settlement Cookbook or Betty Crocker are others) will contain explanations and advice that will help you with the foundations.
I agree that if you just wanted to occasionally throw an Ask in about specific recipes, this is a pretty enthusiastic bunch of folks, it might be fun.
I hope you find a way to do this where you get more and more out of it as you go along.
Eventually your tools will start to matter to you, I think a good knife and a couple of heavy-bottomed pots at least. They do make some difference! But don't do that first. First, think of something you want to make at home more than you want to eat in a restaurant.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 2:25 PM on January 4
Do you have instagram? If so, check out Makayla_Thomas_Fit. (Unfortunately i can't link it right now.) Her stuff is geared towards weight loss, but it's super simple and fast. FYI, lots of processed foods if that's not your thing, but the idea is you balance it with fruits and vegetables. This might be a good starting off point for you to build your confidence before moving into some of the other cookbooks mentioned here.
As for scaling, I scale it down as far as it makes sense to do so. If 8 servings call for two eggs, i scale it down to 4 so i don't have to worry about egg fractions. I divide it out and package it for freezing so i can pull one out as necessary.
posted by BlueBear at 2:41 PM on January 4
As for scaling, I scale it down as far as it makes sense to do so. If 8 servings call for two eggs, i scale it down to 4 so i don't have to worry about egg fractions. I divide it out and package it for freezing so i can pull one out as necessary.
posted by BlueBear at 2:41 PM on January 4
Echoing jacquilynne and hydra77, maybe you should start with a childrens' cookbook? Look for those with good illustrations. Avoid those that are all about sweets.
I also agree that watching Jaques Pepin's videos is both soothing and inspiring, though you might be put off by his chopping skills. You need to get some good knives, seriously. Otherwise, you will never experience any joy of cooking. They don't have to be fancy: one of my favorite knives is from a Greek market, where I paid 2€ for it. Victorinox have cheap, good knives. Chinese markets are another good source. Even when you have those knives, it will take years before you can chop like a chef. But the point is that you don't have to, ever. You are not cooking for 200 guests in a restaurant. With sharp knives you can radically reduce the crying when chopping onions. But without good knives, cooking will always be a pain.
The America's Test Kitchen YouTube channel is also very helpful.
Your comments are really useful, I don't think you should worry about threadsitting. If I may question one thing, it would be the idea of cooking once a month. This is nearly impossible for one person, because it is in most cases very wasteful. Can you buy one potato where you live? Many Americans can't. So you buy a bag of potatoes, use one, and the rest are left in the crisper drawer in your fridge, where they may or may not start sprouting, and thus become inedible. And so on for every product. I suggest you adjust your plan so you cook one weekend a month.
Then you can buy some seasonal produce, and combine it in different ways to make varied meals and learn new skills. If I stick to the potatoes, one day you can bake a potato, and fill it with butter or creme fraiche and herbs. That's a meal in itself to me, but I would make a simple side salad out of stuff from the deli counter.
The next day, I would make mashed potatoes. Then I would eat them as the side to a simple stew. When we were students, and in the middle of a big project, we would combine a jar of red sauce with a jar of garbanzo beans and heat them up. This is good food IMO, specially if the red sauce is good. Optimally, put the leftovers in serving-size containers, so you just take what you need, when you want.
Now if this were me, I would freeze all the leftover garbanzo stew in portion sizes for another day, and make a Sunday Shepherds' Pie.
This is the project food where I would make this lentil stew, for four, and then I'd take out as much as I need for the tiny roasting pan. I'd freeze the rest for future pasta dishes, like those described in the linked recipe. The stew will only improve over time, and making one portion of pasta is easy, if you already have the sauce.
So spread out some stew in the roasting pan, so it covers the entire pan in a 1 inch layer. Cover with the leftover mashed potatoes and flatten out the surface. Then use a fork to make ridges, like in a plowed field, on the top of your pie. Spread little grape-sized lumps of butter all over the surface. Then bake the whole thing till the top of the pie is golden, with some brown spots. The pie needs about 15 minutes of rest before eating. Have another deli-counter salad to go with it. Maybe there will be enough for two days, but you don't have to eat it the day after. It will still be fine two days later, and maybe even better.
So now the weekend is over and you have some good stuff in the fridge and freezer. It won't feel like leftovers, but like healthy treasures. You can put the garbanzo-red sauce on toast and add cheese before you grill it, or you can use it as a pasta sauce. Or you can buy a couple of slices of meat at a deli and have the sauce as your side, along with a roll. You can eat the lentil stew on toast. Given your current habits, you can save a lot of money.
In February, it will still be winter, and we will still be looking at root vegetables, brassica, citrus fruits and also seafood. February is a great seafood month. Return then, as many have said. We are here to serve. There are thousands of options.
posted by mumimor at 3:09 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
I also agree that watching Jaques Pepin's videos is both soothing and inspiring, though you might be put off by his chopping skills. You need to get some good knives, seriously. Otherwise, you will never experience any joy of cooking. They don't have to be fancy: one of my favorite knives is from a Greek market, where I paid 2€ for it. Victorinox have cheap, good knives. Chinese markets are another good source. Even when you have those knives, it will take years before you can chop like a chef. But the point is that you don't have to, ever. You are not cooking for 200 guests in a restaurant. With sharp knives you can radically reduce the crying when chopping onions. But without good knives, cooking will always be a pain.
The America's Test Kitchen YouTube channel is also very helpful.
Your comments are really useful, I don't think you should worry about threadsitting. If I may question one thing, it would be the idea of cooking once a month. This is nearly impossible for one person, because it is in most cases very wasteful. Can you buy one potato where you live? Many Americans can't. So you buy a bag of potatoes, use one, and the rest are left in the crisper drawer in your fridge, where they may or may not start sprouting, and thus become inedible. And so on for every product. I suggest you adjust your plan so you cook one weekend a month.
Then you can buy some seasonal produce, and combine it in different ways to make varied meals and learn new skills. If I stick to the potatoes, one day you can bake a potato, and fill it with butter or creme fraiche and herbs. That's a meal in itself to me, but I would make a simple side salad out of stuff from the deli counter.
The next day, I would make mashed potatoes. Then I would eat them as the side to a simple stew. When we were students, and in the middle of a big project, we would combine a jar of red sauce with a jar of garbanzo beans and heat them up. This is good food IMO, specially if the red sauce is good. Optimally, put the leftovers in serving-size containers, so you just take what you need, when you want.
Now if this were me, I would freeze all the leftover garbanzo stew in portion sizes for another day, and make a Sunday Shepherds' Pie.
This is the project food where I would make this lentil stew, for four, and then I'd take out as much as I need for the tiny roasting pan. I'd freeze the rest for future pasta dishes, like those described in the linked recipe. The stew will only improve over time, and making one portion of pasta is easy, if you already have the sauce.
So spread out some stew in the roasting pan, so it covers the entire pan in a 1 inch layer. Cover with the leftover mashed potatoes and flatten out the surface. Then use a fork to make ridges, like in a plowed field, on the top of your pie. Spread little grape-sized lumps of butter all over the surface. Then bake the whole thing till the top of the pie is golden, with some brown spots. The pie needs about 15 minutes of rest before eating. Have another deli-counter salad to go with it. Maybe there will be enough for two days, but you don't have to eat it the day after. It will still be fine two days later, and maybe even better.
So now the weekend is over and you have some good stuff in the fridge and freezer. It won't feel like leftovers, but like healthy treasures. You can put the garbanzo-red sauce on toast and add cheese before you grill it, or you can use it as a pasta sauce. Or you can buy a couple of slices of meat at a deli and have the sauce as your side, along with a roll. You can eat the lentil stew on toast. Given your current habits, you can save a lot of money.
In February, it will still be winter, and we will still be looking at root vegetables, brassica, citrus fruits and also seafood. February is a great seafood month. Return then, as many have said. We are here to serve. There are thousands of options.
posted by mumimor at 3:09 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
A few suggestions.
1. Read the introductory material to the cookbook. Some are better than others, but in "Vegan Eats World," for instance, it shows you how to dice an onion. It shows you how to mince garlic. It talks about figuring out where "low," "medium," and "high" are on your stove. It talks about different ingredients (mostly the ones the author doesn't expect the average American to be familiar with, admittedly).
For my taste, I find that Mark Bittman already assumes that you know a lot - a lot of other cookbooks are friendlier in terms of how much explicit detail they give.
2. YouTube. Sometimes it can help a LOT to actually see what the cooking process looks like from beginning to end. I like Basics with Babish because he has the video recipes, plus if you go on the website you can see the full recipe in text.
I don't fully recommend it to omnivores because so many of the recipes call for cashew cheese and other dairy alternatives, but "I Can Cook Vegan" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz is written for beginners and has very clear, unambiguous instructions, and good advice for when you can do substitutions.
posted by Jeanne at 3:17 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
1. Read the introductory material to the cookbook. Some are better than others, but in "Vegan Eats World," for instance, it shows you how to dice an onion. It shows you how to mince garlic. It talks about figuring out where "low," "medium," and "high" are on your stove. It talks about different ingredients (mostly the ones the author doesn't expect the average American to be familiar with, admittedly).
For my taste, I find that Mark Bittman already assumes that you know a lot - a lot of other cookbooks are friendlier in terms of how much explicit detail they give.
2. YouTube. Sometimes it can help a LOT to actually see what the cooking process looks like from beginning to end. I like Basics with Babish because he has the video recipes, plus if you go on the website you can see the full recipe in text.
I don't fully recommend it to omnivores because so many of the recipes call for cashew cheese and other dairy alternatives, but "I Can Cook Vegan" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz is written for beginners and has very clear, unambiguous instructions, and good advice for when you can do substitutions.
posted by Jeanne at 3:17 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Sorry, this is the link I meant for the ATK: The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs: 100+ Recipes that You'll Love to Cook and Eat
I came to recommend this book - I got it for my kids, and it's genuinely very good at teaching how to cook, what recipe instructions mean, what techniques to use, etc. It's so well written that it has been easy for them to follow.
Plus the recipes that my kids have made from it have been delicious. I think this is the most important thing - you want to enjoy what you make.
The recipes are rated by difficulty, so you could start with the easiest ones (one chef's hat) and see how it goes.
The quantities are also sized for kids, so they tend not to be too much food - I'd say that what the book calls 4 servings is 2-3 adult servings (unless you eat very light).
posted by medusa at 3:17 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
I came to recommend this book - I got it for my kids, and it's genuinely very good at teaching how to cook, what recipe instructions mean, what techniques to use, etc. It's so well written that it has been easy for them to follow.
Plus the recipes that my kids have made from it have been delicious. I think this is the most important thing - you want to enjoy what you make.
The recipes are rated by difficulty, so you could start with the easiest ones (one chef's hat) and see how it goes.
The quantities are also sized for kids, so they tend not to be too much food - I'd say that what the book calls 4 servings is 2-3 adult servings (unless you eat very light).
posted by medusa at 3:17 PM on January 4 [4 favorites]
I like leftovers because cooking takes time and kitchen cleanup. Make soups and stews, freeze in single portions. I Have a big stack of these - get at least 8, because it's important to always have matching lids. Big chunks of potato get mealy when frozen, but many things freeze well, and knowing I have good food in the freezer makes life so much easier.
Came in to recommend Mark Bittman, very readable so read it because you'll learn and get ideas. Also, The Best Recipe, which is pompous, but will give good results because it's obsessively tested and very clear. If you learn to make pancakes, muffins and quick breads make more sense, then cake. Learn to roast a chicken. After 2 meals, remove all the good chicken, freeze it. Freeze the carcass to make chicken broth later. I roast a chicken, then have chicken salad, or wraps, and/or my my Mom's chicken casserole, then one of many delicious chicken soups. Changing up herbs/ spices and presentations makes that work, though I will happily eat chili every day for a week. Get cookbooks from the library, cheap and fun to browse. Read Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking because she's a terrific writer and cook.
Frozen veg are pre-trimmed and cheap and easy. Life's short, let a machine trim the broccoli.
Easy red sauce for pasta:
1 onion, I use yellow, but any onion is fine, peel, chop it up, saute in 2 Tb olive oil over medium low heat.
1 lb Italian sausage, chop it up, then saute it in your big pot because the onions are taking too long. It has lots of fat doesn't need more oil, medium-high heat. Get some brown on it if possible. Spicy, regular, garlic, and Ital. sausage is fine.
Add 2 cans crushed tomato - usually 28 ounces. I have used sliced, whole, and pureed, as well as with or without herbs.
Add a generous amount of red wine, probably 1/2 cup. It adds sweetness and complexity.
The onions are transparent, add them plus the oil. Singed onions add flavor, no problem. Undercooked onions are okay. The oil adds flavor and the sauce will stick to pasta better.
You are welcome to add mashed garlic, mushrooms, carrots (saute with onions). Italian herbs, chili pepper (Korean gochugaru flakes, hot sauce, whatevs), but Italian sausage is flavored.
Turn heat to low, stir every 10 minutes. edible in 35-40 minutes, really good and tender in an hour. Make pasta, some sort of spaghetti of your choice. Freezes well. Reasonably healthy.
posted by theora55 at 3:22 PM on January 4
Came in to recommend Mark Bittman, very readable so read it because you'll learn and get ideas. Also, The Best Recipe, which is pompous, but will give good results because it's obsessively tested and very clear. If you learn to make pancakes, muffins and quick breads make more sense, then cake. Learn to roast a chicken. After 2 meals, remove all the good chicken, freeze it. Freeze the carcass to make chicken broth later. I roast a chicken, then have chicken salad, or wraps, and/or my my Mom's chicken casserole, then one of many delicious chicken soups. Changing up herbs/ spices and presentations makes that work, though I will happily eat chili every day for a week. Get cookbooks from the library, cheap and fun to browse. Read Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking and More Home Cooking because she's a terrific writer and cook.
Frozen veg are pre-trimmed and cheap and easy. Life's short, let a machine trim the broccoli.
Easy red sauce for pasta:
1 onion, I use yellow, but any onion is fine, peel, chop it up, saute in 2 Tb olive oil over medium low heat.
1 lb Italian sausage, chop it up, then saute it in your big pot because the onions are taking too long. It has lots of fat doesn't need more oil, medium-high heat. Get some brown on it if possible. Spicy, regular, garlic, and Ital. sausage is fine.
Add 2 cans crushed tomato - usually 28 ounces. I have used sliced, whole, and pureed, as well as with or without herbs.
Add a generous amount of red wine, probably 1/2 cup. It adds sweetness and complexity.
The onions are transparent, add them plus the oil. Singed onions add flavor, no problem. Undercooked onions are okay. The oil adds flavor and the sauce will stick to pasta better.
You are welcome to add mashed garlic, mushrooms, carrots (saute with onions). Italian herbs, chili pepper (Korean gochugaru flakes, hot sauce, whatevs), but Italian sausage is flavored.
Turn heat to low, stir every 10 minutes. edible in 35-40 minutes, really good and tender in an hour. Make pasta, some sort of spaghetti of your choice. Freezes well. Reasonably healthy.
posted by theora55 at 3:22 PM on January 4
I think it's worth seeing if your library has Sohla El-Waylly's Start Here to see if that will be helpful to you. It has recipes but it's also about explaining why you do things and not just how. It's dense, though, so probably best paired with other resources.
posted by edencosmic at 3:23 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
posted by edencosmic at 3:23 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
and get 1 decent large paring/ small chef's knife. Crappy knives are a misery. You can cook quite well with limited equipment, but a decent knife makes a big difference. Also, takeout, cottage cheese and yogurt containers are fine, just have a big group that use the same lids.
posted by theora55 at 3:25 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 3:25 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
I have How to Cook Everything and have used it quite a bit, but one frustrating thing about it is that it often suggests variations, and the instructions often allow room for leeway, too. Sometimes, the lack of strictness is a welcome invitation to improvise a little, but the recipes can be hard to follow when I just want clear instructions. For my go-to recipes from there, I have re-written them for myself in a more straightforward manner.
Have you thought about a cookbook for teens? I bought one for my son, and I won't list it here because he only tried one recipe from it, and I can't say personally if it's good resource. But a cookbook aimed at a teen or college student demographic might have a lot of the requirements (single serving, simple ingredients and cookware, etc.) that you're looking for.
Edit: I see others have also recommended books for younger chefs as well.
posted by Leontine at 3:38 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Have you thought about a cookbook for teens? I bought one for my son, and I won't list it here because he only tried one recipe from it, and I can't say personally if it's good resource. But a cookbook aimed at a teen or college student demographic might have a lot of the requirements (single serving, simple ingredients and cookware, etc.) that you're looking for.
Edit: I see others have also recommended books for younger chefs as well.
posted by Leontine at 3:38 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
You need a reliable heat-source. Full stop. And you don't need to know "how to cook" to make delicious meals.
I somewhat specialize in cooking fast meals for one. BUT, 90% of them are made in my convection oven. I have this model, but something like this would suffice.
Here's my Chicken Breast with Veg. Here's Salmon with Veg.
Not counting time in the convection oven, these literally took me 3 minutes to make, no exaggeration. I used no knife, no chopping board, no stove. I either bought pre-cut veg or ripped or broke them with my hands. I used olive oil, salt, pepper, and some jerk spices.
With the exception of the 3 minutes spent outside the oven, I did nothing but put the pan in the oven and take it out again when it was done.
Get yourself a reliable heat source. You can't cook anything well without it. And, in my opinion, appliance essentials in order:
- convection oven
- rice cooker / steamer (assuming you like rice)
- stove
Again, you don't need to know "how to cook" to make delicious meals. You do need a reliable heat-source.
posted by dobbs at 4:20 PM on January 4
I somewhat specialize in cooking fast meals for one. BUT, 90% of them are made in my convection oven. I have this model, but something like this would suffice.
Here's my Chicken Breast with Veg. Here's Salmon with Veg.
Not counting time in the convection oven, these literally took me 3 minutes to make, no exaggeration. I used no knife, no chopping board, no stove. I either bought pre-cut veg or ripped or broke them with my hands. I used olive oil, salt, pepper, and some jerk spices.
With the exception of the 3 minutes spent outside the oven, I did nothing but put the pan in the oven and take it out again when it was done.
Get yourself a reliable heat source. You can't cook anything well without it. And, in my opinion, appliance essentials in order:
- convection oven
- rice cooker / steamer (assuming you like rice)
- stove
Again, you don't need to know "how to cook" to make delicious meals. You do need a reliable heat-source.
posted by dobbs at 4:20 PM on January 4
As someone who went from being completely unable to cook for themselves in their early 20s, to being able to feed themselves in some adequate and economical way in their 30s, to being able to actually make delicious things today - COVID allowed for slow-cooking learning opportunities that I possibly never would have had previously - I want to emphasize how important the Betty Crocker cookbook was at the beginning of that journey.
The Betty Crocker cookbook may seem déclassé or some relic of a prior era at first, but it's really a blunt, direct roadmap of how to just get things done in the average American kitchen. There are no gotchas, everything is clear and approachable. It's not haute cuisine, and there's nothing special, but the cookbook is literally focused on the building blocks of how to use the tools in a basic American kitchen (with a tiny gas oven) to make totally cromulent food that a family or friends would find totally decent. How long to cook a roast? It's in there! How to sauté onions? That too! Everything is described clearly. Many cookbooks are aspirational with exotic ingredients or difficult processes; the Betty Crocker cookbook is a functional roadmap to edible food nobody will complain about.
Once you master the basics of "will this be OK" is when the really interesting things start to happen. Things change when you know when something's at the right temperature by smell, or you start making substitutions by taste, developments which may come naturally. But those are based on practice and experience above all, whereas the Betty Crocker cookbook is the place where you can start without any experience and end up with something totally OK.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 4:24 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
The Betty Crocker cookbook may seem déclassé or some relic of a prior era at first, but it's really a blunt, direct roadmap of how to just get things done in the average American kitchen. There are no gotchas, everything is clear and approachable. It's not haute cuisine, and there's nothing special, but the cookbook is literally focused on the building blocks of how to use the tools in a basic American kitchen (with a tiny gas oven) to make totally cromulent food that a family or friends would find totally decent. How long to cook a roast? It's in there! How to sauté onions? That too! Everything is described clearly. Many cookbooks are aspirational with exotic ingredients or difficult processes; the Betty Crocker cookbook is a functional roadmap to edible food nobody will complain about.
Once you master the basics of "will this be OK" is when the really interesting things start to happen. Things change when you know when something's at the right temperature by smell, or you start making substitutions by taste, developments which may come naturally. But those are based on practice and experience above all, whereas the Betty Crocker cookbook is the place where you can start without any experience and end up with something totally OK.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 4:24 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
So, I work with a friend and we teach kids to cook in after school classes. There is really SO much to be learned hands-on with someone willing to teach you. From the basics like reading/interpreting a recipe, knife skills, shortcuts that are worth it for your goals, grocery list making, choosing ingredients, cost saving, using the same ingredients in different ways to help with costs and burn out. We're starting a basics of baking class and right now I'm going through and making a glossary of terms to help kids understand the vocabulary of baking (I can send it to you if you're interested in baking at all, when I'm done compiling! I'll be working on cooking ones soon) There is so much information out there that it "should" be easy to find somewhere to start... but it really is NOT simple.
Do you have a friend who likes to cook that would maybe teach you one dish? Asking someone to teach you to cook can be daunting for all, but a few friends who will teach you one dish? If your frustration is high to start the social side of doing something together can really help. If that seems too difficult to ask, MeFi Mail me and we could break down one recipe together over email/text if you want. Sometimes many voices can be overwhelming.
posted by Swisstine at 4:33 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Do you have a friend who likes to cook that would maybe teach you one dish? Asking someone to teach you to cook can be daunting for all, but a few friends who will teach you one dish? If your frustration is high to start the social side of doing something together can really help. If that seems too difficult to ask, MeFi Mail me and we could break down one recipe together over email/text if you want. Sometimes many voices can be overwhelming.
posted by Swisstine at 4:33 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
And yes, Youtube is a great resource. For beginning cooks and simple recipes, I suggest That Dude Can Cook.
posted by dobbs at 4:42 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
posted by dobbs at 4:42 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
You might like The Mediocre Chef's Just-Okay Food Blog? From "Scrambled Eggs and Toast" in the "bachelor's guide" section:
To start with you’re going to want to crack the eggs into a bowl. If you're not experienced at cracking eggs, you might want to practice in advance.
Mediocre Tip: Don’t crack the egg on the side of the bowl, don’t use a knife, and don’t use anything with a sharp edge. Why? If you use a sharp edge you'll probably push some of the shell up into the egg. To avoid that, crack your eggs on a flat surface like your counter or cutting board. This will break and shatter the shell, but you won’t have eggshell bits all up in your yolk.
Seconding "The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs" by America's Test Kitchen; I bought it for the 7-year-old son of a culinary-school grad, and both kid & parent raved about it. "You’ll find step-by-step photos of tips and techniques to help you learn how to cook like a pro, no matter your age."
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:43 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
To start with you’re going to want to crack the eggs into a bowl. If you're not experienced at cracking eggs, you might want to practice in advance.
Mediocre Tip: Don’t crack the egg on the side of the bowl, don’t use a knife, and don’t use anything with a sharp edge. Why? If you use a sharp edge you'll probably push some of the shell up into the egg. To avoid that, crack your eggs on a flat surface like your counter or cutting board. This will break and shatter the shell, but you won’t have eggshell bits all up in your yolk.
Seconding "The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs" by America's Test Kitchen; I bought it for the 7-year-old son of a culinary-school grad, and both kid & parent raved about it. "You’ll find step-by-step photos of tips and techniques to help you learn how to cook like a pro, no matter your age."
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:43 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
I am going to recommend the website Recipe Tin Eats. The recipes are ALL doable, on par with being bulletproof like Barefoot Contessa bulletproof. The website has a VIDEO for each recipe so you can get a real firm grip on the technique. Her cooking is not as bold as it could be, but everything is doable, with steps clearly laid out and visually provided.
She has a full range of quick and easy, no-cook, and budget recipes. I recommend her for people who are dipping into cooking and don't want to be talked down.
posted by jadepearl at 5:05 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
She has a full range of quick and easy, no-cook, and budget recipes. I recommend her for people who are dipping into cooking and don't want to be talked down.
posted by jadepearl at 5:05 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
Do you have any friends who cook? Can you invite a friend over and say: Can you help me understand how to cook XYZ dish and then we'll eat it together? A lot of the questions you have are normal and understandable but once you start knowing what is generally meant by olive oil or an onion or the size or type of pot you need or how you should cut something up, you'll start to build your knowledge. I think it's better to start with thinking about a thing you might like to cook: A particular soup? Some roasted chicken? a noodle dish? Also, some videos might help.
Rachel Ray is maligned but she was pretty good at really simplifying cooking directions.
posted by vunder at 5:08 PM on January 4
Rachel Ray is maligned but she was pretty good at really simplifying cooking directions.
posted by vunder at 5:08 PM on January 4
Learning a practical skill like cooking requires time and practice.
Reading about it and watching cooking videos helps you learn the language people use around cooking. It can also help understand certain practical aspects like how to cut things or how to fry things. The kind of things people might pick up growing up in a home where people cook, making it look intuitive when they simply could learn through years of observing and helping. I know how to cook certain dishes because I liked watching my grandma make them. I can write down a recipe for these things like her apple strudel but it would be super unhelpful because she just sifted a pile of flour on the kitchen worktop. I know how big the pile of flour needs to be but I couldn’t give you a weight or volume measure unless I set out to measure what I sift. That’s not intuition but experience.
So, to feel good about chopping veg requires you to chop veg. Learning how much attention you need to pay to something that is supposed to simmer for 15 mins or how long it takes to sweat something or what are nice flavour giving things stuck to the bottom of you pan that you want vs burnt bits you don’t is a matter of experience. Both experience cooking different dishes and experience in different kitchens because all stoves are different. So the only way you’ll get comfortable is by actually doing it.
If you like the idea of videos you could do worse than watch a British chef called Jamie Oliver. I have heard a few people say that watching him helped them feel encouraged to just have a go. He also has videos where some of his kids help him cook or cook without him.
You might also find Chef John encouraging. He’s very good about explaining what matters and what to look for before you move to the next step in a recipe.
You might also look at old (1960s/70s) general cooking books. These were aimed at newlyweds who were setting up their own households for the first time. Therefore, these books include things like how to organise your kitchen, pantry ingredients, what tools you may need, temperature/weight cooking charts e.g. for a roast etc. They also tend to include basic recipes and then variations on those. Because exotic ingredients were still not readily available and newlyweds were assumed to have limited funds the recommendations and recipes are basic and sensible.
I’ll also mention AcreHomestead for videos but with the caveat that Becky does cooking marathons where she prepares multiple different freezer meals, or meal components in a single day. She does that to make life easier on other days, when she is busy doing other things. Not suggesting you do that at all. But what she does really well is modify recipes for what she has on hand or for her and her family’s preferences. There is also precious little exact measuring of spices and ingredients going on. Because cooking isn’t an exact science, unlike baking or canning. So not exact recipes but perhaps encouraging to see how flexible a lot of recipes really are and context why a lot of recipes feel so vague.
And as a person that lives alone - I don’t mind eating the same thing a few days in a row but I cook that kind of involved dish that yields several meals once a week, if that.
My kitchen project for this coming weekend is to prepare stir fry/ramen freezer packs. I’ll chop stir fry veg, I’ll either cook some chicken breasts or buy a couple of rotisserie chickens and tear them apart to get all the meat off. And then I’ll portion out single serve freezer bags with veg and chicken. I use these as basis for ramen, with a ramen packet. Or I toss my freezer bag into a pan and actually stir fry, add a bit of sauce and perhaps some noodles that have softened in boiling water for a few mins. Slightly more involved but still ready in minutes.
If I end up feeling ambitious I might also chop some different veg for freezer bags with ‘risotto’ mix. Basically some combination of veg, some bacon or chorizo. I then use that as basis for some kind of risottoesque meal by sautéing my frozen ingredients from frozen, topping up with rice, water and vegetable stock powder and letting that simmer until the rice is tender and the liquid absorbed. Risotto purists would be horrified.
The point is that none of these things are official recipes. I make these things up because I know enough about cooking to understand what would likely work for my purpose - I know if the veg is chopped fine enough and if I use cooked protein in small enough pieces I can just throw the frozen bag contents into a ramen bowl, top it up with boiling water and flavour packet and I will end up with yummy ramen at perfect temperature three mins later. It takes three mins cause you want your ingredients to warm through. I toss most of the noodles in the packet but three mins also allows any noodles I didn’t toss to soften.
So I may make a thing of shepherds pie to get several meals, I’ll substitute that with my quick meal freezer bags and some scrambled eggs or an omelette or a baked potato with tuna mayo or whatever.
All that is to say that cooking can be as complicated or as simple as you make it. Find a simple dish you enjoy and learn to make that (regularly). When you feel comfortable with that dish, find another and repeat. Perhaps the next dish uses a different cooking technique or knife skills or whatever. If you stick to a specific type of cuisine the flavour palate will rely on a small number of spices and ingredients that get used in different ways. That means you don’t need lots of different spices.
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:02 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
Reading about it and watching cooking videos helps you learn the language people use around cooking. It can also help understand certain practical aspects like how to cut things or how to fry things. The kind of things people might pick up growing up in a home where people cook, making it look intuitive when they simply could learn through years of observing and helping. I know how to cook certain dishes because I liked watching my grandma make them. I can write down a recipe for these things like her apple strudel but it would be super unhelpful because she just sifted a pile of flour on the kitchen worktop. I know how big the pile of flour needs to be but I couldn’t give you a weight or volume measure unless I set out to measure what I sift. That’s not intuition but experience.
So, to feel good about chopping veg requires you to chop veg. Learning how much attention you need to pay to something that is supposed to simmer for 15 mins or how long it takes to sweat something or what are nice flavour giving things stuck to the bottom of you pan that you want vs burnt bits you don’t is a matter of experience. Both experience cooking different dishes and experience in different kitchens because all stoves are different. So the only way you’ll get comfortable is by actually doing it.
If you like the idea of videos you could do worse than watch a British chef called Jamie Oliver. I have heard a few people say that watching him helped them feel encouraged to just have a go. He also has videos where some of his kids help him cook or cook without him.
You might also find Chef John encouraging. He’s very good about explaining what matters and what to look for before you move to the next step in a recipe.
You might also look at old (1960s/70s) general cooking books. These were aimed at newlyweds who were setting up their own households for the first time. Therefore, these books include things like how to organise your kitchen, pantry ingredients, what tools you may need, temperature/weight cooking charts e.g. for a roast etc. They also tend to include basic recipes and then variations on those. Because exotic ingredients were still not readily available and newlyweds were assumed to have limited funds the recommendations and recipes are basic and sensible.
I’ll also mention AcreHomestead for videos but with the caveat that Becky does cooking marathons where she prepares multiple different freezer meals, or meal components in a single day. She does that to make life easier on other days, when she is busy doing other things. Not suggesting you do that at all. But what she does really well is modify recipes for what she has on hand or for her and her family’s preferences. There is also precious little exact measuring of spices and ingredients going on. Because cooking isn’t an exact science, unlike baking or canning. So not exact recipes but perhaps encouraging to see how flexible a lot of recipes really are and context why a lot of recipes feel so vague.
And as a person that lives alone - I don’t mind eating the same thing a few days in a row but I cook that kind of involved dish that yields several meals once a week, if that.
My kitchen project for this coming weekend is to prepare stir fry/ramen freezer packs. I’ll chop stir fry veg, I’ll either cook some chicken breasts or buy a couple of rotisserie chickens and tear them apart to get all the meat off. And then I’ll portion out single serve freezer bags with veg and chicken. I use these as basis for ramen, with a ramen packet. Or I toss my freezer bag into a pan and actually stir fry, add a bit of sauce and perhaps some noodles that have softened in boiling water for a few mins. Slightly more involved but still ready in minutes.
If I end up feeling ambitious I might also chop some different veg for freezer bags with ‘risotto’ mix. Basically some combination of veg, some bacon or chorizo. I then use that as basis for some kind of risottoesque meal by sautéing my frozen ingredients from frozen, topping up with rice, water and vegetable stock powder and letting that simmer until the rice is tender and the liquid absorbed. Risotto purists would be horrified.
The point is that none of these things are official recipes. I make these things up because I know enough about cooking to understand what would likely work for my purpose - I know if the veg is chopped fine enough and if I use cooked protein in small enough pieces I can just throw the frozen bag contents into a ramen bowl, top it up with boiling water and flavour packet and I will end up with yummy ramen at perfect temperature three mins later. It takes three mins cause you want your ingredients to warm through. I toss most of the noodles in the packet but three mins also allows any noodles I didn’t toss to soften.
So I may make a thing of shepherds pie to get several meals, I’ll substitute that with my quick meal freezer bags and some scrambled eggs or an omelette or a baked potato with tuna mayo or whatever.
All that is to say that cooking can be as complicated or as simple as you make it. Find a simple dish you enjoy and learn to make that (regularly). When you feel comfortable with that dish, find another and repeat. Perhaps the next dish uses a different cooking technique or knife skills or whatever. If you stick to a specific type of cuisine the flavour palate will rely on a small number of spices and ingredients that get used in different ways. That means you don’t need lots of different spices.
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:02 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]
My advice for what it’s worth:
1. Remember that you are learning!!! This means you should never try to cook while hungry and always assume that a recipe will take at least an hour. Even if it say 15 minutes. If it says an hour plan on 2.5.
2. My favorite way to find recipes is pick and ingredients that seems I would like to eat and then search NYT cooking for a recipe with that ingredient that is fairly simple and sounds tasty.. if any techniques seem confusing watch a YouTube video.
3. It really is one of those things where you get better just by doing it if you’re paying attention so I would try to boost the frequency to at least once a week.
Good luck and just remember it’s normal to suck at things you’ve never learned, you got this!
posted by 12%juicepulp at 6:34 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
1. Remember that you are learning!!! This means you should never try to cook while hungry and always assume that a recipe will take at least an hour. Even if it say 15 minutes. If it says an hour plan on 2.5.
2. My favorite way to find recipes is pick and ingredients that seems I would like to eat and then search NYT cooking for a recipe with that ingredient that is fairly simple and sounds tasty.. if any techniques seem confusing watch a YouTube video.
3. It really is one of those things where you get better just by doing it if you’re paying attention so I would try to boost the frequency to at least once a week.
Good luck and just remember it’s normal to suck at things you’ve never learned, you got this!
posted by 12%juicepulp at 6:34 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]
There's a lot of good advice here. I got Cooking is Terrible on kindle, thanks to a previous ask, and recommend it.
Also, get a store-made rotisserie chicken, bake a potato in the microwave, heat up some peas and corn. Eat. Tomorrow, use the rest of the chicken on top of a bagged salad and then make some sandwiches for lunch.
posted by Enid Lareg at 7:04 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
Also, get a store-made rotisserie chicken, bake a potato in the microwave, heat up some peas and corn. Eat. Tomorrow, use the rest of the chicken on top of a bagged salad and then make some sandwiches for lunch.
posted by Enid Lareg at 7:04 PM on January 4 [3 favorites]
I’ve been watching my kids learn to cook and here are a couple of tips followed by a recommendation or two.
1. Start with brunch or lunch. It’s harder as the day goes on because you feel like dinner time is a time limit. Also, the ingredients for brunch or lunch feel lower-stakes in some cases (I mean you can make any kind of food for any meal!)
2. Have a backup meal - cereal, can of soup, frozen meal - in mind just it’s ok if it doesn’t come out. Learning, by necessity, involves mistakes. Part of the generational experience you are holding sounds like a lack of parents who sometimes blew a meal (I have!) and tossed it and then cooked again the next day.
3. Start with dishes, not meals. For obscure reasons I was very anxious about food as a young adult. I started with potatoes like this: I made frozen fries, then frozen diced potatoes, then I made baked potato, then I made baked and roasted sweet potatoes, then I made potato soup, then I made mashed, then I made “twice baked” and potato skins and then I made scalloped and now I make whatever I want. For fish I did frozen breaded, then frozen and cooked in foil and served with tartar sauce, then fresh (ruined a few), then I did chowder (which meshed with potato soup), then I tried fresh baked again, then I tried pan seared, then I started adding more flavours. All throughout I had salad or frozen peas on the side.
This way you’re not managing All The Things at once.
4. I would start with a kids’ cookbook or look on websites like the Dairy Farmers of Canada or Egg Farmers or Kraft. Yes those recipes have milk or prepared elements but they are not designed for Fine Cooking, they are designed for ordinary people with low-stakes pantry items.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:20 AM on January 5 [2 favorites]
1. Start with brunch or lunch. It’s harder as the day goes on because you feel like dinner time is a time limit. Also, the ingredients for brunch or lunch feel lower-stakes in some cases (I mean you can make any kind of food for any meal!)
2. Have a backup meal - cereal, can of soup, frozen meal - in mind just it’s ok if it doesn’t come out. Learning, by necessity, involves mistakes. Part of the generational experience you are holding sounds like a lack of parents who sometimes blew a meal (I have!) and tossed it and then cooked again the next day.
3. Start with dishes, not meals. For obscure reasons I was very anxious about food as a young adult. I started with potatoes like this: I made frozen fries, then frozen diced potatoes, then I made baked potato, then I made baked and roasted sweet potatoes, then I made potato soup, then I made mashed, then I made “twice baked” and potato skins and then I made scalloped and now I make whatever I want. For fish I did frozen breaded, then frozen and cooked in foil and served with tartar sauce, then fresh (ruined a few), then I did chowder (which meshed with potato soup), then I tried fresh baked again, then I tried pan seared, then I started adding more flavours. All throughout I had salad or frozen peas on the side.
This way you’re not managing All The Things at once.
4. I would start with a kids’ cookbook or look on websites like the Dairy Farmers of Canada or Egg Farmers or Kraft. Yes those recipes have milk or prepared elements but they are not designed for Fine Cooking, they are designed for ordinary people with low-stakes pantry items.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:20 AM on January 5 [2 favorites]
Oh, also - when you go from prepared/restaurant food to home food, it really does taste mediocre a lot of the time. That’s because all those professional products are highly developed/honed to maximize your buying them again - generally not for health or ease of cooking or minimizing ingredients.
As you learn which recipes you like and how much better they taste with a bit of butter or really caramelizing some tomato paste, it will taste better - but (if you are like me), still probably better on the scale of “home food” and not restaurant food, except for your 5 go-to recipes. In my case, I actually had to let my palate adjust to “real food.” I’ve noticed my kids often say they prefer home food because that’s what their palate is used to.
So go easy on yourself not achieving those results. I would say home pasta dishes with cream and bacon or slow-cooked sauces, or risotto, and roasted vegetables, are probably the most consistent exceptions to the “tastes better out” thing.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:27 AM on January 5 [1 favorite]
As you learn which recipes you like and how much better they taste with a bit of butter or really caramelizing some tomato paste, it will taste better - but (if you are like me), still probably better on the scale of “home food” and not restaurant food, except for your 5 go-to recipes. In my case, I actually had to let my palate adjust to “real food.” I’ve noticed my kids often say they prefer home food because that’s what their palate is used to.
So go easy on yourself not achieving those results. I would say home pasta dishes with cream and bacon or slow-cooked sauces, or risotto, and roasted vegetables, are probably the most consistent exceptions to the “tastes better out” thing.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:27 AM on January 5 [1 favorite]
I get the idea that making then eating 4-6 portions of the same thing iis a drag and most recipes make too much for a single person. TBH, I didn't cook in earnest until I had someone to cook for...first this was my spouse and over the years it is friends, elderly in-laws, etc. It can be a nice friend hang to cook and eat together. You can plan what to eat and how to separate the responsibilities. This allows you to cook a wider range of things without having too much of the same thing.
posted by mmascolino at 6:02 AM on January 5 [1 favorite]
posted by mmascolino at 6:02 AM on January 5 [1 favorite]
So, everyone has already covered the "How to Cook Everything" suggestions, and also added the idea to go with a kids' cookbook from America's Test Kitchen. I think the kids' cookbook is a great idea for getting the basics down - and then when you're comfortable with that, America's Test Kitchen also has a great cooking-for-one cookbook.
But I also wanted to address some of the thoughts you said you were having about the recipes you were reading. I know that you were just using that as a for-instance, but I'm going to go ahead and answer the questions, because I'm hopeful it will give you a general sense that things are actually okay:
2 tablespoons olive oil - What kind of olive oil? Does it matter if it's EVOO or not?
It doesn't really matter, actually. You could even use vegetable oil if you wanted. If you read the rest of the recipe, it tells you that you're using the olive oil to cook with - so whatever flavor you would get with the big-bucks EVOO would be overwritten by the chorizo, so...use whatever.
Smoked Chorizo I don't really like chorizo, so what's a good substitute that won't make me need to alter the recipe?
Whatever kind of sausage you like! The chorizo is there mainly just for flavoring and protein. And if you don't like how chorizo tastes, and you use kielbasa instead, then all that will change is that your finished dish will taste like kielbasa instead of chorizo - and that's a good thing, since you don't like chorizo.
1 medium onion But what kind of onion? Red? Yellow? White?
Doesn't matter. There are subtle flavor differences between onions, but when I say subtle I mean "subtle" - it's like, the difference between having your finished thing taste slightly one way instead of slightly another way. It's not like if you picked the wrong kind of onion, the dish would blow up. That said - 98% of the time when a recipe just says "1 onion" like this, they're talking about the yellow kind, but only because that's what 98% of the supermarkets sell anyway. So if you just want to not think about onion colors, just pick yellow onions and use them for everything while you're starting out. Because - again, we're only talking about a super-subtle flavor difference.
1 cup dried brown lentils, rinsed and picked over WTF does picked over mean??
Sometimes with lentils and dried beans, especially if you're using a cheaper brand, there's a slim chance some stones or dirt can sneak their way into the bag. They're just saying to give things a look and make sure you didn't have any pebbles mixed into the lentils, and that if you see them, you pick them out. That said - 85% of my diet is dried beans, and my "picking things over" consists of me just looking over the bowl of beans for about 10 seconds and making sure "any rocks in here? Nope, looks good."
Put in large pot What constitutes a large pot? The picture shows a ceramic le crueset style pot, will my shitty aluminum pot fuck this up over medium heat how do I know if it's medium enough bc my stove basically has barely visible flames or flames that jump 4 inches up and nothing in between
"Large" just means "big enough to hold a lot of stuff". That's largely guesswork, even for experienced chefs - I guess wrong plenty of times. As for "medium" - if you look at the dial knob for your stove burner, there should be one side of the dial that says "High" or "Hi", and another side that says "Lo". Unsurprisingly - that stands for High and Low heat respectively. So "Medium" would literally be right smack in the middle on that knob. Try setting it on that setting.
Stir occasionally literally what does this mean? Every 5 seconds? every 5 minutes?
In my experience, this means "whenever you remember to". They only mean that you aren't expected to be standing there and stirring for the entire time it's on the stove; you can do a stir after 5 minutes, and then walk away and do another stir after 7 minutes, and then go do something and only 3 minutes later think "oh shit" and go stir after only 3 minutes, and then you can let it go another 7 minutes after that, and....it really can be flexible like that, they only mean you shouldn't stand there constantly stirring.
The general takeaway I hope you're taking from my answers is that when it comes to cooking, recipes are actually pretty forgiving, and any alterations you make are largely only going to affect taste. Using kielbasa instead of chorizo for that recipe would not make the whole thing explode or anything like that; same with using red onion instead of yellow. And if you stir it every 6 minutes instead of every 3 minutes, it's also going to be just fine.
Actually, picking a soupy, stew kind of recipe like this is a great way to get comfortable with cooking - because soups and stews are SUPER forgiving, and can adapt to whatever "oh, shit, I don't have ingredient X, I hope ingredient Y is okay" kinds of things you need. Also, it's really hard to burn soup, if you think about it.
Another thing to bear in mind that may at least give you a chuckle - at the end of the day, we're talking about something that is eventually going to be poo. So even if the thing you end up making isn't QUITE as super-amazing-fantastic flavored as you were hoping, or doesn't look quite as pretty in the picture - well, all that you were really trying to do is feed yourself, and if it is still edible, then you have achieved your mission, and so what if it was only "meh" - you'll poop it out in 18 hours and be able to try again tomorrow.
I am also more than happy to answer specific questions if you want to Memail me, at any point. I can't guarantee I'll answer that same day, but I would be happy to answer specific recipe questions at any point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:19 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
But I also wanted to address some of the thoughts you said you were having about the recipes you were reading. I know that you were just using that as a for-instance, but I'm going to go ahead and answer the questions, because I'm hopeful it will give you a general sense that things are actually okay:
2 tablespoons olive oil - What kind of olive oil? Does it matter if it's EVOO or not?
It doesn't really matter, actually. You could even use vegetable oil if you wanted. If you read the rest of the recipe, it tells you that you're using the olive oil to cook with - so whatever flavor you would get with the big-bucks EVOO would be overwritten by the chorizo, so...use whatever.
Smoked Chorizo I don't really like chorizo, so what's a good substitute that won't make me need to alter the recipe?
Whatever kind of sausage you like! The chorizo is there mainly just for flavoring and protein. And if you don't like how chorizo tastes, and you use kielbasa instead, then all that will change is that your finished dish will taste like kielbasa instead of chorizo - and that's a good thing, since you don't like chorizo.
1 medium onion But what kind of onion? Red? Yellow? White?
Doesn't matter. There are subtle flavor differences between onions, but when I say subtle I mean "subtle" - it's like, the difference between having your finished thing taste slightly one way instead of slightly another way. It's not like if you picked the wrong kind of onion, the dish would blow up. That said - 98% of the time when a recipe just says "1 onion" like this, they're talking about the yellow kind, but only because that's what 98% of the supermarkets sell anyway. So if you just want to not think about onion colors, just pick yellow onions and use them for everything while you're starting out. Because - again, we're only talking about a super-subtle flavor difference.
1 cup dried brown lentils, rinsed and picked over WTF does picked over mean??
Sometimes with lentils and dried beans, especially if you're using a cheaper brand, there's a slim chance some stones or dirt can sneak their way into the bag. They're just saying to give things a look and make sure you didn't have any pebbles mixed into the lentils, and that if you see them, you pick them out. That said - 85% of my diet is dried beans, and my "picking things over" consists of me just looking over the bowl of beans for about 10 seconds and making sure "any rocks in here? Nope, looks good."
Put in large pot What constitutes a large pot? The picture shows a ceramic le crueset style pot, will my shitty aluminum pot fuck this up over medium heat how do I know if it's medium enough bc my stove basically has barely visible flames or flames that jump 4 inches up and nothing in between
"Large" just means "big enough to hold a lot of stuff". That's largely guesswork, even for experienced chefs - I guess wrong plenty of times. As for "medium" - if you look at the dial knob for your stove burner, there should be one side of the dial that says "High" or "Hi", and another side that says "Lo". Unsurprisingly - that stands for High and Low heat respectively. So "Medium" would literally be right smack in the middle on that knob. Try setting it on that setting.
Stir occasionally literally what does this mean? Every 5 seconds? every 5 minutes?
In my experience, this means "whenever you remember to". They only mean that you aren't expected to be standing there and stirring for the entire time it's on the stove; you can do a stir after 5 minutes, and then walk away and do another stir after 7 minutes, and then go do something and only 3 minutes later think "oh shit" and go stir after only 3 minutes, and then you can let it go another 7 minutes after that, and....it really can be flexible like that, they only mean you shouldn't stand there constantly stirring.
The general takeaway I hope you're taking from my answers is that when it comes to cooking, recipes are actually pretty forgiving, and any alterations you make are largely only going to affect taste. Using kielbasa instead of chorizo for that recipe would not make the whole thing explode or anything like that; same with using red onion instead of yellow. And if you stir it every 6 minutes instead of every 3 minutes, it's also going to be just fine.
Actually, picking a soupy, stew kind of recipe like this is a great way to get comfortable with cooking - because soups and stews are SUPER forgiving, and can adapt to whatever "oh, shit, I don't have ingredient X, I hope ingredient Y is okay" kinds of things you need. Also, it's really hard to burn soup, if you think about it.
Another thing to bear in mind that may at least give you a chuckle - at the end of the day, we're talking about something that is eventually going to be poo. So even if the thing you end up making isn't QUITE as super-amazing-fantastic flavored as you were hoping, or doesn't look quite as pretty in the picture - well, all that you were really trying to do is feed yourself, and if it is still edible, then you have achieved your mission, and so what if it was only "meh" - you'll poop it out in 18 hours and be able to try again tomorrow.
I am also more than happy to answer specific questions if you want to Memail me, at any point. I can't guarantee I'll answer that same day, but I would be happy to answer specific recipe questions at any point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:19 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
Hang on - I just noticed you have a Mark Bittman book.
I would encourage you to read those pages at the beginning of each chapter - because you know a lot of those questions you were asking about that recipe? He answers a lot of them IN those pages. Like, I know the "what does picking over mean" is something he discusses in the intro to the bean chapter.
The intro to the cookbook will likely also have information about "what do you mean by a large pot" and "does it matter what kind of onion I use". Bittman is really good about wanting to help people new to cooking understand stuff, so he puts a lot of that kind of info in the introduction to his cookbooks and in each chapter introduction.
Oh, also - yes, for most recipes that serve 4, you can literally just divide all the ingredients by 4 for a setves-1 version. The only times this wouldn't work would be 1. If one of the ingredients is, like, "1 egg" or something that won't divide, or 2. If you are BAKING something like a cake. Cakes can be a little fiddly to scale down, so just dividing by 4 would be trickier than usual.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:32 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
I would encourage you to read those pages at the beginning of each chapter - because you know a lot of those questions you were asking about that recipe? He answers a lot of them IN those pages. Like, I know the "what does picking over mean" is something he discusses in the intro to the bean chapter.
The intro to the cookbook will likely also have information about "what do you mean by a large pot" and "does it matter what kind of onion I use". Bittman is really good about wanting to help people new to cooking understand stuff, so he puts a lot of that kind of info in the introduction to his cookbooks and in each chapter introduction.
Oh, also - yes, for most recipes that serve 4, you can literally just divide all the ingredients by 4 for a setves-1 version. The only times this wouldn't work would be 1. If one of the ingredients is, like, "1 egg" or something that won't divide, or 2. If you are BAKING something like a cake. Cakes can be a little fiddly to scale down, so just dividing by 4 would be trickier than usual.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:32 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
First off: I believe in you! Cooking is a skill that can be learned. Don't negative talk yourself.
Cooking is *not* rocket science. It is following basic directions and learning basic terminology. But you will need to embrace a certain level of experimentation. We have all made failed dishes. It's not the end of the world.
You are going to need to start with the real basics, as stated above, like baking a potato or steaming broccoli. Scrambling eggs is very easy. Add toast and that's a meal! Rice and other basic grains such as quinoa or couscous are an easy carb without copping to pasta.
You can make a quick dinner out of a grain plus a vegetable, and a protein if you like. It can be as lightly seasoned as you prefer. Many times all I put on my food is salt and pepper.
But you will very likely need to do something about your main cooking apparatus, because if your stove is not capable of holding a steady flame then it's probably breaking the habitability of your apartment lease.
If that is not possible, then you will need to buy something to cook with, such as a single induction burner. My sister lives in a carriage house and does pretty much all her cooking with an instapot and she's able to cook for herself just fine. You can do a lot with a microwave or a toaster oven.
You can get around the crappy knives by buying pre-cut vegetables. I use premade containers of onions/carrots/celery for my weekly batch of soup because I hate buying huge bags of those things that will almost invariably go bad. Trader Joe's has all manner of frozen vegetables that can be steamed or microwaved.
But eventually you should learn to chop something easy like an onion. A good sharp knife is a very important tool.
Arguably the most important lesson I learned as an adult is that you need to not be afraid of heat and fat. Olive oil and canola oil are the two kinds of oil I use. I also use butter, but mostly for select applications, such as cooking eggs.
Another important tool is a timer. I use the timer on my microwave constantly, so I don't forget when it's time to do something. No, I don't use the timer on my phone.
Also seconding Empress in offering local assistance. I am in Manhattan, but would come out to Brooklyn for you.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:34 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Cooking is *not* rocket science. It is following basic directions and learning basic terminology. But you will need to embrace a certain level of experimentation. We have all made failed dishes. It's not the end of the world.
You are going to need to start with the real basics, as stated above, like baking a potato or steaming broccoli. Scrambling eggs is very easy. Add toast and that's a meal! Rice and other basic grains such as quinoa or couscous are an easy carb without copping to pasta.
You can make a quick dinner out of a grain plus a vegetable, and a protein if you like. It can be as lightly seasoned as you prefer. Many times all I put on my food is salt and pepper.
But you will very likely need to do something about your main cooking apparatus, because if your stove is not capable of holding a steady flame then it's probably breaking the habitability of your apartment lease.
If that is not possible, then you will need to buy something to cook with, such as a single induction burner. My sister lives in a carriage house and does pretty much all her cooking with an instapot and she's able to cook for herself just fine. You can do a lot with a microwave or a toaster oven.
You can get around the crappy knives by buying pre-cut vegetables. I use premade containers of onions/carrots/celery for my weekly batch of soup because I hate buying huge bags of those things that will almost invariably go bad. Trader Joe's has all manner of frozen vegetables that can be steamed or microwaved.
But eventually you should learn to chop something easy like an onion. A good sharp knife is a very important tool.
Arguably the most important lesson I learned as an adult is that you need to not be afraid of heat and fat. Olive oil and canola oil are the two kinds of oil I use. I also use butter, but mostly for select applications, such as cooking eggs.
Another important tool is a timer. I use the timer on my microwave constantly, so I don't forget when it's time to do something. No, I don't use the timer on my phone.
Also seconding Empress in offering local assistance. I am in Manhattan, but would come out to Brooklyn for you.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:34 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Just in time, Sohla el-Waylly has started a new video series for people who want to learn to cook. (NYT gift link)
The first video, about eggs, is here
Sohla is amazing! The videos are free, on YouTube, but the recipes are behind a paywall. It might be worth it to get a trial subscription: you can print out the recipes and keep them in a binder once the seven-part series is over. Depending on your learning style, the videos might be enough on their own.
posted by mumimor at 1:55 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
The first video, about eggs, is here
Sohla is amazing! The videos are free, on YouTube, but the recipes are behind a paywall. It might be worth it to get a trial subscription: you can print out the recipes and keep them in a binder once the seven-part series is over. Depending on your learning style, the videos might be enough on their own.
posted by mumimor at 1:55 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
Thought of you again when I just read this Washington Post article about simple organizational steps to master before, while, and after cooking. Make sure to read Readers' Comments for additional tips. A lot of cooking ability involves basic organizational skills, i.e. have all your tools and materials lined up in order of use just as you would if you were painting a room so you're not running to the store, searching through the spice drawer or cabinets.
posted by Elsie at 7:36 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by Elsie at 7:36 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Another source I recently came across -- Root Cause -- it seems to be a nutrition curriculum for Australian kids, and I find the recipes to be much more detailed in their explanation of steps without getting into the annoying bullshit that recipe bloggers write just to get SEO traction.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:36 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 11:36 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
But I think what would help you even more here, in this Ask, is to make a list of foods you like to eat, never mind how complicated or difficult you suspect they are. Then we can suggest simple versions/variations of those, and recipe hacks to make them more suitable for one. Otherwise I'm worried that you might get a ton of suggestions which are generic and not necessarily to your taste.
So, on a meal by meal basis, what are some foods you have always enjoyed, which you would like to eat more frequently of at home?
posted by MiraK at 12:06 PM on January 4 [17 favorites]