Grandma’s cookbook: Trifle and a flapper face originally uploaded by Wendi Dunlap
My wife is now officially a stay at home mom so feel free to congratulate her as such (waits for applause) and in order to help me out with my very busy schedule of work, school, working out, website, etc she’s offered to begin cooking at least one meal a week. Problem is, she has never really done anything of the sort before.
My wife is great at following recipes for things like baking. You plop a recipe in front of her and she can follow it to a ‘T’ and come out with something very similar to the advertised result. What she cannot do is look at what is in the kitchen and come up with a meal out of her head–she’s just not wired that way yet. What I’m looking for are suggestions on where to start so that she can begin by following recipes in ways that are comfortable for her but also lay the groundwork for her to be able to just whip something up quickly from whatever we have lying around.
My friend Alissa has recently moved into making “Real Food” and has been doing everything in her power to cook mostly at home, from scratch. You can follow her excellent weekly menu wrap-ups on her site here. She admitted to me today that she was never really into cooking before and actually that she, “hated it,” but seems to be enjoying what she makes these days–at least for the most part. Based on what I have seen her come up with on her site I can honestly say that she is on track to do what I hope my wife can do someday too.
So, what cookbooks, websites, recipes, or general comments do you have to get my wife started out cooking? While I have offered her help in learning to cook I feel she may fear my teaching style (like when I tried to teach her to drive stick) and would prefer to do this on her own terms. Even so I think that a starting point which will meet her desire to follow lists and recipes may be the best way for her to get started. So please feel free to share your own experiences, thoughts, recipes, and favorite links for cooking beginners and let’s see if she can’t get some awesome food on the table at least once a week for me!
Dakota Complaints Map
Dakota Inmate Dashboard
Loading ...
May 18th, 2010 at 10:45 am
We’ve got a few of the staple books in the house, Joy of Cooking, Betty Crocker etc, but most of the meals we’ve dug up have been online, typically from allrecipes.com, bettycrocker.com, or various Google searches to come up with something from a one-off website.
I’m sure you can take anything from the books or websites, and triple the ‘hot’ ingredients and maybe make it tasty for you Bill.. :)
I will say, if you want something totally off the wall, close your eyes and open Joy of Cooking to a random page, and you’ll come up with something like marinated jellied ham-hocks covered in some glaze and try again to pair it with some equally odd vegetable dish.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Rachal Rays 365 dinner book is a great one. Most things are easy and can be made in under 1/2 hour.
I like the “I don’t know how to cook book” also.. lots of good easy stuf.
http://www.amazon.com/quot-Dont-Know-Cook-Book/dp/159869703X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274197606&sr=8-3
May 18th, 2010 at 10:51 am
When it comes to us relative novices, I have found that the main thing that separates “good cooks” from “bad cooks” is the ability to read carefully. If you read a recipe carefully, and just follow the instructions, things will turn out about 95% of the time. Seems simple, but I’ve been surprised by the number of people I’ve met who will mess things up by “missing” part of the recipe. Read, don’t scan.
The other 5% is part preparation, part just fluke. I’ve messed up recipes because I didn’t prepare ingredients in advance, so when a recipe says, “add garlic to sautee,” I was trying to peel and press garlic into the pan on the fly (this is how things get burnt). The fluke stuff, just chalk up to experience. Like, how would I know that my oven runs anywhere from 20-50 degrees hotter than it says on the dial until something cooked funny? (I have since invested in an oven thermometer).
Finally, just decide in advance not to hate it. It makes the whole cooking experience sooo much better! And, kind of fun = )
May 18th, 2010 at 10:55 am
For beginners, I like the classics too, like Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens. They are written for people not familiar with cooking and write out every detail. They can be pretty bland though, so after a couple tries she should try doubling the spices.
What we do around my house is plan out the meals for Monday-Thursday (we eat out Friday ususally.) Then she doesn’t need to come up with something spur of the moment. She knows that on Tuesday she is making Baked Chicken and Rice or whatever. I spend time on the weekend choosing the recipes I want to make for the week. You could do that and she can choose which one she wants to cook, or vice versa.
The other thing we do, when I am getting home late or whatever, is I write out the insturctions (or text them) to my husband and he follows those. I will switch up the menu to make sure he has the easiest dish of the day, like baked chicken and rice. So for a dish that I wouldn’t use a recipe for, I tell him what to do.
And worse comes to worse, my husband can always make tacos and spaghetti. Find the couple things your wife can make and incorporate them in often.
Finally, the crockpot is her friend. Especially with a baby, being able to throw stuff in a crockpot and let it do its thing all day is so easy. Most crockpot recipes are failproof and use a lot less energy than an oven.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:07 am
I credit Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything with helping me figure out how to cook. I used to only enjoy baking, but when I finally realized it’d be cheaper and healthier to cook real food (duh), Bittman’s book came in super handy. My husband and I use it all the time. It’s great because he’ll give a ton of basic recipes and then suggest different ways to modify it or additions that fit well. It really helped me develop a sense of technique and what would work if I was improvising.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:12 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by LazyLightning.org. LazyLightning.org said: Suggestions on Beginning Cooking? http://tinyurl.com/22ls5ht [...]
May 18th, 2010 at 11:14 am
http://www.foodnetwork.com.
I tell everyone that wants to start cooking and start learning to cool, start watching the Food Network. If you don’t have cable, then find episodes online. Corny as it sounds, when I started, I used to watch Emeril Live and loved it because I learned. Now, I subscribe to Food & Wine and Bon Apetit magazines and they’re always helpful but nothing more so, IMHO, than actually watching it done. And stay away from Paula Deen and all her butter.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:19 am
I have to agree with Kassie that the crockpot is her friend.
As for recipe sources, I’ve been a subscriber to Cooking Light for years and have found most of the recipes to use easy to find ingredients, are pretty straightforward, and aimed at normal folks. They’ve recently changed their format a bit so that most (if not all) recipes include pictures. I really like pictures, as they help get me excited about a dish. You can also use their website.
Going off Kassie’s idea to plan the week’s meals out in advance is to look at the recipe she plans to make and see what can be done a day or two in advance. For example, last night I made the wild and brown rice and chopped up the broccoli for tonight’s dinner knowing that I would appreciate the time saving when tonight rolls around. Plus, if she’s able to break it up into small tasks, if she gets started and the baby starts acting up, she can finish one step and save the rest for later.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:31 am
And on Kris’s Cooking Light suggestion, they always have recipes for under 30 minutes and ones that are especially cheap pricewise.
Another awesome source is the library. Every library has cookbooks. Your wife can check them out and copy the recipes she likes. It will also give her a chance to figure out which kinds of cookbooks she likes and which she doesn’t.
Also, the food network has a good site for simple recipes (and complex ones) with good comments and ratings so she can be assured she is getting a good recipe.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:35 am
I really like recipezaar.com for cooking when I don’t have a recipe in mind. They have a function that filters by ingredients so I can just enter what I have in the kitchen and then look at the recipes that come up.
Beyond that, practice, the farmer’s market and other moms are great resources.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Ditto on the crockpot thing.
When I was in college, my mom gave me a copy of the Instant Chef cookbook. It really covers a lot of basics, from how to cook rice to how long to grill chicken, and includes some handy conversions in the inside covers. (I can’t find it on Amazon, so I might have the title wrong – I’ll check at home tonight.)
The other cookbook I really like (for easy stuff) is the Starving Students’ [Vegetarian] Cookbook. I’m sure the non-vegetarian one is good too, and I’ve given it as a gift, but I can only speak on the vegetarian one. I love the stroganoff recipe, and there are so many other great things in there too. It’s a small book, but one that you can easily flip through to get ideas on what to make for dinner.
I haven’t watched much Rachel Ray, and don’t particularly care for her, but the few episodes I have seen make me think it might be appropriate for your wife. She’s very down to earth, explains what she’s doing, and tries to do it the easy way or take shortcuts.
Lastly, I have a cool iPhone app that I like if I really can’t come up with any ideas. It’s the Recipe Spinner from AllRecipes. You pick a main ingredient, the type of dish, and prep time, and it brings up a list of recipes to choose from. It includes the * rating from AllRecipes.com, as well as the comments, which have been very helpful.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Good for her! We know she can do it. The learning/starting process seems difficult but I think it’s fun….well I do now. I began by becoming familiar with ingredients I know I like-keeping it simple- and like together, like particular herbs with specific meats or kinds of cheese with rice or other grains. Also, figuring out which way you prefer to have specific ingredients cooked (steaming versus baking versus sauteing versus braising and such) really helps and when you’re beginning to venture out of following recipes it’s overwhelming so small steps were great for me.
I eventually got to the point where I noticed there was something missing on my tongue and could pinpoint what and how much to add to make it better but it took quite some time.
When I began cooking the majority of the meals, I went the healthy route and became familiar with vegetables with a simple meat, like salmon with easy lemon, salt and thyme. I would go through each group until I got a feel for our taste preferences with other ingredients. That’s when I started to make my own or change other recipes, adding a few things we like and substituting other ingredients or taking a sandwich and making it into a salad.
I recently came across a website called yummly which gets a feel for what you like by your rating and I believe you can put what ingredients you have and even what you don’t to come up with a meal. I also love tastespotting and myrecipes. I think many sites are now including recipe sections with price attached to keep on budget.
Good luck!
May 18th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
I don’t like Rachael Ray either, but I like her recipes. She was not trained in any fancy school, everything she learned, she learned from growing up in a restaurant family and from doing it herself, this makes many of her recipes easily accessible to us laypeople.
The library and a crockpot are great places to start. Once you’ve made a month’s worth of meals, in the crockpot or otherwise, you start to learn what things go well with what, and it becomes easier to look in the cupboard and say I have this, this and this, I’ll make That for dinner.
May 18th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
But a crock pot isn’t going to teach you to cook. it’s not going to teach you how to cook a burger or a steak medium, medium well, medium rare, etc., etc. It’s not going to teach you how to cook, cook, cook, taste, season, cook, cook, etc. You know? Crock Pots have they’re place but it’s not going to TEACH her how to cook.
Start with planned meals. When you first start off your timing is off because you have no timing. For example, last night for dinner I made a middle eastern dish called Kufta on the grill. I served it with a salad and asparagus. Tell me, what things did I prepare first?
Here’s my order.
1) Fire up the charcoals
2) Prep the things to go in the beef.
3) Get the beef ready
4) Spread out the charcoals
5) Lay out the beef
6) Prepare the salad, whip up the vinnaigrette, put in fridge
7) Rotate the meat
8) Fire up the stove, small amount of water, toss in some butter and asparagus (with a little bit of honey for a glaze)
9) Check the meat
10) Finish up the asparagus, remove from heat
11) Get stuff off the grill
12) Bring salad out of fridge and toss
13) Eat!
Now, learning WHEN to prepare WHAT is essential to home cooking! Just like cooking anywhere.
Honest to God. Plan a meal, THINK about it, then execute it.
And avoid the crock pot – but like I said, it has it’s place. Who wants crock pot food on a great spring/summer day?
May 18th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I really leaned how to cook watching the Food Network. I had cooked for years before that but I really learned how to put things together based on watching different cooking styles and techniques. There is something for everyone there. I also frequent allrecipes.com as well. The comments about the recipes are very helpful in fine tuning it to either correct common mistakes or to improve it. Since you guys are into organic foods, I would recommend going to Valley Natural Foods. I bet they have some recipes that would incorporate what you value in your meals.
May 18th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I love using allrecipes.com because you can sort your search results by rating and usually find some pretty good recipes that way. People will also post comments about changes or substitutions they made and how it turned out.
A friend of mine gets “Simple and Delicious” magazine and the recipes in there are typically just that. There are not a lot of weird ingredients that you’ve never heard of or couldn’t easily pick up at a regular grocery store, and the instructions are usually pretty basic – no fancy techniques needed. I would recommend just browsing through a copy at Barnes and Noble to see if it fits your tastes.
As far as being able to see what is in my house and just whip something up from that I think that takes a few years of cooking. I can half-way do it if it is something simple or is breakfast food. For example if we have potatoes that need to be used up I can check my freezer for No-Name steak or fish (or some other grill ready meat) and see if I can make a meal with those together.
Cooking is fun when you are excited about what you are going to eat. Have her find a recipe she is excited about and go to town!
May 18th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Matt, now take your above plan and throw in an infant. It doesn’t work. You can’t plan out an infant. Crockpots do have a place, and one of those places is when you have an infant.
And crockpot food is fine in the summer. Pulled pork sandwiches, tacos, chili, and soups are all good in the summer. Serve with a salad and you are golden.
May 18th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
I have two things I think are a huge help in going from making something to eat and actually cooking.
Americas Test Kitchen – Saturday mornings
Cooks Illustrated – subscribe!
The two are affiliated with each other, and might be a bit overwhelming for a novice cook, but I find them honest, informative, and incredibly detailed. They also cover tons of information, from tests on the best kind of a certain spice to a recipe for the best cookies.
May 18th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
I’m not a parent nor a beginner cook, but here are a couple points worth considering:
Remind yourself that you can do this. Be confident! People have cooked for many, many years and you can, too. However, remember, too, that anyone who commits to cooking at home is going to come up with some flops. It doesn’t make you a failure — it shows you’re human. Eat the flops if you can and keep things like cereal or jarred pasta sauce and pasta in the cupboard for when you can’t… until you’re making and freezing your own sauce and baking up your own granola.
Decide what you like to eat the most, then commit to making and perfecting it at home. For instance, if you crave Chipotle’s burritos, look at a few recipes for technique, flavor, and ingredient ideas, then get to it. If you love that broccoli salad at the grocery store’s deli, internet-search for recipes that have the same ingredients and try them out.
Cook with a friend who’s a better cook than you when you can. Ask questions; get your hands dirty; watch, try, and learn. (Seems like you, Bill, would fit the bill here; try your best to back off and guide by answering her questions instead of insisting she’s doing something wrong, for instance. Not that you do that now…!)
Realize your resources are plentiful! Food storage: freezer, fridge, pantry, counter. People: family and friends, TV cooks, people who bring you homemade dishes, etc. Food: farmers’ markets, backyard, grocery stores, your own hands.
May 18th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
I have 3 at home. The youngest is 1.
IMHO, a Crock Pot isn’t teaching you a darn thing about cooking. :)
But I do like Pressure Cookers…
May 18th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
I have an extra Pillsbury cookbook Kim can have if you’re interested. It has some good and simple recipes that got me really excited about cooking. Plus, it is focused on light and healthy without being crappy.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
For me the issue wasn’t finding and following recipes so much as it was learning techniques and, as others have mentioned, timing the parts of preparation so that everything doesn’t take too long, gets overcooked, etc. I agree that recipes generally work out fine if you read them carefully, but some of the techniques that make cooking easier (for example, how to use the blade of a chef’s knife in the most efficient way depending on what you are cutting) are not obvious to a beginner. That’s when it is good to have someone show you, or I would think it would also work to watch someone do it on TV, online, etc.
And of course, start small and simple; there’s no need to be able to make a whole meal from scratch right away.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
For anyone getting started cooking that has any sort of technical mind, viewing a bunch of episodes of Good Eats would help. I think the one thing that you need if you’re gonna start taking on cooking is having a idea of what things cause what flavor. Alton on Good Eats breaks down the technical reasons for many of those great flavors. That can help you get a step up if you can follow.
Otherwise I would suggest start picking things you like to eat, and do those. Look around for recipes that are the same but change some items. That giving you a flavor for when I use this, that happens. When I use that, this happens. Also, bake when possible that folks are not relying on the results. Thus you can experiment without the pressure of what if you fail.
May 18th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
I’ve been looking for some others to do the “OAMM” (Once a Month Mom) type of event, I’m even willing to host it. Basically there is a master list made for a month, you gather all your ingredients and pre-prepare things so that the actual dinner time isn’t a stressful time of “what to make for dinner?!”
Link to site’s main page (if that is legal) is here, anyone interested? http://onceamonthmom.com/ they walk you through everything from preparing your grocery list to labeling your meals. Seems pretty cool, but a lot to do to do for one family of 2.
May 19th, 2010 at 8:19 am
You said: “What she cannot do is look at what is in the kitchen and come up with a meal out of her head”
I have the same problem. I buy stuff that’s on sale or looks good and try to figure out what I’m going to do with it later.
And that’s where Google helps a lot. Search for ingredient-name(s) and the word “recipe” (ie. Roast Recipe or Zucchini Recipe) and you find tons of great ideas.
The trick is to print out the recipe if what you make turns out to be something yummy. :)
May 19th, 2010 at 8:47 am
One thing I learned while watching Emeril Live (yeah, I know that sounds corny) is don’t buy stuff just to buy stuff. You’ll almost always waste it. Buy the things you know you can and will put into a meal. I go to the grocery store about 4-5 times a week. No joke. But I don’t waste anything. :)
May 19th, 2010 at 8:51 am
Except the gas and time/energy doing so. Everyone and their mother suggests shopping once or twice a month only to save money and time. They’re right too.
May 19th, 2010 at 10:05 am
This is the recipe I am attempting today, it’s from Kellie who is in my mom’s group. The moms that have tried it have all loved it so we shall see. Hopefully I’ll do okay. Cooking pasta is not my forte. Getting it to not be either chewy or mushy is difficult for me to figure out. Thanks for the encouragement everyone!
Angel Chicken Pasta
2 cans Golden mushroom soup
1 container of onion and chives cream cheese
1 cup Chicken Broth
2 packages of dry Italian Dressing mix (in the salad dressing aisle, 0.7 oz.)
6 chicken breasts
1/2 stick of butter
Angel Hair Pasta
Cut the butter into chucks and put on bottom of crock pot. Put chicken in Crockpot.
Soften the cream cheese in microwave. Combine with Italian Dressing, Golden Mushroom Soup, and Chicken broth. Put on top of chicken. Cook in crockpot on low all day. I usually start in around noon and cook it on high for a few hours and then turn it down. Either way works great.
Cook the angel hair pasta. I usually cook the whole box because it makes great leftovers. Serve chicken and sauce over pasta.
May 19th, 2010 at 11:05 am
The Wife,
What time should I be over for dinner? I’ll hold the baby while you become a gourmet chef!
May 19th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Sounds like a great recipe, and should be pretty easy. One thing I learned the hard way with cream cheese is not to heat it to fast, as it will separate, and then its kinda ruined. I dont know if its possible to heat to fast in the crockpot, but on the stove its certainly an issue.
May 19th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Shopping once or twice a month works great for some folks, I’m sure. I have never understood, however, how one keeps a supply of fresh veggies and fruits in this case. If you’re relying on frozen and canned veg, great — I need my frozen bags of green things in the dead of winter myself, ’cause I ain’t eatin’ a steady diet of root veg in the winter, and I haven’t started canning yet — but even stalwart once-a-month shoppers have GOT to be tempted by August’s bounty of local produce.
I’m a 1-4 times-a-week shopper myself, but I am:
- not a parent
- living with my boyfriend
- a twenty-minute walk from a locally-owned grocery store that stocks a lot of local produce and other goods… and I almost always walk there and haul my goods on my back and in my hands
- good at keeping a running list of things we need (currently: olive oil, pretzels, yogurt, olives) and picking
- not reliant upon recipes for my cooking
- one who eats a lot of fresh veggies and fruits, whole grains, and not a lot of meat
- a from-scratch cook and baker (made graham crackers for the first time recently, for instance)
Different strokes for different folks. YMMV.
May 19th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I slice the vegetables right away and store them in plastic containers in the fridge. Even organics can last up to two weeks this way.
May 19th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Ben used to do 95% of the cooking in our house (the remaining 5% being nights we had frozen pizza or mac and cheese) and also had a harrowing experience trying to teach me to drive a stick :) Now he’s back to being the primary cook, only due to the fact that we are both working and I’m usually feeding the babe when dinner needs to be made, so that task by default falls to him. I miss cooking now though.
What really got me actually EXCITED about cooking was joining our CSA and finding recipes for each of the veggies. I’m not the type of cook yet that can just whip something up with whatever we have, and I don’t know that that skill is necessarily something that can be taught – you either have it or you don’t. For me, meal planning made it easy for me to cook while still always following a recipe. I subscribe to probably 100+ cooking blogs, and star the recipes I’m interested in, and search through my starred items for whatever veggies I know are in season or by an ingredient I needed to use up. The blogs I read also just made cooking seem so fun that it made me love it as well.
I’m not sure if she’s cooking while you’re home, but when I was on leave, I saw cooking as a baby break. Maybe that can be your baby time, and her break – music in the kitchen might make it more enjoyable too?
May 19th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
There are so many grocery stores in the south metro you can hardly spit without hitting one so time and money are minimal, fresh produce is a benefit. For me, that means no more groceries than you can use in a week. At least perishable stuff. Other items, once every two weeks, or per month. Plan out your weeks food. it’s easy once you do it for a few weeks as you develop menus of items. This makes it easy to grocery shop, and then you also watch for coupons and adjust as necessary each week to take advantage of them all.
I use http://www.upvise.com/ on my android phone for shopping lists. I haven’t found a meal planner that integrates well with any online type shopping list. They all want to print them out.
May 20th, 2010 at 8:25 am
My wife’s first foray into cooking went quite well yesterday. The result was a good one even though she was clearly stressed about it all day long. The look of worry on her face was ever present until we sat down to eat the meal and even afterward I am not sure she was relieved at what she produced–even though the meal was quite good.
Thank you everyone for your help. I may even start to poke back into the Food Network’s website (I used to do that but lost interest as I’m more of a whip it up from whatever we have type of cook) as I am digging their methodology (Meal, Protein, Length of time). Nice.
She seems more comfortable with crock pot recipes for now (although she is going to attempt my Tater Tot Casserole recipe next week) so if you have any that you guys use please do post them below!
May 20th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
I think she should ignore the crock pot snob remarks. You’re not asking her to become a gourmet chef, just to have a decent meal at the end of the day. Crock pots are great for throwing recipes together and then not worrying about it until dinner time. I have some crock pot cook books you can look through next time we’re together.
May 20th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Any stew, chili, or braise (and some casseroles) can be thrown into a crockpot. If you saute the onions and brown the meats on the stove first, you can add more flavor to the finished product.
May 21st, 2010 at 8:35 am
Boneless ribs in a crock pot cooked basically all day long and then, when you get home, add your favorite barbecue sauce and mix it all up and let it sit another hour or so. Add some potatoes in your preferred format (mashed or fried for me), some vegetable, maybe a roll and you have yourself a meal that can be on your plate, or if you pull the ribs apart enough, on a bun or open face bread.
Plus the leftovers are tasty.
May 21st, 2010 at 11:43 am
I know I have a crock pot version of this recipe, but no matter, this one only takes one hour in the oven…just as easy. Plus, all of the prep work is done the night before so it can marinate. It’s from Cooking Light, although I altered the instructions a bit to be more simple and works just as well.
Chinese-Style Roast Pork (Char Sil)
8 servings
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 cup ketchuup
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup dry sherry
2 Tbsp honey
2 tsp minced green onions
1 tsp dark sesame oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 lbs boneless Boston Butt pork roast, trimmed and cut into 2-inch cubes
Combine all ingredients in large zip-top plastic bag, or covered bowl/dish. Seal & marinate in refrigerator overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line 8 or 9-inch baking dish with foil. Dump meat and marinade into lined dish and bake 45 minutes.
While that’s cooking, she could put on a pot of rice and do a simple salad/veggie.
July 16th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
So, how about an update on the new chef in the house?