To ask how tf to cook?

[Easeljeasel]

Ok, this is embarrassing. I was raised in a house where the most ‘cooking’ that ever happened was fish fingers and oven chips. On repeat. Interspersed with potato waffles or, if extra effort was being made, a boil in the bag fish in parsley sauce with mash... Big processed potato theme as you can see.

Anyway, I went off to uni, have done well for myself career wise and now find myself late 30s, married with kids and in this crazy middle class world where people can actually really cook (I know it’s not a discretely middle class thing being able to cook btw, but over the years I have felt like the class thing has introduced dishes, ingredients - not to mention wines etc - others from my background have probably never heard of either).

Obviously this hasn’t been an overnight thing - in reality I’ve spent years and years going to dinner parties and cringing at the thought of reciprocating, buying cookery books and trying to learn but tbh just not sticking with it long enough for anything to ‘stick’ such that I feel I could achieve it without having to follow each step by step etc. All in all I find the whole thing intimidating and I’ve been too soft on myself for too long and not biting the bullet and getting on with learning.

As lock down starts to ease I know the invites are going to start returning (ultimate first world prob, I know) along with my anxiety about not being fit to reciprocate. And even outside of that my poor kids. They’re fine - more balanced diet than I ever had (not hard) but I’d love to start raising them with a lovely weekly schedule of healthy, home cooked meals rather than pastas and Waitrose fishcakes (my childhood fish fingers in slightly posher disguise!)

Any ideas on ‘starter’ meals to cook that:

A) kids will like on a school night

OR

B) I can use as a dinner party ‘go-to’, without having to perform 20 dry runs and a sleepness night of worry about it going tits up?!

SOS!

I started with Delia (still my go to bible for timings etc), but I pretty much get anything new from BBC Good Food at the moment. I'm finding them foolproof.

Of you Google "sausage casserole" for example, click on the BBC Good Food recipes that come up, and you've usually got a good choice.

You can get 'student' cookbooks aimed at kids doing their own cooking for the first time. Some of them are quite good.

Also, watch cooking shows on TV. Just seeing things done is a huge help. Like when a recipe says 'soften the onions' or something, if you've seen Delia or Jamie do it then you've got a fighting chance of knowing wtf the book is on about!

Delia smith did a series of 3 books called How to cook. She quite literally starts off telling you how to boil an egg! If you have no or very little skill in the kitchen,these are the books for you. She starts off slow and guides you through all sorts of techniques and recipes.
Thoroughly recommend it.

Definitely Ministry of Cook. I grew up in a meals from scratch household but it was very much meat, potatoes and 2 veg or a variety of such. My aunt, a wonderful cook told me ' If you can read you can cook' and she was right. I'm not fabulous in any way but I can hold my own in the kitchen and have been cooking from scratch most days for 20 years. Like PP say, get the basics then you can Google new recipes and start to throw things together.

I find that many things are not difficult, they just take time, so cook on the weekends and freeze.

I am a mean soup maker- make that your speciality!

Friends come over- order great Indian food, problem solved!

Gousto was great for this for us. We had a similair issue and it's totally changed us. Opened us to a lot more ideas and building block ingredients of cooking.

I myself don't like cooking too much. I grew up in a society where it was drilled into every girl to cook, and I thought I am a very good cook, until I got a bit older and a bit more worldly. No, I am a very poor cook, I was just trained to do a couple of basic recipes.
Things that made differences to me personally.

1. As mentioned before, subscription recipe boxes. You find out what you like - both cooking AND eating - in a pretty foolproof way.
2. Decent kitchen utensils. I invested once in a ridiculously expensive set of japanese knives, and now just enjoy chopping salad / veg / cutting meat, just for the sheer pleasure of it. And it is probably a decade now that I had them, and they are as good as new.

Hi OP

I think with cooking it's just practice unfortunately. You cant just read instructions and it works first time. You have to do it again and again and hone it and tweak it. Saying that it will still be nice and edible the first time.

If you really want to learn to be a good cook I'd suggest mastering the basics first, a tomato sauce you're really happy with, white sauce (then you can make fish pie, turn it into cauliflower cheese etc), a basic curry, a basic savoury pastry and a basic dough. So many meals are made from those basics.

If you're entertaining I would do something slow cooked (in oven not slow cooker) eg Gordon Ramsay pressed belly of pork, smitten kitchen beef ribs in balsamic, jamie Oliver chilli lamb shank, a thai lamb massaman curry or korean beef stew. All done in advance and taste better re heared the next day and all have a short prep time and no complicated techniques, just cooked for a long time.

You can learn. I'll fully admit I still mostly cook by the clock and I'm not very good at judging things but it comes with experience.

And there's no shame in using sauce jars and recipe kits.

IMHO dinner parties are 90% about the hosting and 10% about the food. If you're a good host it won't matter if you serve tinned soup, Dolmio spaghetti bolognese, and banana splits.

You want Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat, as another poster said. She’s really good at very clear explanations of what things ought to look like, and the book covers everything from basics to dinner party menus for different times of year and numbers of guests. Lots of people have recommended Jamie Oliver, but I think his books are terrible if you aren’t confident. He rarely explains timings properly and often misses bits out of step by step instructions.

During lockdown I found a facebook page called Recipe Tin. Lots of very straightforward recipes using few ingredients and there are videos to help 😀

@Thatnameistaken

I have the same issue, I come from a long line of shit cooks, but I need to lose some pounds so in a search for healthy recipes I've stumbled into a load of easy but really tasty recipes on the British heart foundation website of all places. Last night we had chicken and broccoli risotto and the night before aubergine, spinach and chickpea curry and they were fantastic if I say so myself. OH was just staring at it saying "I can't believe you've cooked this!!" Its opened up a whole new culinary world!

Great suggestion!

Delia and BBC good food. Waitrose are doing some live online cook-along classes too.

Also - once the world opens up again try the Waitrose cookery courses.

www.waitrose.com/home/inspiration/waitrose_cookeryschool.html

I have done a few of these and they are great.

@Chicchicchicchiclana

I'd sympathise if you were 21 but you are late 30s. There comes a time when adults have to take responsibility for themselves. If in doubt google.

If in doubt, Mumsnet, surely?!

I think start with the basics that you can then build meals round.
For example, a really basic mince and tomato sauce. With different veg and herbs/spices, this can become bolognese, chilli, cottage pie, lasagne sauce etc. Switching the mince out you can also do meatballs.
A white sauce can easily be used in lasagne, pasta bake, inside of a pie, made into a cheese sauce.

Agree with trying Gousto or Hello Fresh. DS is learning to follow the recipes and he’s 11 so if he can do it, anyone can! You can keep the recipe cards so if there’s something you really like, you can buy the ingredients from the shop and make it again.

If in doubt, whip Delia out.

Very good easy to follow recipes. I have a dog eared much taped together book.

Watch her how to cook series, it's on YouTube.

www.youtube.com/results?search_query=delia+smith+how+to+cook+series+1

Dinner party- grilled meats, salads, naice bread and dips.. maybe Greek style. Buy olives etc

For kids- have you got a slow cooker? So many easy things to make and can just put raw ingredients in, mix and switch on..e.g chicken curry, casseroles , if doing sausages or mince just brown by frying before you add

As previous posters said ‘delias how to cook’ is awesome. Also bbc good food, they have videos to help you with recipes. I was the same as you didn’t learn to cook properly until I was about 25. Just keep practicing

BBC Good Food recipes are graded, so pick the ones that say easy. I've now got about 30 fab meals I can whizz up without fretting they'll go wrong.

I haven't RTFT so apologies if someone else has already suggested but the BBC's Eat Well For Less is worth watching for some good simple recipe ideas for everyday meals (so your part A). I know you're not looking to save money as such, but the recipes on there are generally practical and they've thought about the nutrition.

@Easeljeasel This is quite outing, but I still remember with shame being asked to prepare a pomegranate at a dinner party and happily launching all the seeds into the sink whilst my middle class mate looked on in total bemusement. I laughed it off at the time but it was mortifying. Fucking pomegranate. shakes fist at fruit I don't think I even had broccoli until I was in my late 20s.

Loads of great recipe book suggestions here. I've got some Jamie and Miguel Barclay, they're pretty good.

Bless you. I was you, too many years ago than I care to remember.
Lived on marmite and peanut butter sandwiches at home, restaurant meals the rest of the time.
After we married, I started from scratch with Delia Smith, moved on to Sophie Gregson, Darina Allen and within a year or so was reproducing Roux Brother’s recipes most weekends for 8/10 people.
Would still recommend the first three as a novice. Straightforward, easy to follow, food that you actually want to eat with consistent results.
Exception, the Delia Smith Cheats book. Bland rubbish.

When you do start cooking, you might struggle to master some techniques. I can’t make decent pastry, despite numerous attempts. My mum says this is because I have got ‘hot hands’. Whatever. It doesn’t matter, though, because Waitrose sells far better pastry than I could ever make for very reasonable prices. So I use that.

I didn't read the whole thread...

I have taught my DD over lockdown & beyond. Her go to recipes are mainly from the BBC good food website.

Like the one below, lovely nutritious, easy quick and can be an eye catcher for your party!

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/curried-cod