Well, in less than a month's time I'm supposed to be moving into a new apartment with my gf (whole seperate thread right there) and, in the interest of fairness, thought maybe I should learn how to make a little bit more than sandwiches, eggs or (the current extent of my skill) spaghetti. Anyone else go through this? You guys have any recipes that are easy but are favorites? Sites? Everything I find so far seems to require me to have a culinary arts degree. I know I'm not the only one that needed help in this subject.
This is a great site. http://www.recipesource.com/ Watch alot of Food TV and you'll pick up cooking in no time.
Cooking classes, at Central Market or smaller cooking schools like Sur Le Table, are a great way to pick up chicks and learn kitchen skills at the same time.
You need to start building a spice and sauce collection. Buy seasoning salt, pepper, cumen, oregano, rosemary, soy, terayaki, BBQ, etc. Fish is easy to cook. 1) Try Talapia. It's very tough to overcook this fish in the pan. 2) Marinate Salmon overnight. Put in oven for 10 mins and you're money.
Fettucini Alfredo...one of my favorite "low skill level" recipes out there. Take equal parts heavy cream and parmesean cheese and put them into a wide sauce pan and turn the heat to medium. heat the cream/cheese mixture while constantly wisking it (the wire balloon looking thing, if you're not familiar with it) until the cream reduces down a little. One it start bubbling, that means that the water in the cream is starting to evaporate, and it will start to reduce. After the cream is finished reducing, add some black pepper (freshly cracked, of course) and a little butter at the end to finish the sauce off. Boil up your fettucini according to package directions, and add the sauce. Fattening but good.
I was thinking that we should make a Clutchfans recipe book. Each week have a thread with breakfast, next week appetizers, next entrees etc. Then we could make a .pdf out of them.
Bring it on. Sincerely, The Dream Team: , , , (I had to do a Hispanic one), and http://www.starchefs.com/ -------------- Or, just wake up REALLY REALLY early on Saturday and Sunday and watch PBS. They have some great cooking shows. I like the Cajun old white dude who tells jokes while he cooks chili.
Nice. I never knew Central Market had these classes. Looks pretty interesting...the potential to pick up chicks doesn't sound bad either. How are the classes by the way?
Excellent, and if I remember correctly, they cost less at CM than at private cooking schools. And the River Oaks hottie factor is quite good.
I learned to cook by watching people, asking questions, and just trying stuff out. I reember about a year ago I asked people on this board about smoking and BBQing meats and the responses I got were great and now I get complimeted all the time on my BBQ. I watched my mother and grandmother in the kitchen while they cooked as well as my girlfriend's father. This was probably most helpful and probably the way I learned to cook most of the stuff I know how to. Now there are some things I dare not try (my mother's dressing, grandmother's apple pie, etc.) but I eventually will give them a shot because trial and error is one of the best ways to learn.
Do you get The Food Network? Rachel Ray (?) has a show dedicated to 30-minute meals. The meals are very basic but are great variations of standard fare. Then there are many others shows... plus recipes.
We bake a lot of fish and chicken at home. It's easy and healthy. Everytime I try to grill anything I end up burning it. My wife is awesome at making desserts, but neither of us can really cook.
You should invest on a good wok. One of the easiest thing to make is stir-fry. All you need is fresh ingredients and know how to make different sauces and you find yourself having a good variety of dishes from learning one skill. If you want to learn more about Chinese cooking, let me know. I can probably teach you how to prepare several sauces and also to make the worst cuts of beef soft and tender.
It's great to try cooking things that are fancy and potentially impressive. But usually, we just want to get dinner done and overwith. Here are some tips for dealing with coming up with good food on a regular basis: I recommend a reverse approach: instead of looking for recipes and then buying the ingredients for them, first get ingredients and find recipes that contain them. Talk to your girl and make a list of ingredients that you both like (garlic, celery, onions, etc.). Then, make another list of ingredients you might be willing to experiment with. Then, go to allrecipes.com and search for recipes containing those ingredients. I recommend that you only try 5-star recipes from that site. This also makes grocery shopping easier, and less wasteful. Also, if you live here in the South, you'll probably find that frequently recipes that come from up north will get five stars from their northern neighbors, but when you taste it, it's really really bland. This has happened to me a bazillion times. My wife and I just ask each other, "what is it with folks up North? It seems like they like their food bland and flavorless". Print your recipes on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, 3-hole punch them, and keep them in a hard-back binder. Separate them by meat category (chicken, beef, pork). At each meat section, put a little tab, so it's easy to get to. On each recipe, highlight the total amount of time it takes to repare and cook. One day, you and your girl will be wondering what to eat for dinner. First question to answer: chicken, beef, or pork? flip to the appropriate section in the binder. Second question: how much time to we have to cook? Flip through the recipes in that section to find the ones with appropriate times. You just narrowed your recipe search down very quickly. Focus most of your efforts on the main dish. There are packs of Lipton rice sides and noodle sides that are fast, delicious, and easy to prepare. Instant mashed potatoes and frozen veggies are also easy to prepare and are delicious. Yes, I'm sure you could make better mashed potatoes from scratch, but that divides your attention from the main dish, will take longer, and will require more ingredients. Save this for a special occassion and after you've gotten some good experience at managing your ability to cook mutlitple things at the same time. Don't be afraid to tweak a recipe. If you like garlic, try doubling up on the garlic. If the recipe comes out too hot, make a note on the recipe - write the date, what you felt about it (like, "too spicy - reduce pepper to 1/4 tbsp" or something like that). Next time you cook it, it will be better. Do yourself a favor - never buy any dish or utensil that isn't dishwasher safe. Also, all your plastic containers should be dishwashe and microwave safe. This saves you a lot of agony hand-washing dishes. Avoid cooking on things like a waffle iron or George Foreman - they're easy to cook on, but a pain to clean. Avoid cooking "heat and eat" meals. Meals that are pre-cooked and pre-packaged so that all you have to do is microwave them and eat. They don't taste very good, they usually aren't healthy, and they don't help you learn how to cook. Keep one or two of them around only for extreme situations where you don't want to mess with cooking and don't/can't go out to eat. Also avoid hamburger-helper-type boxed meals. They're ok every now and then, but avoid using them regularly or often. Expand your pallette. You may think that you don't like an ingredient, but you may find that you like it if it's cooked differently. Sometimes I love spinach, and sometimes I hate it - depending on the recipe. For more tips, help, and recipes: http://www.allrecipes.com http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking http://www.discusscooking.com
I like what Droxford wrote, and I'd like to add that the best way to learn to cook is to experiment. If something sounds good in your head, try it out.
Seems all the posters here in this thread are good husbands/boyfriends. Is cooking for her one of the prerequisites for the relationship? Man, if you volunteer for this, prepare to do the cooking for the life of your relationship (I can attest to this). Not necessary a bad thing though, especially when you actually enjoy cooking. If you are also looking for cookware, you may want to check out some infrared convection oven like the FlavorWave Oven:
Isn't cooking and cleaning a woman's job? j/k of course Be the master of the grill, dude and invite your friends over with meat and have each cook their own. You'll learn everyone's secrets in no time. Good luck in your new apartment.
I'm not married, never have been, but I can tell you that some of the best dates of my life have been having the date over to my house for dinner and us cooking together in the kitchen. 99% of the time it leads to cooking together in the bedroom as well. Salad Nicoise, Chicken Piccata, and grilled salmon are my favorite "cooking date" dishes.
