DescentBB

Yeah. So I'm like 25, single and am tired of eating microwavable crap. My mom knows how to cook. My sister knows how to cook. My dad knows how to cook. I do no have a friggin' clue how to cook. How I was the only one in the family not blessed with the cooking skill is beyond me.

I turned the stove on awhile ago to make some eggs and... well... yeah, let's not go there.

So like, is there a good place to learn online? I'm too cheap to buy a book, and if I ask here the only people making fun of me will be people who I will never meet.

Thank you and have a nice day.

The internet is littered with sites offering recipes. And it's free! Start with one, learn it, then pick up another.

Start tonight! Pick one that seems appealing, grab the ingredients and give it a try. Trust me, if *I* can do it, YOU can do it.

P.S. Mexican food is easy.

http://recipes.chef2chef.net/index-3.htm
http://www.recipesource.com/

Stuff like that gives you the ingredients, but only experience teaches you how to use them.

Yes. Yes. Try some easy foods at first. Take spaghetti (pronounced basketti ) for instance. If you want to cook the sauce(i.e. make it from scratch), it would not be difficult to find a recipe that is easy to follow. And if you screw it up, no harm no foul, you can have a jar of prego standing buy. The noodles are easy (if you can't boil noodles by following the directions on the package, stop trying to cook now).

Oh yeah, I can do noodles and premade sauce.

Thanks for the links Jagger!

Hostile wrote:(pronounced basketti )

No no no, it's "puzgetti".

jar of prego

Newman's Own! Not only is it good stuff, proceeds go to charity. Paul Newman's the man.


Oh, and when making spaghetti, if the amount of noodles looks like "enough" for you.... it's way too much. Trust me, those noodles seem to multiply in the pot.

Yeah but what I was suggesting was MAKING the sauce as something to COOK. The pre-made sauce is the standby in case you screw that up.......

I know, just Newman's is a better backup than run-of-the-mill Prego, in my mind at least.

Sauce isn't all the hard to do, so he shouldn't need backup, but it's good to have a jar just in case, or if you just don't have the time to make your own. (Also a good way of seeing what you might like in your own sauce.)


Cooking's pretty easy if you start off with some simple recipes. Soon you'll get a feel for what works and what doesn't work in general, and can start trying your own modifications to generic recipes.

Oh and I have one more tip....Salt is like magic.

Sheppard's Pie

1) 1 lb of ground beef
2) 2 cans of cream corn, 1 can of crispy corn
2.5) boil around 6-7 large potatoes until soft to make them mashed
3) Dice onion. (cut it into small squares)
4) Fry onion in big enough pot to fit beef and onions and corn.
5) Add meat to onions and add any spices you want.
6) Mash potatoes (spoon of butter, some milk and mash)
7) in a 8x12" baking pan, put mix of beef and corn into bottom and spread accross pan. Should have at least 1/2" thick.
8.) Carefully apply potatoes on top to cover entire dish.
9) sprinkle top with paprika and put in oven at BROIL until top is baked a bit but not burnt.
10) Let cool 10 min before serviing.

Ooh, speaking of salt, when boiling the noodles, put a little salt and oil into the water (not a lot, just a little bit). The oil will help the noodles not stick together (and add some flavor, so pick a kind you like), and the salt helps add a little flavor to the noodles, as well. (I want to say there's another advantage to using slightly-salty water, but can't think of it right now.)

JMEaT wrote:I do no have a friggin' clue how to cook. How I was the only one in the family not blessed with the cooking skill is beyond me.

It's because you were adopted.

take a little look into food science, find out how things rise/cook/bind even explosively react (custard power) together and find out how all those scraps and odd chemicals in the cupboard can make a meal for kings (usually pizza)

suicide eddie wrote:find out how all those scraps and odd chemicals in the cupboard can make a meal for kings

Hahaha... I can just see JMEaT complaining after taking eddie's advice and making borax resin pie.

Going with Hostile's suggestion on the spaghetti. Get some good Italian sausage. I like to use two links of hot per one link of sweet. You can freeze the rest for another day. Take the casings off and drop the sausage into a frying pan. Cook it up. Then if you like the meat in small chunks you might have to cut it up a little before you drop it in the sauce. Get some Bertolli's 5 cheese pre-made sauce. You can spice it up if you want, but Bertolli's pre-made is awesome. Get some grated parmesan or romano out of the cheese case and put it on and you will have some spagetti that is really good without pushing too far into advanced cooking.

On the eggs, practice makes perfect. Scrambled: load the pan with butter and put it on a fairly low heat: between 3 and 4. Let that warm up and then break the eggs into a bowl add a bit of milk, some cheese and a bit of garlic and salt and pepper. Mix them til they are sort of a mix of yellow and white (not uniform light yellow). Then pour into pan and let them kind of set up. After they look kind of solid, "toss" them until they are the way you like them. Stir them too much and they get grainy. yuk!

You can also use the extra sausage to make some decent sausage sandwiches. Get some high quality sandwich rolls, broil your sausage links and top with some of the leftover sauce and cheese.

I absolutely hate cooking. Not only am I not good at it but standing around food waiting for it to get done WHILE you're dead hungry is torture. It's nice to be self sufficient in the cooking department, but some of the microwaveable stuff is good enough for now

Getting things to warm up on the stove that come in cans or things you can bake in the oven for 20mins work too. Making something from scratch would drive me crazy

Not saying I can't do it though. Ok, well back to dinner plans and sheepdogs the WOman btw That is going to be tasty:)

Oh yeah and a broiling pan is a great investment for meat, burgers, chicken etc. Oh and lemon pepper is super on all kinds of beef.

My favorite broling pan has a rack that sits in a rectangular pan. I line the pan with foil and then sit the various protein forms on the rack. I don't broil super close to the broiler I put it about one third of the way down the oven. For chicken you can marinate it in a ziploc during the day and then broil it at night. Caesar salad in a bag is great with it. And again the high quality rolls.

Thanks Tyranny! But some might say I have a gender linked talent for cooking

Margo

DCrazy wrote:

suicide eddie wrote:find out how all those scraps and odd chemicals in the cupboard can make a meal for kings

Hahaha... I can just see JMEaT complaining after taking eddie's advice and making borax resin pie.

Well after I used the stove today I noticed how dusty it was, so I cleaned it. It seems like taking Eddie's advice would lead to me cleaning it again.

Tuna casserole. My all-time favorite.

Put about 1-2 cups noodles, 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 2 cans tuna, and 1 can peas into oven-safe pan. Stir. Top with LOTS of cheese and bread crumbs. Put in oven at 350 for about 10-15 mins, or until it's hot.

Insert food into mouth, chew. Swallow. I'm not going any further than that.

Frozen peas are even better Stryker. Ever tried buttered chips on top? Man I love tuna casserole!

Getting... hungry...

sheepdog wrote:Thanks Tyranny! But some might say I have a gender linked talent for cooking

Margo

Whoops, my bad. I fixed that statement

eggs-

salt.
pepper.
eggs
fire extinguisher

preheat oven to 500 degrees. dont turn on stove, but cook where stove is supposed to be. put 2 eggs in the oven, and one cracked one on top. also, stick an egg in the microwave for 3 hours. come back in 3 hours with fire extinguisher, and scrape your eggs off the wall. add salt and pepper. enjoy.

I taught myself to cook, too--I was living on my own, engaged, due to be married in a year, and I didn't have a CLUE how to cook. I learned from books and much trial and error (lots of error), and it took about a year before I really got a feel for it.

Stir fry is great for learning to cook. It's economical, yummy, easy to modify, and foolproof. Put some rice in a rice cooker, some veggies and meat in a fry pan, and season it with whatever strikes your fancy. You can't screw it up. Even if you have no skillz whatsoever, it still tastes awfully good.

More specifically, my stir fry looks like this:

Chop up meat (beef, pork, or chicken). Put in wok with enough oil to cover the whole bottom, fry until it no longer looks dangerous to eat(2-3 minutes). Add chicken/beef broth (enough to cover, about 2 cups), and cut up vegetables (small pieces are good). I recommend onion, green pepper, broccoli, carrots, water chestnuts, and baby corn. Season with soy sauce, garlic, onion salt, and ginger. (With those seasonings you really can't screw it up--but go light the first time around. A couple tablespoons of soy, a teaspoon or so of the garlic powder and onion salt (alternatively, a clove or so of garlic, minced), half a teaspooon of ginger). Let the whole mess cook until the vegetables look tender, and then add a tablespoon of corn starch mixed with a little water to thicken up the sauce, and serve it over rice.

It's very easy, very foolproof, and very yummy. And it refrigerates well--the recipe I just quoted will go for 4-6 person-meals. Great for making lunches for the week. (Also great for learning to be a creative cook... you can mod the living daylights out of stir fry, and whatever you do, it'll still taste good.)

Also, I recommend www.allrecipes.com . They have a lot of recipes from Normal People, a great system by which people review and comment on stuff, and lots of useful articles for n00b cooks. (upper right... the 'advice' tab.)

I also recommend a cheap paperback cookbook. Mine was only $7 or so--not much compared to what you spend on the food you'll use learning to cook! Mine is "Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook" or some such. Anyway, most general cookbooks give you good background on how to season things, how to safely modify recipes, how long chicken can sit in the fridge before it isn't safe anymore, and whether broccoli freezes well. There's lots of information in those mom-lookin' cookbooks that's useful.


... oh, and if Hattrick says anything in this thread about how to barbeque, LISTEN TO HIM. That guy makes some AWESOME barbeque.

Man, what are you people trying to do kill him? Drakona gets a bit closer here.

1 word: BBQ

A man's first venture to cooking must involve the grill. If a man cannot survive by cooking over flame, then all is lost.

Go now, and buy a CHARCOAL grill (round, 24 incher or so)
Buy KINGSFORD brickets. (accept no substitutes)
Buy Meat - Any Meat, hot dogs, STEAK, chicken, ribs... also corn on the cob is good(butter, pepper and wrap in tin foil) as well as anything you can stick on a scewer. Take home, assemble grill. OUTSIDE.
Remove the cooking surface (grill)
Put brickets in a pyramid in grill pan, apply lighter fluid, Light with match, put grill back on before the flames get real high.

Wait until flames die. Charcoals will start to turn white. Now you put your meat on the grill just toss it on there, apply BBQ sauce BY ANY MEANS NESSICARY!
Let cook until finished, flipping ocassionally. Cover with lid while cooking to smoke the meat (adds flavor)

Grab beer. Drink Beer while cooking.

When food is finished, eat. Eat like a KING. For you are the master of the flame.

^ A-freaking-men

Heres a tip: cooking on a lower setting is generally more productive than using the highest setting your stove can use. Better to wait an extra 5 minutes for a properly cooked wtfe than to have it be so burned as to be inedible.

Capm wrote: 1 word: BBQ

Ah.. picturing li'l JMEaT trying to barbecue in the dead of winter despite rain, sleet and snow is making me giggle.

Capm wrote:1 word: BBQ

x954³!!!11

BBQ is teh shiznit!11

Sunshine, rain or snow, it doesn't matter I just take my Weber (made in Illinois, USA ) and roast whatever I like! Steak, chicken, sausages, anything!
All year round I invite friends on a regular basis for BBQ, so I've pretty much become teh BBQ mastah!11 I even have special BBQ pants, a straw hat and a Hawaiian shirt. Even the "Winter-BBQ"s are great!

I'm like JMeat, I have two left hands in the kitchen. I've only recently mastered fried eggs and cooking rice is still getting better But give me my Weber and I will provide royal dinner!

don't sweat it jmeat. i can cook, but even i consider boiling eggs to be difficult.
it's hard coz theres no visual indicator they are done.

i can steer you through making some stuff over IM if you want. i'll teach you spagetti since it seems to be the flavour of the day in this thread for some reason.

the smell of oliveoil, onion and garlic in a hot sausepan is reason enough to make your own sause. mmm

MMmm. I made garlic eggs this morning. And I didn't have to clean the stove afterwards!

I love Eggs!!

Simple Fried egg sandwich: Follow previous scrambled egg pan/butter instructions. Get good bread. I really like Pepperidge farm soft oatmeal. All Pepperidge Farm's Farmhouse breads are great. Some of their other "bread lines" aren't so hot.

Put toast in toaster

This time heat butter just a tiny bit more, but I never fry an egg until I've taken my Concerta. My experience is:
Fryng egg + attention lapse = FIRE!!!

Anyway, crack egg into pan. If you break the yoke don't worry about it, just use your spatula to round up the yoke until it sets up a little. If you don't break the yoke you just let it cook until the white looks nice and opaque white and the yoke looks like its setting up a bit. Then use your spatula to flip it. If you like the yoke to be pretty well cooked leave it flipped for say 20 or 30 seconds. For fried eggs you should use one of those spatulas that are thin metal. The plastic kind suxors for eggs because its too thick.

Butter toast. Put egg on toast and salt/pepper with abandon. Now for the pace de resistance: shake on a generous amount of tabasco sauce and prepare your mouth for an incredible taste treat/comfort food.

If you intend to go some place be careful about the first couple of bites. Depending on the amount you cooked your egg, this sandwich has a great capacity for dripping a deadly combo of yolk and tobasco on your work clothes.

Margo

*edit: I buy organic cage free eggs. It has really brought back the pleasure of eating eggs for me because I don't picture abused poisonous hens while I eat. The additional expense is justified for me because I can really enjoy eating eggs now. Please nobody post and tell me its a organic cage free is a sham. In this case ignorance is bliss.

x2 on the cage free eggs.

Well, my cullinary skills have progressed immensely since I used to make these, but considering you're a noob, you should check out orange noodles. Easy, quick and great on a cold day.

Take a pan, toss in some water, a little salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. take a bundle of spaghetti somewhere between the size of a half dollar and the size of a quarter. When the water boils, toss it in, cook according to the instructions on the box (use Barila pasta if you can find it at the store.) Drain the noodles, toss em pack into the pan. Dump in an entire can of Campbells Tomato Soup. Take a fairly large hunk of velveeta cheese, like maybe a couple 2" cubes. chop em up into smaller pieces, toss em in the pot and stir everything until the cheese melts. Throw some pepper in there to taste. No need to salt, there's plenty in the salt in the soup.

Raw eggs and toast for bfast. I know it sounds gross but for a few years as a kid, it's all my mom could make since I wouldn't eat anything else for Bfast.

2-3 eggs in a bowl, whipped(no milk) add salt n pepper.
Toast cut into small squares. Then dunk toast into eggs adn eat.

roid wrote:don't sweat it jmeat. i can cook, but even i consider boiling eggs to be difficult.
it's hard coz theres no visual indicator they are done.

Want to know the secret to the perfect hard-boiled egg? Start off with cold water in the pot you're boiling the eggs in. Set the oven timer for exactly eighteen minutes and the burner on high heat, and let the eggs boil. After eighteen minutes, you'll have perfectly boiled eggs without a hint of green in the yolk. My mom's been using that method for years, and it never fails.

I think my son would lurb da orange noodles. I'm going to teach him to make them!

Top Gun: Thanks the hard boiled egg recipe. Hard boiled eggs and pie crusts are my waterloo.

if you wanna move on a little bit, here's one that's pretty tasty:

Quick Chicken Fajitas!

If you're good with the chef's knife, you can make these in about 20 minutes.

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 medium sized vine ripened tomato
1 red or yellow bell pepper
1 Jalapeno or Serrano chile pepper
1 medium sized onion
Fajita seasoning of your choice (found in the spice aisle)
1 Package whole wheat tortillas
1 lime
2.5 tablespoons of canola oil

Slice bell pepper and onion into thin slices. Put aside together in a bowl.

Dice tomato into 1/4" cubes. Set aside in a bowl. Try to retain the tomato juices as they will add flavor to the dish.

Cut chicken into 1/2" slices and set aside in a bowl.

Take your Jalapeno or Serrano chile in a pair of tongs and hold over an open burner on the stove, rotating constantly until skin becomes bubbly and slightly blackened. Dice finely. Remove seeds first if you dont like spicy foods.

Heat a frying pan to medium heat on the stove. This dish works best with a heavy cast iron pan. If you dont have a cast iron pan, a good thick Teflon pan will work almost as good.

Add 1T of the canola oil to the hot pan. Toss in onion and bell pepper and stir constantly until vegetables are tender. Remove from pan and set aside.

Turn the Pan up to medium-high, add the remaining canola oil and the chicken. Saute the chicken until cooked through.

Return onion and bell pepper to the pan. Toss in tomato and juice, your diced, roasted hot pepper.

Shake in a healthy amount of the fajita seasoning. There's no need to add salt since the fajita seasoning should have plenty of salt in it.

Add a small amount of water, about 1/8th of a cup.

Reduce heat and let the whole thing cook until the water is almost evaporated.

Squeeze some lime juice into the pan, stir, and you're done!

Serve with warmed up tortillas, your favorite jar of salsa, shredded cheese and sour cream.

If you want to get fancy you can take a can of refried beans, mix a little salsa in, spread out in a small pan, sprinkle cheese on top and warm in the microwave.

Also a package of quick spanish rice works good.

OK, here it is. This is the best side dish EVA! The recipe is courtesy of Jeffrey Steingarten, and appears in the book "It must have been something I ate" which is an absolute MUST READ!

Perfect Gratin Dauphinois

50g butter
240ml milk
1 large garlic clove, peeled and lightly crushed
½ tsp freshly ground white pepper
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg, about a dozen gratings
675g baking potatoes
350ml double cream

Special equipment: A large, low baking dish made of enameled iron, glass, or earthenware. The quantities in this recipe work out perfectly when baked in a dish measuring about 120 square inches (300 square cm) on the inside bottom, where the slices o f potato will lie. This translates into a rectangle 9-by-13 inches (23 x 32cm) or 10-by-12 inches (25 x 30cm); an 11-inch (28cm)
square; a 12-inch (30cm)circle; or an oval 10 by 15inches (25 x 37.5cm). An enameled iron baking dish is preferred - mine is made by Le Creuset - Because it produces a delectable crust underneath the potatoes.

A hand-slicing device, such as a traditional French stainless-steel mandoline or a much less expensive but excellent plastic Japanese made device manufactured by Benriner.

Let the butter soften at room temperature for an hour or so. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425F/220C/gas 7. Place the milk, garlic clove, white pepper, salt, and nutmeg in a small saucepan, stir, bring to a boil, and remove
from the heat.

Meanwhile, liberally butter the bottom of the baking dish using about half the butter. Peel the potatoes, rinse them, and pat them dry. Then, slice them 1/8in/3mm thick, discarding the smallest slices. (This is easier with a slicing
machine, inexpensive or elaborate. The quantities and cooking times given here work out best when the slices are even and close to 1/8 inch (3mm). Just keep adjusting your slicing machine until a little pile of eight slices measures 1
inch or 2.5cm high.)

Under no circumstances should you wash the potatoes after they have been sliced - the surface starch is absolutely indispensable.

Evenly arrange the potatoes in the buttered dish in one layer of overlapping slices. (Begin by laying out a row of slices along one narrow end of the baking dish, overlapping each one about a third of the way over the slice that came before. Repeat with a second row, overlapping the entire row about a third of the way over the first row. Continue until the baking dish is neatly paved.) You will undoubtedly have some slices left over. Please do not try to cram them
in.

Bring the milk to the boil again and pour it over the potatoes, removing the garlic. Cover the pan with a sheet of foil. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 15 minutes, until most of the milk has been absorbed. Meanwhile, bring the cream to a boil, and remove from the heat. When the potatoes are ready, remove and discard the foil. Bring the cream back to the boil and pour it over the potatoes, dotting the surface with the remaining butter.

Bake, uncovered, for another 20 to 25 minutes, until the potatoes have turned a golden brown, spotted with darker, crisp areas. (Rotate the baking dish halfway through if the gratin is browning unevenly.) The underside of the gratin will also be brown and crispy in spots. But do not wait until most of the cream has broken down into clear, foamy butterfat. The potatoes should be dotted with thickened, clotted cream, especially between the slices.

Let the gratin settle for 10 minutes. (This will allow the excess butterfat to drain to the bottom of the dish.) Then eat immediately - taste and texture suffer with each passing minute. Cut into 6 or 8 rectangles with a blunt knife and serve each one with a thin, wide slotted metal spatula.

I'm usually too lazy for cooking but I'm quite good at it. Things that are very easy:

hambergers (ground beef, egg, breadcrumb or rolled oats, spices you like, make patties and grill or fry)

eggs (covered above)

steak (leave in a pan with 1/4" of red wine or soy sauce + spice for an afternoon, grill)

PR's make yourself sick food (pasta, more cheese than you really want to know grated, ground beef, curry powder, mix it all together until it's melted and comes in lumps, thinking of it as casserole helps)

pizza (gettin the dough in the right shape takes practice but spreading the sauce and cheese and making the dough in a breadmaker is very simple)

bread! (get a breadmaker, it's sort of cooking )

err... I'm running out of things that don't involve ground meat. Tortiere (meat pie) is another favorite of mine though. Chocolate cake is not hard!

CDN_Merlin wrote:Raw eggs and toast for bfast. I know it sounds gross but... (snip)

Raw eggs sometimes contain salmonella. Cooking or pasteurizing the egg kills the nasty bacteria.

Yo,

Mobius could you convert those measures to muhrican cups and tablespoons?

He He. Really thanks for the great recipe. You too Pun.

Margo

ps. gotta concur with Instig8 about the raw eggs and the salmonella thang. And Red, the bread machine is a good idea. Maybe Jmeat could get his mom one for Christmas?