How many of you can cook?

MB_Positif

I used to follow a lot of recipes, but now I sort of take them as a guide. My mom was (and still is) the world's worst cook so I ended up learning how to cook by watching chefs when I was waitressing in college. One of my favorite things to do now is create a meal out of stuff we have on hand without a recipe! I have a pretty good concept of what flavors work together which makes this a lot easier! Just have fun with it!

FoxyMcDeadlift

im now a pretty good cook. When i started i used to print of recipes from the internet, bbc good food is particularly good and follow it, after awhile you learn what mixes with what and techniques. I also watch a lot of cookery programmes.

livinginwoods

LOVE to cook. It relaxes me. I have had some recipes published too. Now I am trying to change them in to low cal and not as easy as I thought but I like to experiment.

dalgal26

Oh yeah, I can cook! And my hubby can cook! Sooooooo, there is the rub! We like to cook hearty, stick to your ribs kinda food, and now we are learning to cook lighter and healthier. Hard to get the lard out of the southern kitchen! But, We are getting there.

bcattoes

I can cook well. I learned it mostly from relatives, cookbooks and from the Food Network. The Food Network is great for learning techniques.

Qarol

cook·ing
Noun:
The process of preparing food by heating it.
The practice or skill of preparing food.

cook
Verb:
Prepare (food, a dish, or a meal) by combining and heating the ingredients in various ways.
Noun:
A person who prepares and cooks food, esp. as a job or in a specified way.

Puggy33

Being a "Preparer" is being an intermediate cook. you have to know how to set up your ingredients before truely comparing them. Multitasking can be frustrating while in the kitchen but if you spend a couple minutes to make a game plan it makes a world of difference.

One day I was trying to make hamburger helper with my girlfriend at the time when we were 18 and I didn't think you had to thaw the meat out before hand. So here I am trying to brown and thaw this meat out at the same time while feeling like an utter dumbass because i'm a grown man that can't even brown hamburger or fix my girl a meal other than mac and cheese and hamburger helper. I now am the proud owner of 2 self created cookbooks and various contest accolades.

All it takes is the drive, passion, and determination and you can go from Ramen Noodles to Shrimp Capellini

beautybloom

I can cook everything, I might get it wrong the first time around but I usually nail it the second time around with the exception of cookies. I CAN NOT BAKE COOKIES! Out of a package, yeah but not homemade. LOL Also, I don't do directions well. I skim it and go for it LOL.

I love making homemade, from scratch banana bread! Yummy :P

KyleB65

I love to cook!

Try buying a cook book. Buy something that has a topic that it is different than what you eat normally. Perhaps an "ethnic" food that you do not eat often. Then prepare a meal. Once you have a couple of successes under your belt try another cook book, maybe vegetarian. And repeat. Keep going and over time your repertoire will grow to the point where you will be able to mix, match and tweak from those recipes you enjoyed the most.

CaptainGordo

Yes.

BeeElMarvin

I fail to see the difference, however, I am a master "eater" as compared to a "snacker".

Hottness4Lyfe

I am a cook.

I rarely use or follow a recipe, I consult them. It is a gift to create beautiful things that people put in their mouths for nourishment. I wish more people would take it seriously. It is actually all very simple.

I also feel this way about cooking. I have so many freind that can barely boil water and always tell me I spend way too much time and in the kitchen..... Yet everytime I turn around they are at my door..... :mad:

I can't saw that I anybody really taught me to cook.... I just soooo enjoy the different types of food from all over the world. I like the spices, the textures, and the stories of how they came into being. I'm just weird like that. I believe that cooking is an art form and like any other type of artistic expression you have to have some kind of passion for it.


Good Luck! :drinker:

cramernh

But how do you buy ingredients?

Depends on what you are making. Some recipes MUST have fresh herbs and spices, while others, the dried option would work just as well. Only purchase what you need, thats actually pretty common sense...why purchase a 48oz container of chopped garlic if your not gonna use it within a year?

So for example recipes that have a teaspoon of pesto, or a garlic clove or some rosemary...I'd hate to go out and buy those things just to make one meal and then waste the rest...whereas at home my mum can build up a cupboard of all these little ingredients..

Rosemary you can get dried or fresh. Fresh, just get one sprig/stem - a little goes A VERY LONG way! Dried can be found at a dollar store (at least Ive seen them around here)

Garlic cloves - they are cheap enough to purchase just one bulb's worth and if you use garlic every day, then there is no waste (you should see the amount of garlic I just put in my soup stock just now! OH BABY!)

Pesto is available either in jars (I dont like jarred foods) which are small enough for you to consider.
Otherwise, a traditional pesto would be fresh basil-leaves (prices vary everywhere), olive oil, salt, pepper, pignoli nuts-optional, little garlic (hint hint), but you would be capable of controling how much you want to make so there is little waste.


Unfortunately I think you may be looking at this whole 'diving into cooking' with the wrong mind-set. Its really not rocket science. There are tons of great cookbooks out there for college kids to consider. There are free resources online - TONS AND TONS of recipe websites. Youtube.com has TONS of cooking related video how-to's...

Its up to you to do the research on this stuff because only you know what you need out of this...

Have fun in the kitchen!

callikia

I went from preparer to cook last year through countless recipes, and then tweaking recipes. Now I'm getting a handle on what ingredients do to a dish and what tastes good together. I still find recipes to get my sparks going, but it helps knowing I can tweak them for my own/my family's tastes.

I will say it can be a little expensive in the beginning, especially when you're building your spice rack up. (Spices are SO expensive!) But you start to learn over time what things keep popping up again and again, what kind of tastes you have, and what you'll need to keep on hand on a daily basis. The first non-recipe food I ever made was roasted vegetables. It's a side dish and more of a "throw together and pop in the oven" kinda thing, but knowing I could figure out which ingredients work and which ones don't has helped me with my skills on the stovetop as well.

And I'll say, I'm not a perfect cook. I still have flops all the time. Sometimes I make things and just cross my fingers and hope they work. But I love it, even when it flops, because I learn what didn't work and have even learned how to improve flops to make them major successes.

(For me, btw, preparer is a word I always associated with people who use box meals like Hamburger Helper and the like. I realized I didn't like not knowing what was in that "seasoning packet" and wanted to cook cleaner. The only way to do that was through fresh ingredients, which bumps a person from preparer to cook in my eyes.)

amuhlou

I am definitely a cook and not a preparer. But for me it was something I got into because I really enjoy it. I spend a decent amount of time reading recipes and food blogs. When looking for something new to make I'll often look at a few recipes and see what they have in common. I really started getting into it a few years ago when I started watching Food Network. I'm a visual learner so I picked up a lot of techniques that way.

For a long time, maybe a year, my husband and I reserved one night per week as 'experimental' dinner night. We'd try out a new recipe and add it to our repertoire if it turned out well.

The best advice to beginning cooks is cook something you like. If your favorite food is macaroni and cheese, find a recipe try that first. You'll feel a lot more ownership over the meal and will work hard to get it right.

rml_16

One day I was trying to make hamburger helper with my girlfriend at the time when we were 18 and I didn't think you had to thaw the meat out before hand. So here I am trying to brown and thaw this meat out at the same time while feeling like an utter dumbass because i'm a grown man that can't even brown hamburger or fix my girl a meal other than mac and cheese and hamburger helper.

YOu can brown/thaw hamburger in the frying pan. I've done it a million times when I decided last-minute to make something and didn't want to wait for it to thaw. It tastes the same.

LorinaLynn

I think I can cook. Sometimes I prepare foods, but other times, I make stuff up on the fly with whatever ingredients I have on hand and those end up being the best meals.

Rubyinthesand2012

But how do you buy ingredients? As a student I live on a weekly basis and buy my food shop weekly (namely because there is only one of me, so don't want food going out of date, and because I eat a lot).
So for example recipes that have a teaspoon of pesto, or a garlic clove or some rosemary...I'd hate to go out and buy those things just to make one meal and then waste the rest...whereas at home my mum can build up a cupboard of all these little ingredients..

pesto will last a couple of weeks in the fridge.
Garlic cloves stored in a cool dry place will last for ages mine have been in the fridge inside a brown paper bag for around 6 weeks and are still perfect
Buy plants of Herbs such as Basil, parsley and rosemary etc and keep on a window sill or in a tub on the patio during warm weather just cut as required. Jars of herbs and spices dont actually "go off" they simply lose the colour or slight change in flavour so can be kep indefinately without doing yourself any harm when using.

Also you can buy frozen cubes of garlic, chilli, ginger etc and you just take out and use as required...or freeze your own fresh ones...

I love cooking (and eating) even when i was a poor student living alone my kitchen was always stocked with a fair few basic herbs and spices

SarabellPlus3

I cook. In fact, I'd say I don't prepare. I like to look at cookbooks & watch cooking shows for inpriation and ideas, but I never follow a recipe-- except when baking. That's why I loathe baking & love cooking-- cooking is a fun, creative experience, following a recipe is boring. It's like painting, versus painting by numbers.

eta: Pesto is super easy to make, as long as you keep a good garden in the summer. In the summer, I usually decide most meals based on what I have fresh-- pesto is just garlic, basil, and you have to have basics like pine nuts & EVOO on hand. The rest of the year, I don't just walk into the pantry and decide what to make-- I still have to think "OK, if we want brocoli with dinner tomorrow night, I'll have to buy some today." It doesn't mean (to me), that you haven't given the meal a bit of thought beforehand.

LifesPilgrim

I kinda grew up in the kitchen, but didn't really LEARN to cook, or realize how well I could cook (more accurately) until I started teaching cooking classes as a Home Ec teacher. I don't teach that anymore (budget cuts eliminating electives) but I love to cook.

If I could recommend one book it would be Joy of Cooking. It is my Bible for the kitchen. It explains about all kinds of ingredients, substitutions, weights, measures, EVERYTHING.

My advice, just experiment, and make careful notes. Sometimes things will go horribly wrong, but sometimes you will end up with a masterpiece of your own creation. That's the fun for me.

MinnieInMaine

I can cook. I had to teach myself when I was first married. I did cook a little as a teenager, but my Mama was a fabulous cook and never imagined she'd die when I was 17 and hadn't learned yet.

I love spending hours in the kitchen and love to cook and bake. I generally follow a recipe, but am good at adapting or changing a recipe if it would better suit my family's tastes and/or nutritional needs. But I started by following a recipe exactly and doing it again and again until that recipe came out perfectly every time. I do still need to set timers for almost everything, as I'm the Queen of Distraction. I might not let things burn, but I definitely can get distracted doing another task while task 1 is just waiting for me.
(snip)

You sound exactly like me!! When I first started cooking, I was definitely more of a preparer as that's how my Mom was (and still is - she's a great baker though because she's all about following explicit instructions). But hubby's got some mad cooking skills and has passed on a great deal of his knowledge and experience to me so now I feel more like a real cook. A co-worker of mine is about the same too. We joke everytime we find a new recipe how we immediately get ideas on how to change ingredients around or if we share one, we have to give the original then a laundry list of things we did to tweak it.

jacksonpt

I'm definitely a preparer. I do enjoy it though and would like to become a better cook. My GF and I have been kicking around the idea of taking a couple of cooking classes together.

savlyon

I like to cook, but I follow a recipe. My dad cooks without recipes, but I haven't mastered that skill yet. For weight loss purposes I find myself to be a very bland preparerer. Simply because it is easier to log and in general gives fewer calories. My meals typically are rice/sweet potato, a lean meat that is grilled and a green veggie. Boring...I know...but works for me.

amuhlou

I will say it can be a little expensive in the beginning, especially when you're building your spice rack up. (Spices are SO expensive!) But you start to learn over time what things keep popping up again and again, what kind of tastes you have, and what you'll need to keep on hand on a daily basis.

SO true! If you have an Indian market near you, definitely check that out for spices. They are much more reasonably priced there. Probably not many dried herbs, but spices galore.

Hambone23

But how do you buy ingredients? As a student I live on a weekly basis and buy my food shop weekly (namely because there is only one of me, so don't want food going out of date, and because I eat a lot).
So for example recipes that have a teaspoon of pesto, or a garlic clove or some rosemary...I'd hate to go out and buy those things just to make one meal and then waste the rest...whereas at home my mum can build up a cupboard of all these little ingredients..

I'm having to learn how to cook, and I scour the Internet for healthy recipes. Eating Well has been giving me some good ones. If they turn out good, I post them on my blog. But if you make enough recipes, you start to understand what herbs go best with what meat, or how lemon can add a dash of taste to veggies or fish. For me, it's all about soaking it in. I'm an experiential learner, so I have to do to learn. As for budgeting, I'm not sure this is good advice, but I'm on a budget too and this is what I do. My freezer is very important to me. I'll buy chicken, separate it into freezer bags when I get home, so I can grab an individual portion when I need to defrost it for a meal. Same with ground beef. I'll weigh it out, split it up into servings, and freeze it. As for things like spices, you can get away with buying dry, but if I get fresh and am afraid it'll go bad, I freeze them. Use them as needed. And frozen veggies are a staple, so are big bags of rice and beans, which aren't expensive and last a long time. Also, go generic. There's no need to buy name brand. Bread can be frozen too and defrosted the night before. Butter sticks can also be frozen. For fresher produce, consider going to the store twice a week. Get what you need for a few days, then go get what you need for the rest of the week. It's another trip, true, but you won't be wasting food by letting it go bad. Also, google some websites that tell you how long you can expect things to last in the fridge or freezer, and that will give you a better idea of when to buy.

rml_16

I will say it can be a little expensive in the beginning, especially when you're building your spice rack up. (Spices are SO expensive!) But you start to learn over time what things keep popping up again and again, what kind of tastes you have, and what you'll need to keep on hand on a daily basis.

SO true! If you have an Indian market near you, definitely check that out for spices. They are much more reasonably priced there. Probably not many dried herbs, but spices galore.

I buy my spices in bulk and they're next to nothing in price and very high quality (dried, not fresh, of course). If you want cheap fresh spices, start an herb garden.

skinnywithin

I cook and I love it!! I had the best teachers ever MY mom and grandmom both are born and raised in the south so they cook and cook BIG ! My brother is also a chef so when there is a gathering ITS ON ! we are all in compeating against one another as to who will out do and bring the best dish ! We have chili cook off and different bake offs all the time !

I entertain alot and I get great pleasure from seeing my guest enjoy the meal . Food is best when made and prepared with love ! My mama taught me that !!

I dont own a recipie box and I dont measure I keep it all in my head.. I used to ask my Mom well how much do I put in..and she said a GOOD COOK never measures ! just taste it !

ItsCasey

I can cook (and bake) like a boss. I do believe some people have a natural gift for it and can cook well without much practice. This is how I am with baking (I don't know why ... my mom is not a great baker, so I guess I am just blessed), but cooking has taken me some time and practice and research. I have developed a pretty good feel for what flavors work well together and the best ways to cook certain foods.

A cookbook that I think everyone who is interested in cooking should own is "The New Best Recipe" from the editors of Cooks Illustrated magazine. You can get it for about $20 on Amazon, and that is a bargain. It is huge (over 1000 pages) and full of useful information. The concept of this cookbook is that they tried multiple recipes, cooking methods, and even cooking equipment for all types of dishes, determined the best recipes/methods/equipment for each one, and explain in the book why/how they arrived at their conclusions. So you don't just get a bunch of recipes ... you actually learn HOW to cook. It is perfect for new cooks and people who may be great at certain types of cooking but not so great at others and can't figure out where they're going wrong.

bcattoes

But how do you buy ingredients? As a student I live on a weekly basis and buy my food shop weekly (namely because there is only one of me, so don't want food going out of date, and because I eat a lot).
So for example recipes that have a teaspoon of pesto, or a garlic clove or some rosemary...I'd hate to go out and buy those things just to make one meal and then waste the rest...whereas at home my mum can build up a cupboard of all these little ingredients..

Dried herbs have a very long shelf life. Fresh herbs will last longer if you keep the stems wet and the tops dry (a wet paper towel around the stems, or put them in a small glass or vase with water). Herbs are also extremely easy to grow and most grow well together. If you have a window sill available you can put several herbs together in a small pot to always have a bit on hand.

Garlic can usually be bought one bulb at a time and has a long shelf life if kept cool and dry. Not sure about the pesto other than to make your own in the quantity you need.

SavCal71

I'm a fantastic cook. I LOVE to cook.