I Have No Cooking Skills

Honestly, as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. I'm not gonna pretend that I didn't absolutely suck at cooking when I first started, but the more I do it, the better I get. I'm no where near as good as my mom is, even, but the food I cook tastes good enough to eat. I started by cooking recipes exactly as they said and then slowly added in adjustments; taking out things I didn't like, adding things that I thought might taste good in it (sometimes they didn't). But just try. Worst that can happen is you make something that isn't great, you eat it, and never make it again.

I am also learning.

As it was already pointed.

Practice and practice. And if all of this fails, then practice more.

This is my super advanced and patent pending method.

1. Pick a recipe that you think you can cook (Usually I get it from youtube/internet)
2. Cook it
3. Unintentionally ruin your meal and outcome nothing like you saw on youtube/website
4. Review why step 3 happened.
5. Correct whatever you thought it went wrong.
6. Try it again another time.
7. Repeat until step 3 does not happen.

For some of my meals I had to go 2-3 times through this steps.

Simple, right?

My go-to cookbook is the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Look for it on Amazon. It has lots of useful info! It's divided by category (meats, vegetables, sauces, etc) and has info in the back of each section on how to cook lots of different things. Growing up, we always had one in the house, and my mom bought me one when I moved out on my own. I'm 39 and still refer to it often.

dbmata wrote: »

shaumom wrote: »

dbmata wrote: »

Didn't your parents ever teach you to cook?

For the majority of people I know these days, the answer there would be a big, fat no. Parents and children both have to have time to teach/learn cooking for this to happen. With exhausted parents trying to make food as quickly as possible plus kids doing 3-4 hours of homework every weeknight, not including whatever extracurricular activities they have, there often IS no extra time.

Most people I know in their 20's and 30's know a couple basic things by the time they leave home, and have to learn the rest of it themselves once they leave home. That's not a universal thing, of course, but I believe it's more common than not.

That's really surprising to me. From about 13 on I was cooking dinners at home. Which was totally not normal, but I would think after however many years... people would pick up some skills?

I didn't realize we're in the lost skills area. Do middle schools and high schools still have home ec?

Schools do have those classes but given the increased pressure to get into college most kids are more interested in taking an extra math or science class or a study hall to deal with homework.

You're lucky if your parents taught you to cook -- that's seriously not the norm

The problem is that schools have cut programs like Home Ec because they're out of the budget or not politically correct. It's infuriating. It's no wonder everyone eats processed food.

Betty Crocker cookbook... I think they're on the 10th edition by now. Has a lot of basics at the beginning of each chapter, techniques with pictures you can follow. $24 on Amazon, or less if you get a used/thrift store one. Have heard the Joy of Cooking is also good, but have never gotten one myself.

I would also recommend a rice cooker... even with my cooking experience I hate brown rice made on the stove, but it comes out excellent in a cooker. They can double as a small crockpot, too, and you can make many one-pot meals in them if you get a cookbook tailored to using one. If nothing else you can make a batch of rice and throw some frozen or fresh veggies in the steamer basket for a quick meal.

I would highly recommend looking into taking some cooking classes. I've taken a couple over the years just for fun, and it's great having an instructor right there to interact with and answer your questions.

That said, there is a lot you can do with a crockpot that's pretty fool proof and minimal prep work. And the more you do, the more you'll be comfortable doing. Some things will work out great, and some will be an inedible mess, but have fun with it and laugh and learn from the failures.

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I didn't realize we're in the lost skills area. Do middle schools and high schools still have home ec?
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I have a high school freshman. Home ec was not a middle school option and is not a hs option either.

However, she can cook and my other kids have rudimentary skills in this area too.

If you want to maximise health and maintain low body weight then you need to love your vegetables. Because of that, i strongly suggest you make cooking vegetables in interesting and delicious ways your forte. And i would include salads in that too.

While you are learning and to build your understanding of what goes with what, use recipes. I prefer cookbooks to websites but i do use a few websites when i can't find something in any of my books. I also get books from libraries so that i don't have to buy too many. But you can buy some second hand.

Also see what you tube has to offer. You might learn how to chop an onion or do other basic preparation tips. When watching cooking videos or shows, watch the little techniques they use rather thinking about the big picture of the recipe.

When choosing recipe books focus on those that look like they are cooking "traditional" foods rather than restaurant style foods. Books in the latter class are often extremely glamorous and very seductive so be careful. They will often have pictures of chefs in them and the appearance of the food will be a rather confected but very very pretty. But keep an ear out for the names of some cookbook authors that have a high reputation. Books from these people are often the ones to buy. In Australia we have Stephanie Alexander, Charmaine Solomon. After a while you will be able to tell through flicking through a book whether it will be any good or not just by how the recipes are written up.

Also read books about food. And if you eat something you really like, try to figure out what's in it and how it was made and have a go at making it yourself.

For traditional books, also look at books with titles like Middle eastern cooking, or French cooking and the like.

Also look at the authors names. Do the names sound like they could have a connection with the place. I tend to favour these names because i suspect that person has more background with authentic food and recipes from that region and then the recipes will be more authentic also.

These more authentic recipes often taste better. And the dishes have foreign names but helpfully have english names to go with them.

When you are choosing recipes, try to stay away from recipes that call for large quantities of things like cream and butter, sugar. But bear in mind that often what makes a dish yummy is the presence of fat. So recipes that avoid fat or use tiny amounts may not be so tasty. Traditional recipes tend to use more fat than recipes from very modern cooks and especially those written for dieters or called low fat cookbooks. Stay away from those because the whole low fat thing was a mistake.

I start out with the vegetable i've bought and want to eat. Ok so i've got a cauliflower. Now what's a yummy way i can cook it. Can i eat as soup? or a dip? or a salad? or a stew? or roasted? Or deep-fried? Or sautéed? or boiled? Who makes the yummiest recipes with this food? How do the french eat cauliflower? What about indians and Pakistanis? See what the Greeks do with cauliflower or mexicans? Do mexicans even eat cauliflower? What sort of vegetables do mexicans eat anyway? What about Argentina? Do they eat cauliflower? HOw is cooked down there? Obviously you are not going to tracking through all these questions to find a lot of answers but over time you can explore all these lines of questioning.

Then consider what other ingredients are used in a dish - so what goes into Cauliflower gratin and what it will be served with. For instance will it be served with rice? Or a meat dish? Or can you eat as a meal on its own? Have you got those ingredients to hand. Are they expensive? Can you find them at your local supermarket or asian food shop? (the latter has a ton of well priced stuff and they are fun places to shop for less familiar ingredients).

Once you've made it once, you could consider if you can stretch the recipe to other vegetables? i.e. keep the sauce and just vary the vegetables. Try our your idea. What might be similar to cauliflower and work in the same sort of dish. e.g. would you think broccoli could work just as well? What about tomatoes? What about a combination of vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli and mushrooms in the same dish? Would that work? If not why not?

Some good recipes talk about ways to prepare different vegetables without going into a recipe and you can learn from this. The more you cook from recipes, the more you will learn how to whip things up without a recipe and have it come out well.

Certainly salads are a very easy place to start making interesting and delicious foods. Recipes are well worth using for these as well.

after you've made solid progress in those areas, look at exploring ways to cook lentils beans and chickpeas.

Then eggs.

Then fish.

I suggest leaving meat till quite late in your explorations because people who eat a lot of meat find most other foods fairly unappealing in their own right quite often and find it harder to get excited about cooking vegetables. But eating a lot of vegetables is key to eating a healthy diet and avoiding getting fat. If you can focus on vegetables you can include small amounts of meat in some recipes and also eat less meat over all. EAting meat about once a week is ideal for people who don't want to give it up.

Do not go near desserts. Don't even look in that section of a recipe book except if you are cooking up a whole meal for a special occasion or event. Dessert and baking are simply a danger area for people prone to overeating and weight gain.

For the satisfaction of your own sweet tooth, eat a lot of fruit regularly. that is eat it every day and whenever you feel a bit peckish between meals. Stewed fruit is delicious and goes well with unsweetened yoghurt and seeds. So does fresh fruit salad. Fresh fruit never needs any sort of sweetener added to it.