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Help Me Cook Up A Storm
Didgeridoo
Flighty DameRegistered User regular
Flighty DameRegistered User regular
Hello! So I've been living in an apartment with my housemate for about two years now, and it has just now occurred to me that I've been living off of sandwiches and fast food for much longer than can be healthy. Plus, I've been wasting $Texas on prepared meals
SO
I am going to make a serious attempt at getting my shit together and cooking. I have a few recipes that I can make that are pretty yummy, but they are simplistic and I've never really taken a shot at making meals for myself for any extended period of time. I want to be able to save money and eat in a more healthy manner by preparing most meals at home.
I need help.
What should I buy at the grocery store to stock up my kitchen? Because right now I basically have some milk, bread, and peanut butter. What's a good place to find recipes for beginners? Does anyone know a good book to buy for the absolute cooking idiot (I'm not even sure what 'simmering' actually looks like)? What sorts of utensils should I be buying? Is a food processor actually necessary, and what kind of pots/pans should I be looking for? Any advice or anecdotes from when you all were in my position, if you ever were? How do I go about planning meals?
Any and all advice will be appreciated, as will amusing stories about your own cooking adventures.
SO
I am going to make a serious attempt at getting my shit together and cooking. I have a few recipes that I can make that are pretty yummy, but they are simplistic and I've never really taken a shot at making meals for myself for any extended period of time. I want to be able to save money and eat in a more healthy manner by preparing most meals at home.
I need help.
What should I buy at the grocery store to stock up my kitchen? Because right now I basically have some milk, bread, and peanut butter. What's a good place to find recipes for beginners? Does anyone know a good book to buy for the absolute cooking idiot (I'm not even sure what 'simmering' actually looks like)? What sorts of utensils should I be buying? Is a food processor actually necessary, and what kind of pots/pans should I be looking for? Any advice or anecdotes from when you all were in my position, if you ever were? How do I go about planning meals?
Any and all advice will be appreciated, as will amusing stories about your own cooking adventures.
Didgeridoo on
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Edit - Fuck, apparently all of those links are dead. Hold on. I'm trying to find some manner of webpage/site that will give you decent information without asking you to spend money.
Bachelor Cooking 101 looks decent.
There's also the option of searching "Cooking" in H/A, or the D&D Cooking thread, although that one's a bit more advanced.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Its pretty phenomenal.
-Get yourself a decent cutting knife to chop, cut, fillet, etc with. You will need this more than you know.
-If you don't already have some useable pots and pans go out get yourself a decent size pot (for soups, sauces, pastas, ect), pan (frying, sauteing, etc), and baking pan (baking, lasagna, pasta bakes, etc).
-A good stirring utensil that can be used as a multi-tasker. I have a wooden spoon that has a flat edge at the top which I use regularly.
As for food:
-Oil, get some vegitable, canola, or peanut oil. Most of my cooking (especially all my chinese recipes) start off with a bit of oil spread around the pan to start cooking meats, vegies, and sauces.
-Butter-butter has many uses and can even be used in place of butter for the above mentioned if you want but its still always good to have some oil handy.
-Bread of course
-Grab a couple cans of your fav tomato sauce for a variety of italian style dishes. Prepared sauces save a lot of time when it comes to easy and quick pasta recipes.
-A couple boxes of different pastas. Get ones you know you like to use with the sauce above for a bunch of different very easy recipes. (pasta bake, lasagna, spaghetti, etc.)
-Cheese. Whether its Mexican or Italian cheese always gets used.
-MEAT. I tend to pick up meat when I know for sure what I'm going to be making that night or the next night so its fresh. If you plan on making tacos or something one night go out and get some ground beef. Ground beef can be used in a lot so I go to Costco and buy a big batch of it, divide into 1 pound portions, then freeze them in ziplock bags for easy use whenever. If you wanna make something just whip out a bag of ground beef, defrost it, and take it straight to the pan.
-Chicken- this is my favorite meat to use in my cooking but again I only get it when I know I'm going to use it soon. All my chinese cooking has some form of chicken in it and my favorite cut is boneless breast just because its so simple to use right out of the package, no bones you just chop and cook.
-Eggs-For breakfast cooking and even fried rice which is waaaay easier than you think ;]
-I ALWAYS keep a bottle of soy sauce handy simply because I cook asian style the most so it gets used a lot. If you like asian then its not a bad idea to pick up some other bottles of sauce like teriyaki as well.
-Veggies like green onions, onions, tomatoes, potatoes. It all depends on what your cooking the most but again if you know what your cooking get whats appropriate. I use onions the most so those are a safe bet.
Theres tons more you can get and I could go all day typing reccommendations but if you want any recipes or simple things to go on just ask.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If you're just starting out, don't worry about buying the exact right utensils and pots and pans. If you can swing the money, one of those pots and pans sets is a good investment. If not, you'll probably want at least a skillet and a couple of pots and then some spoons. Measuring cups and spoons are important too. You can probably find some really cheap stuff by going garage sales/thrift stores (maybe)/asking your relatives and friends for things.
For actual food for cooking, look through some recipes, find some that you think you want to try and buy ingredients for those to start out. Once you start cooking some things you'll get more of a feel for what you want to have on hand.
I usually try to keep some relatively common ingredients on hand like:
butter (you can freeze butter)
eggs
flour
oil
baking powder/soda
sugar
salt
vanilla
potatoes
onions
carrots
rice
dry beans/peas
spices
You don't have to go out and buy a list like this though. It's perfectly acceptable to acquire things as you go.
Edit: Yeah, I totally forgot about knifes. Get at least a good paring knife and larger knife.
And try I'm Just Here For The Food by Alton Brown
Both will go through and explain all the whys of what you're doing, what you're looking for, what you're doing, how you mess it up, how you fix it, etc, along with recipes which is really great for starting out!
A good trick I've found (if you're not on a very tight weekly food budget) is to stock up on basics that have a long shelf life when they are on sale. That way you save a bit of money in the long run and you always have something to eat even if you had not planned for a specific meal earlier. For example a few weeks ago there were good rebates on pastas and sauces so I bought much more than I needed and now I always have ingredients at hand whenever I feel like eating a pasta dish.
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Everyone said get a knife. Get a nice big cutting board. Get a ladle and a big soup pot with a nice heavy bottom if you're going to make any kind of soup or stew, and a smaller pot as well. Make sure you've got a tight lid on the one you use to cook rice. I'd recommend a non-stick saute pan (for things like burgers, eggs, and stir-fry), and a stainless one (because fancy pan sauces are not hard), both with nice thick bottoms for even heat distribution. Metal or glass mixing bowls (you can probably get by with one unless you're going to bake), a wooden spoon/spatula or 2, plastic containers to store leftovers. A baking sheet, a roasting pan (any pan with a decent depth that's big enough to put some meat and veges in counts) and a smaller casserole dish should cover baking needs. Measuring spoons and cups. Vegetable peeler. Probably a cheese grater. (Also for lemon zest and ginger and spices. A microplane with a nice handle is worth the extra money- a cheap plastic one is nothing but aggravation.) Oven mitts. Pasta strainer. Vegetable steamer. My blender gets a lot of use, mostly with soups and pesto sauces, but that could just be me. An angled spatula for flipping- plastic because you'll mostly be using it with the nonstick pan. Tongs are pretty useful for flipping meat. Tea towels.
You can flip through cookbooks, or think of something you want to cook and find a recipe online, or subscribe to food blogs and mark recipes that you want to try (tags in google reader is good for this). Once you get into it, you'll figure out what kinds of things you should keep stocked in the house (flour, a certain kind of rice, canned tomatoes, etc).
e- Hypatia snuck in while I was typing up my wall of text.
Crock Pots do rock, and are really easy to use.
Here's another question for the more health-conscious among you; I've been glancing over the fitness thread, and the people in there seem to think that five or six small meals a day is much better than a few large ones. Do you agree with this? Has it worked for anybody here? And what do you all personally prefer?
It's conventional fitness wisdom that 5-6 small meals is better for you then 2-3 large meals, especially if you're trying to control appetite and lose weight. Getting overhungry leads to over-eating when you finally get to mealtime.
Honestly, I haven't been able to incorporate the 5-6 small meal diet into my lifestyle. I tried it for a week or so and I just can't eat when I'm not hungry; it's too easy for me to forget a meal. Also, dinner is the only meal I can share with my wife, so it tends to be more substantial then one I might have under a 5-6 meal diet. I have been able to shift my caloric intake earlier (I eat breakfast now), and I seldom eat anything after an early dinner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO8EiScBEjA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBgsLmDcL78&feature=related
Also, I second the praise for Alton Brown.
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I can has cheezburger, yes?
just know that it's a balance between diet and fitness. You can't have one without the other. I used to be close to 300 pounds 15 years ago. A buddy of mine got me into rock climbing and that awakened the athlete inside of me. I don't do much climbing these days, but I've gotten into running and have run two half marathons now and I'm sitting at 225 now. But while I eat way healthier than I ever have. To this day I still overeat. I tend to skip meals and then later overeat. Switching over to chipmunk mode is not easy for me. Sometimes I can do it. But as with all things. It just takes time and practice. There is no silver bullet
Say what you will about the Atkins diet, but that was a great starter diet for me. Realizing just how much carbs the average person eats as in potato chips and soda was a wakeup call for me. so reducing my carb intake (don't cut them out completely. you NEED carbs, it's just that on average, we eat way too many) and doing the rock climbing made my weight plummet over the course of a couple years
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Their spinach-cheese triangles and angelfood cake in that cookbook are particularly delicious, imho
Other than that, get good quality ingredients and a couple of good cooking pans - I personally lurv my wok and my non-stick skillet/frypan and use one or the other for almost every supper I make, unless I'm crock-potting it (sink the extra $20 and get a programmable one if you are going to use it on days you're out of the house for more than 4 hours, having it automatically turn to keep warm is sooooo nice)
For a good book, if you can find a Professional Cooking textbook by Wayne Gisslen, it has all the basics in it. That is the core book we were taught from in Culinary Arts and it contains a lot of basic recipes.
Also, unless it is baking or some sauces, the recipe isn't the be all end all of cooking. Add whatever you think will taste good!
Find yourself 5-10 recipees that sound really tasty to you and just spend some weekend day cooking away and than package them up either in containers, or even better but a bit more cost with a vacuum seal bag machine(you can just take the sealed bags and throw them in boiling water for 10mins or so to heat the meals up, easiest thing ever).
Having a freezer full of good for you and tasty mains/sides/etc. is just the best thing ever. No more coming home from work and ordering takeout because your too tired. or buying fast-food for lunch because your too rushed in the morning to pack a lunch.
plus you get to save serious cash buying in bulk every week, or even monthly depending on how much you cook in one session.
Also, Pork Butt is a bitch to work with. At least the one I got was. I made mine in a crock pot and aside from that it was quite good.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
don't get me wrong, the fried rice I make is very tasty, I just can't escape how unhealthy it must be
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
is a book
it is good
Other than that, I would suggest you go out to costco and buy some things like sea salt, peppers, seasoned salt and various spices and then any kind of meats that are easy to freeze. It will cost a bit up front but it will pretty much last you for quite a while.
Also, cooking becomes a lot more fun once you get some of the basics down. I didn't really start to enjoy until I I knew enough that I could just decide to make some chicken and not have to go look up how long a chicken breast needs to be baked.
Try to get 3-5 recipies for each mealtime that have an ingredient list you can count on one hand and take at most 15 minutes to prepare. When you don't have time to cook something fancy you can fall back on these meals instead of the $texas food you're having now and it'll take less effort to make them than a sandwich.
I'm sorry but the internet has trained me not to search for any phrase structured '2 (people) 1 (noun)'.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Don't baulk too much at the size of the list and cost. If you want bye cheap equipment, buy dirty dollar special equipment. Or, you can go all out and spend a lot of money, don't however spend a medium amount of money on a piece of equipment, I find that items that are priced in the medium range do not last much longer than the super cheap stuff, whereas the good quality usually works better and lasts longer.
Toaster
Hand mixer (don't bother about a stand mixer if you are moving out for the first time you are probably moving to somewhere small)
2 x cuttingboards
8 inch knife
paring knife
Probably another knife
If you buy an expensive knife set get a steel
Kitchen scissors
Scales
Measuring spoons (teaspoon tablespoons, buy at least two of each)
Measuring cups (at least two)
three pots, one small one medium and one over sized.
Two pans, one medium one large
Two different sized baking dishes
Can opener
Eggslide
Silicon spatula
Wooden spatula
Ladle
Slotted large spoon
basting brush
Potato Peeler
Tongs
pie pan with removable base
Cake pan (maybe)
Flat pan
At least two mixing bowls (probably three)
Small bowl (like three inches) for sauces
Sifter
Strainer
Storage containers.
Rice cooker (not so necessary but so damm convientent)
Satans..... hints.....
Making food is very rarely hard. 90% of the time you could probably have a go at something and it will come out at the very least ok.
If you want to get better when you eat your food, really think about what you are tasting, how the meat is cooked, should it be less or more, are you happy with the skin of the vegetables, what flavours could compliment this better, does it need more of something else. Stuff like that.
Satans..... hints.....
"Huh, if I measure these ingredients and mix them together, I get cookie dough/cake/pudding/etc? Sign me up please!"
The puerco pibil video goes into this towards the end. Cooking is easy, just pick a couple things you really like and learn how to make them. Repeat this process often enough until you feel confident enough to experiment and try other things. viola! you're a cook
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http://www.amazon.com/Two-Dudes-One-Pan-Minimalist/dp/0307382605