Learning to cook

[xsmilexforxmex]

So I grew up in a household that was oven prep meals or fast food. I am now 26, have been living on my own for 8 years, and only recently realized this really isn't the norm.

Does anyone have any really simple to fix, low ingredient meals I can *MAKE*/or suggested websites/books. My experience currently is shrimp stirfy, anything grilled, oven bake chicken filets (think tyson) with microwaved bag veggies. I've looked around for simple stuff and found a recipe book for 4 ingredient meals. I tried following recipes more complex before but didn't stick with it so I want to start easy.

I would really like to learn to *cook* vs taking something from the freezer and putting it in the oven...

[hbwbrooke]

I don't have any suggestions for cookbooks, but I do have a suggestion for making it easier to prepare and cook food. I try to think of ingredients I use a lot and prep big batches. Yesterday I chopped and caramelized 8 sweet onions. I used it in three different recipes I made yesterday and the rest will get frozen to use in the future. I get rotisserie chickens from Costco, break them down, and freeze them in batches to use in all sorts of recipes. Yesterday I made 4 recipes that I will eat this week with some left over to freeze for meals in a pinch. I spent almost the whole day in the kitchen but it will make this week much easier.

[Caity]

I would suggest starting by trying to find recipes similar to what you already cook, that way you are using ingredients and techniques you are familiar with but also expanding on these a bit at a time. For example looking up stir-fry recipes might inspire you to incorporate new ingredients into what you currently make or looking up recipes for grilling might yield some marinades that are simple to make.

From there you can keep building on what you know by branching out into some more complicated recipes a bit at a time I would check food blogs since they often have a particular style their recipes follow so perhaps a healthy beginner cooking blog could yield some ideas you like. Lastly I would start trying to either watch some cooking shows on TV or find some YouTube videos,  watching people make more complex meals can be a huge help since you see how they do the prep work and break things down step by step making the whole process simpler.

[Guzzi]

Hi

I've tried a few of the recipes on here http://www.discoverkale.co.uk/recipes and found them really simple but very tasty, and this website http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes has been a Godsend on more than one occassion. 🙂

[Glowie2k2]

The only suggestion I have is the Hairy Dieters cookbooks.

They have taken all of your favourite meals and made them low fat.

About £8 on Amazon, well worth a look.

I bought these for the b/f who doesn't normally cook, he now won't get out of the kitchen

The receipes are really easy to follow, and so SO tasty!

If you can't find them, then I highly recomended the BBC Good Food website.

Good luck