Learning to Cook?

Hey guys

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on learning how to cook. I just got out of college for the summer, and one of my biggest goals is to learn to be self-sufficient in terms of food. I don't want to be a great chef, I just want to prepare edible food in a time (and preferably cost) efficient manner

In college I eat at a dining hall, which is actually pretty good. I eat a ton of meat and (usually raw) vegetables , and through the magic of all-you-can-eat dining, I've gained 20 pounds my freshman year (came in between 135 and 140, now between 155 and 160).

Anyway, now that I'm home, I'm worried I'll lose the weight I've gained, since its simply harder to come by as much food. I'm sure I won't actually lose 20 pounds, but a side effect of bulking is that I've become a little compulsive about food. What I really want is to continue this and get up to 165+ by the end of the summer.

My mom usually makes dinner (meat, vegetables), and I often eat leftovers or things around the house for breakfast/lunch. I have a shitload of time on my hands, so it would be nice to learn to cook for myself and my family. Any tips?

Thanks

I'm in a similar position and I recommend just starting to cook. Nothing will teach better than experience. Go to Robb Wolf's site and use his food matrix ( http://robbwolf.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/thePaleoSolution_FoodMatrix.pdf ) to start making stir frys. Also, if you sign up to Mark Sisson's Daily Apple newsletter you can download a free Primal Blueprint Reader-Created cookbook. Its not exactly paleo, if thats what you are going for, but it is a great starting point.

Use those two sources as starting points, but mainly just experiment. The worst thing that happens is you have to eat a bad tasting meal here and there. If you have a lot of free time, why not cook for your family a night or two a week? It'll get you more practice and input from others.

Have fun!

Mbern said:

I'm in a similar position and I recommend just starting to cook. Nothing will teach better than experience. Go to Robb Wolf's site and use his food matrix ( http://robbwolf.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/thePaleoSolution_FoodMatrix.pdf ) to start making stir frys. Also, if you sign up to Mark Sisson's Daily Apple newsletter you can download a free Primal Blueprint Reader-Created cookbook. Its not exactly paleo, if thats what you are going for, but it is a great starting point.

Use those two sources as starting points, but mainly just experiment. The worst thing that happens is you have to eat a bad tasting meal here and there. If you have a lot of free time, why not cook for your family a night or two a week? It'll get you more practice and input from others.

Have fun!

Thanks! That food matrix looks pretty easy, just putting meat, veggies, oil and spice in a pan and cooking it.

For the record, I am not going for paleo. Its just a lot of the carbs I eat take no preparation (cereal, bread, etc), so the stuff I can't make happens to be the paleo part of my diet. I do like the idea of the paleo diet, but at this point I don't adhere to anything other than loose principles

No problem. Even if you aren't going paleo, I still highly recommend getting the PB cookbook. There are many fun, healthy, and tasty recipes that are for the most part are all pretty simple.

For example, a favorite of mine are the banana pancakes. To make them it is simply an egg, 2 bananas, and a spoonful of almond butter. Mash the bananas and mix in a bowl. Theres your pancake batter and then pour, wait, and flip like regular pancakes. Takes 15 minutes tops even without experience. Then experiment with spices such as cinnamon and other things.

Try to have fun with the cooking even if it is not a huge focus of yours.

Google will help you, recipes are the second most common thing on the internet.

The basics are really simple, a frying pan or broiler will get most of your meat done. If you want to cook any vegetables, steaming is best and requires no skill whatsoever.

The timing is the crucial thing, for veggies, use a fork to test. For meat never use a fork, rather press with your finger and use the hand test to see how done it is.

http://www.wikihow.com/video/wht/222579/how-to-cook-a-perfect-steak-and-know-how-well-it-is-cooked

OK, I made something today. Basically my mom was making dinner and I went and helped her with it. We did shrimp stir fry with vegetables (onion, garlic, pepper, parsely, bak choi, carrot, and corn) and a pre-made red sauce. The whole thing took about 45 minutes not counting clean up. That was with two people, one cutting and one washing. While cooking stir fry itself takes only 15 minutes the washing/cutting/buying/cleaning takes a while.

Either way, I got some experience and hopefully itll taste good 8)

You might want to look in to somethings like this:

http://www.gnolls.org/1525/the-paleo-st ... d-cooking/

It is "paleo" - but then again he uses potatoes.

The point with this is with some ingenuity a few basic recipes can be varied indefinitely. Once you get some confidence, it is fairly easy to go in to more free-styling. With the free-styling you will at some point make mistakes: burn the food, make weird tasting combinations etc. But experiencing this is part of the learning process, and I would advice to loose the recipes sooner rather than later.

Learning to cook is (almost) as easy as reading, i.e. recipes

I'm just absolutely horrible at following them... I tend to not write it down, but instead go from memory and end up with something completely different.

Plus, maybe I just don't really think cooking is all that much fun... eating the stuff is much more fun, lol