I Have No Cooking Skills

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.

Everyone has to start somewhere, so don't worry about being a beginner. Start looking for recipes go foods you like to eat. Look for simple recipes, and when you find yourself thinking, "I can do that," that's the recipe for you. There are gazillions of websites with free recipes, a simple google search should turn up more information than you can ever use.

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?

I'm in the UK and we had Food Tech classes at my high school. However, we started with an hour, and then they dropped our lesson time to 50 minutes. It's very difficult to teach 30 kids to cook much of anything in 50 minutes when that also has to include clean-up time. I learnt nothing in Food Tech, unless you include the time we made sausage rolls with sausage meat and ready made pastry. Or a swiss roll...which we had to bring in a plain swiss roll for, and then we iced it. Useful cooking skills right there. I think a lot of schools struggle to teach much in the way of cooking, thanks to time restraints and class size.

I agree with getting some good basic cook books. I have a Betty Crocker book as well as Better Homes and Gardens. Both were giving to me as wedding gifts, I turn to them often as they have a ton of tips and tricks for getting good results. And watching Good Eats also taught me a lot. I did take cooking classes for two years in high school, but most of the class was about food and kitchen safety. We only got to cook once a week, and again a lot of that time was spent cleaning. Also there were 4-6 students in each kitchen, so we all only did one step each most of the time. It was more of skate class than a learning class

rainbowbow wrote: »

Here's my suggestion. Watch good eats. I know it's cheesy but Alton does things simply and explains how and why things need to be done.

He even explains food safety, sanitation, where to/not to prep or have stuff in your pantry, knife skills, etc.

There's a YouTube channel where a guy goes from good eats episode 1 and makes everything along with Alton starting with practically no skills.

Just my thoughts!

Alton really is a good teacher. Oh and they just added some of his shows to Netflix. Even when he does stuff I know I'm never gonna do (build a smoker and smoke salmon for example) you can learn stuff.

Someone mentioned America's Test Kitchen. That's good too.

OP just start trying. You're gonna burn some stuff and undercook other stuff. Heck, I've burnt the outside of chicken and cut it to find it was nearly raw inside. Just learn from each screw up and do better next time.
On and a meat thermometer can help you avoid the raw on the inside problem.

Get some mccormicks grill mates, learn to grill your fish and meats, and make salads, rice, baked potatoes as sides. Supplement with fruits, nuts, yogurts. That should get you through phase 1.

Just grill everything that isn't rice. After I just learned how to grill, everything else came easier.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

xyrnyth wrote: »

I would like to become healthier and lose weight (especially by changing the way I eat) , but I have no cooking skills... at all. I'm ashamed, but do y'all have any tips for me?

Oh don't be ashamed!

Yes, it probably would have been better if your father had taught you to cook, but hey, he didn't and you're a grown-up, so that's past and it's up to you to deal.

I strongly recommend the Betty Crocker cookbook. It's really good and basic, and will walk you through a lot of easy cooking techniques. My mother in law gave my husband the current one (back in the dark ages) and that's what he wound up learning to cook from when he got his own place. It was a wonderful thing for her to do. He couldn't cook when we were first dating, but he can make a nice meal now.

For healthy cooking, I cannot recommend enough learning to make a stir fry.* It teaches you how to make rice, and knowing how to sautee on the stovetop is amazing for all kinds of "cooking for one" healthy meals. You also have to learn to cut up vegetables. Knife skills are a huge part of cooking, and once you're comfortable with chopping stuff up, you're on to chef's salads and all kinds of healthy meals.

That said, don't sneer at the microwave. Holy mackerel YES, I will microwave frozen broccoli when I am feeling lazy. The instructions on the package are usually a good guideline.

Crock pot meals are also nice because they're pretty easy. Chop up a bunch of stuff, put it in the crock pot and just let it cook all day until dinnertime. I am an extremely skilled cook, and for days I don't bloody well feel like getting my Gordon Ramsey on, you BET I use it.

Learn to make soups. I used to live with a chef. I learned a lot from him about how you could rummage through the kitchen, throw a bunch of stuff in chicken broth and make the most amazing, healthy meals. It's great for cooking on a budget.

Just keep in mind a few things.

1. Cooking is a skill. You WILL screw up a bit as you're learning and that's okay.
2. Knife skills are da bomb. There are a lot of YouTube videos demonstrating them. Learn them and love them.
3. A skillet is your very best friend. Veggies and meat, and you can have a quick, tasty meal.
4. When you're old enough, red wine is your friend when it comes to flavoring cooking.

*grin* Sorry I am running on, but I am passionate about food and cooking.




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* I have a son a little older than you and when I taught him to cook, I made for damn sure he could handle a stir fry. It's now his go-to dish when he cooks, and it's really tasty, too!

I learned by trial and error, but luckily now we have the internet and you can find anything you want online. You can find how-to videos of whatever you want to cook. I've spent my entire life thinking that I couldn't bake bread. Well, I've been baking my own bread now for a few months and it's awesome!

dbmata wrote: »

You can grill rice.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/grilled-rice-balls-recipe.html

How do you stop it from falling between the grill spaces?!!! Heck fried rice is better anyway.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

i LOVE pinterest for everything cooking related:

http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=easy healthy recipes&term_meta[]=easy|typed&term_meta[]=healthy|typed&term_meta[]=recipes|typed