I need help learning to cook!!!

[erja]

Okay, I've never been great at cooking, especially not being able to budget meal plans.
Our general meal is usually a frozen ready meal (lasagna, etc), never really anything from scratch.

But, to kickstart a better diet and to budget (priority!) I need to start batch cooking, and meal planning more efficiently.

I know no easy recipes to start with or even how to go about batch cooking, what can be frozen, what can't be. I'm so clueless about cooking from scratch!!!

Where do I start???

Start with YouTube, and get yourself a simple cookery book. (The Jamie Oliver meals in 15 minutes one is great for beginners).

Key thing is to make sure you have the right ingredients, and the right utensils BEFORE you start making anything.

Batch cooking isn’t hard. You just make a larger quantity and then portion it up into smaller containers and freeze it.

Start off simple with mince dishes, and master the basics, like shepherds pie, bolognaise.

Dhaal is the easiest thing in the world to cook. Do you like dhaal?

www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/lynette-baxter/cookery-for-absolute-beginners/GOR002387750?keyword=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2Kepmfnv3wIVQbDtCh3kSwDxEAQYASABEgI0tvD_BwE

Dhaal isn’t really a meal though is it? It’s like saying coleslaw is easy to make. 😁 you need to have something a bit more substantial to go with it.

First thing : what do you want to eat?

Have a look at "Feed Your Family for around £20 a week" they have some great recipes and meal plans.

Delia Smith How to Cook is a classic for a reason and the Nigel Slater books are great.

Start by cooking stuff you like (probably not a lasagna as I think that's quite hard from scratch - though you could do it in stages by buying jars to make it....).

BBC Food website is fab..www.bbc.com/food/recipes/easy_spaghetti_bolognese_93639

..

Look at Jack Monroe cookingonabootstrap.com/
I used the ‘A Girl called Jack’ cookbook to try basic cheap meals from scratch.

And if you are unsure of what simmer, chop finely, boil etc all really mean - there's some great starter videos on the BBC food website too..

Dhaal can be if you have it with naan bread. It's really filling. And it's a good start to build confidence. There was a recipe on here that was really pooular and that I use all the time. I will see if I can find it

How to cook by Delia Smith. Brilliant way to learn. Teaches from how to boil an egg etc.

I would start with Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food. It's designed for new cooks so everything is explained in enough detail, it shows you how things build on each other, and it all tastes pretty nice.

Delia also excellent.

Maybe start with learning some basics that can be used in different ways e.g. a basic mince and tomato sauce can be used as a Bolognese, or in a lasagne, in cottage pie, and in chilli with just small adjustments for each. Another example might be a white sauce (that can also be made cheesy) can be used in lasagne, in a pie, on a pasta bake, again with some small changes for each.

Also, if you have a slow cooker, definitely use that - you can find slow cooker recipe books and then all you'll have to do is put all the ingredients in, give it a stir, and leave it.

BBC good food has excellent and simple recipes. What we eat depends on how much time we have to cook that day or when we last did the shop. Here are some basic dishes that we have in our house:

Longer cooking time/makes enough for two days or for batch cooking:
Chilli & rice
Fish pie
Cottage pie
Beef stew
Chorizo and chickpea casserole
Sausage casserole

Quick dishes that we can make in 30min to an hour:
Tuna and sweetcorn pasta
Chicken stir fry
Roast chicken breast, veg and potatoes
Sausage and mash
Chicken fajitas
Salmon, potatoes, green beans and a white sauce
Prawns fried in butter, garlic and chili with rice

Really tired / worked late / forgotten to defrost anything meals:
Fish n chips
Chicken Kiev and chips
Fry up
Ready made curry sauce and whatever meat I have with rice.

DH used the Delia Smith books initially and then grew from there. He's an excellent cook now and very proud of his roast potatoes!

This book is AMAZING for beginners How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy, Balanced Diet with Very Little Money: and hardly any time, even if you have a tiny kitchen, only three saucepans ... and nutritious recipes for family meals

You can get off to a flying start with a simple recipe book or online, but for this to stick you need to be able to actually do it yourself: be able to look at what you have in a cupboard and make a meal out of it.
Go back to basics until you find your feet. PP has recommended Delia's How to Cook. Work through it, taste as you go. understand why one process comes before another. It'll be fun!
Good luck.

Get SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT if you want to understand why and how cooking works. (Eg why you shouldn't add salt to egg until you're about to eat it, where you should use butter over olive oil etc).

If not then lasagne is easy, stir fry's and Noodle bowls too. Marinated meat and salad is super basic. Just google some of these and you'll find easy recipes.

What about starting with a Gousto box which has step by step instructions and you can pick by how easy they are

Dhaal isn’t really a meal though is it?

All it needs is plain rice or roti and it's most definitely a balanced meal. You can make all kinds of daal.

You can cook a lasagne, with help from jars, mince with a lasagne sauce and then a jar of the lasagne white sauce.

Cottage pie, use a packet of seasoning for the mince and frozen mash (cooked in microwave and then spooned on top)

Jacket potato's with different fillings.

Don't fret about batch cooking - it just means 'make twice as much and stash some in the freezer'.

Jamie and Delia are great places to start but I find with any cookbook I only make three or four recipes out of them. I'd actually use the internet if I was starting out now.

But anyway. The first question is: what do you like to eat? What sort of food do you enjoy? How much time/kit/space do you have?

Microwave rice with a simple chicken curry, again use a jar of curry sauce.

Once you feel more comfortable with the cooking you can then start with Ingredients from scratch.

Another vote for Saint Delia's How To Cook.
As you work through it you will learn all the basic cooking techniques which you can then use to broaden your repertoire.