Can you give me your basic cooking tips?

Fry onions, carrots and celery in olive oil until tender. Add garlic, fry a couple more minutes. Not too long. You can use red chili flakes here if you want a kick.

Boil skinless bone-in chicken in lots of chicken stock in a large pot, with a couple of bay leaves. I use wings, the bones have a lot of flavor. When the meat is falling off the bones, remove from the stock with tongs - this is important so as to avoid spilling the stock down the drain (as I’ve done thinking to strain it!). Take flesh off bones, add back to stock. Remove bay leaves. Add carrot/onion/etc mix. Season well. Bring back to the boil and add whatever pasta shapes you’re using. Boil until done.

Try to aim for no leftovers as once you’ve added the pasta it will continue to absorb water, even in the fridge until next time you eat it. You’ll end up with chicken pasta, and not very nice pasta at that.

You can add different carbs, such as rice, but nicest with pasta imo.

Takes lot longer than 30 mins, mind.

Really rude reply.

I learned to cook from Nigel Slater (Appetite, Real Fast Food and Real Cooking) - most of these recipes are very simple, if not super healthy!

You really don’t need complicated recipes to cook well. It’s about knowing how to make things taste good - browning meat, sweating veg, caramelising onions as pp said, what veg really benefit from roasting, what meat needs long slow cooking vs fast fierce cooking, what flavours go together.

A cast iron pot like a Le Creuset (but plenty of copies available) is a brilliant investment IMO, as are good knives (I like Wusthof Classic).

My online recommendations for simple recipes

Nigel Slater (Guardian website)
Felicity Cloake (Guardian again)
RecipeTinEats
BBC good food - but do read the reviews
Hairy Bikers
Nigella
Sally’s Baking Addiction (baking obv)

Looks fabulous, I usually use onion, leek but add too many carrots, and have never added cream
So I will bit the bullet, get some cream, and omit the carrots, which are my downfall !! Thanks you have spurred me on to try 🌸

@SleepTheFinalFrontier

Here's a cream of chicken soup recipe. It does have other things in to enhance the flavours, but I think that's what you mean and it's mostly just chicken.

thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/classic-cream-of-chicken-soup/

I agree with a PP that things like frozen mash are awesome.

lol, I agree, but would also like a good recipe for chicken soup

I’ve googled, but whatever I do, I end up with chicken and vegetable soup, it’s lovely, but I want a fabulous chicken soup, I think I need to find a cream of chicken soup, but would like to make a fabulous American style chicken soup…one day 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Tray bakes are quick and easy. You can mix things up and use different meats, spices, herbs and combinations of veg, etc, to give you different flavours so you don't get bored.

Dice some potato/sweet potato/celeriac. Chop some veg, eg peppers, onion, mushrooms, broccoli (or whatever you like/have).

Add some meat, eg, chicken legs, thighs, pork steaks, fish pieces, if you want.

Put it all onto a deep tray.

Sprinkle some herbs and spices over (dried garlic granules are good to have).
I usually add dried garlic, paprika and parsley, but again, go with what you like.

Spray or drizzle over some oil and bake at 180°C for around 30 mins until golden and cooked through. Serve and enjoy.

Start by mastering some basic essentials: most recipes suggest throwing in onions and garlic together, then cooking for 10 mins (ish). Onions should go in before garlic (they cook at very different rates) and take longer than 10 minutes to really taste good.

Once you can make a simple onion taste fabulous, you can throw together dozens of simple dishes.

Set yourself one cooking skill per week - you'll have a toolkit of flexible skills within a couple of months. Then you can look at a tin of tomatoes and know exactly what to do with it.

Hugh FW's book 'Three Good things' is a useful one, too.

@Cloud44 I don't like the BBC recipes as I think they complicate it more than necessary, so I always just google 'easy shepherd's pie' for instance, easy+whatever the thing I want to make is.

I know you asked for recipes but, first, get a good knife, one chefs knife is usually suitable for most things (apart from slicing bread etc).
I’ve started off with a cheap knife block when I moved out from home (those £25 for the whole thing kind of knives) and got frustrated so quickly. Then, when I could afford it, bought Victorinux set on offer and they were a massive step up and not even that expensive. I’ve now recently got a couple of good Zwilling ones (went to an Outlet to actually hold them and try them, they also got good offers) - another definite step up, but obviously pricier. It makes a massive difference though when trying to finely cut onions etc.

In terms of recipes, not a British recipe but I do love this mince meat soup with leeks.

Slice 1 leek, cube 1 onion and 1 garlic clove.
fry 500g mince (I use 250g pork / 250g beef) on high heat in a medium or large sauce pan for about five minutes and then add the leek, onion and garlic. Fey for another three minutes and add a bit of salt, pepper and nutmeg.
then add 200ml of single cream and 700ml of veg stock (make this up beforehand with 1.5 stock cubes, dissolved in 700ml of boiling water) and leave to simmer for 10 minutes.
Then add 200g of cream cheese, 1 table spoon of lemon peel and the juice of between 1/2 and 1 lemon (you’ll need to try as obviously depends on size). Then serve!

@Cloud44 Chickpea curry or similar using a tin of chickpeas etc is easy to make- maybe add tomato puree, an onion, and the spices. Add a naan bread and it's quite nice.

Extra healthiness points if you can handle frozen spinach in it.

Repeating what others have said really but
...
Hello fresh: I'm a fairly competent cook so I didn't enjoy this much but I felt these were for people learning how to cook for the first time so perhaps worth a try.
Roasting tin: recommended up thread.. this is my go to book for mid week
Delia: for good ol' basics and general info then it's the brown book.
BBC good food; always a good go to and recipes usually work.

Other: if you can make a roux then you can also make macaroni cheese, lasagne, fish pie, gravy (same principle). If you can make a basic pasta sauce then you can add other ingredients for more exciting pasta, do a lasagne etc.

Get confident with soup making so you always have healthy lunch material.

Two basics:

Garlic, onion (chilli)- always soften in some oil before adding tomatoes/tomato purée for a sauce base. You can then add browned meat/prawns/veg/herbs/spices, whatever takes your fancy. Serve with rice or pasta.

Also, a roux: melt a tbs butter, add a couple tbs flour and stir, then mix in milk or stock off the heat, then put back in gentle heat and stir til it thickens. Add salt and pepper. This is white sauce and you can add chicken and mushroom/veg/cheese, then mix with pasta/macaroni or put over rice.

No packets/jars, so cost-friendly.

60% off Gousto at the moment too. Nigel Sister's book was Toast not Taste as mentioned upthread

Delia. She’s the answer to everything- I’d recommend her How To Cook series.

What food do you like?

I'm quite a good cook, but I don't want to bore you with stuff you'd maybe not like.

And good knives are essential but if you're not experienced be careful with them! The ninja knives are great but lethal!

Simply cook got me back into cooking. 20-30 min meals cooked on stove rather than oven and only need d buy basic ingredients

Lots of the Hello Fresh recipes can be accessed on line without subscription

I find simply cook little kits keep me out of a rut. They are all quick and healthy. The spices are the bits supplied but minimal other ingredients usually. You can get a small selection at Tesco or follow my link smply.in/PW18VE .... not sure if I'm allowed to do that but I think it gives both of us a free box. The curries are especially good. I'm not keen on an Indian type takeaway but I've never chosen a curry from the kits that wasn't delicious.

Jamie Oliver ministry of food
When you've done a bit with that, this site is good and you can adjust the slider to how many you want it to feed. I've never had one of his recipes go wrong

www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk

Where's your badge? Thread police 👮

We love this BBC Good Food chilli
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chilli-con-carne-recipe

Also this is my kids absolute favourite- bit longer than 30min but the prep is quick

Agree with this one. Really easy to do, taste really nice, not much washing up and ingredients that are easy to buy.