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 know how you feel. My H did all the cooking, he was quite funny over food and made it v difficult for me to go into the kitchen.

He left when I was 48, and I suddenly had to learn to cook for me and the DC.

I wouldn't spend money on cook books, just use the Internet.

I google the meal I want to make, and quickly scan all the versions there. If they have loads of ingredients I don't choose that one.
I find a simple version and as I get more confidence I add more flourishes to them.

I can now make chili, lasagna, pizza from scratch, a roast dinner, all sorts of pasta dishes without using a jar of sauce, and quite a few deserts.

I'd love to try a curry, but know DD wouldn't eat that.

I know that's not loads of meals, yet, but when spread through the week, with some easy meals added in (fish fingers and chips, jacket potato, omelette etc) we get by quite well.

Dinner parties I've not even thought about tackling though.

Good luck

Ahh this is just amazing - thank you so much all! I actually felt a bit emoshe reading some of the lovely encouragement and I’m going through making notes on ideas!

Delia’s been ordered, trying to decide between the tray one and the Jamie, or nosh... (or indeed the Nadia - I loved Nadia on bake off). Tempting to treat myself to the lot but realistically a couple will clearly suffice to get started!

Currently sat next to DD & she’s been tasked with helping find things she fancies on BBC good food. I said ‘do you remember when mummy sometimes cooks dinners with actual ingredients?’ (oh the shame!) and that we’re going to get doing lots more of that. I can’t bring myself to tell her I’ll be learning as I go! Hopefully she’s young enough that if I get cracking now she’ll look back thinking she ‘grew up’ on home cooked meals in a lovely chilled environment (rather than me dashing up & down the kitchen juggling pans & weeping overwhelmed ‘ffs I’m fucking it up!’ into my third G&T) where I can also teach her in the future... Dreamy!

OP I definitely recommend watching cooking programmes. I used to watch a lot and even though I don’t cook fancy things that often, I know how to do all the things because I’ve seen them done. So it feels like I instinctively know how to cook but I’ve just picked it all up as I’ve watched.

@Easeljeasel You can't go wrong with Delia's How to Cook series. There's a lot on her website too. I like her because she explains the how and why of things, which helps you later on as you become more confident; once you understand, e.g. what an egg is doing in a cake recipe (binding it together), you can work out what substitutes work / don't work etc. She takes it from the basics and builds up.

If you have dinner party anxiety, I'd suggest getting a massive Cook quiche (or 2) and accompanying it with salads, olives, posh bread, cheese, ham etc. The quiches look extremely fancy - I'm a very competent cook and I'd happily serve (and eat) one in a heartbeat as an entertaining meal. The other thing that looks better than it is (really) is a roast gammon (which you can make the day before to save stress - Delia has a really easy recipe for this) and accompany it with coleslaw, bread, salads etc.

The other thing friends of mine have done sometimes is served cake / pudding 'made' by their kids, e.g. fairy cakes, biscuits with ice cream etc., so a) super cute, b) very forgiving of anything that isn't quite perfect c) something nice to do together that gives them some cooking lessons too.

Once you get a bit more confidence, some (small) gadgets will really help save time and effort. I have this, which means I can make fancy looking coleslaw in minutes, grate carrots for different sauces, prep all sorts of fruit and veg in seconds.

Also: always buy frozen ready-chopped garlic and ginger. They are both a pain to prep (time, effort, mess) and keep really well frozen. I use my slow cooker a lot, and batch cook and freeze meals a lot (the chilli below freezes incredibly well - I always make huge quantities of it).

I also used to use (when learning to cook) a lot of children's cook books, as they break it down really well, child-friendly, easy recipes and good to follow. Tbh I still use them now. Deliciously Ella is another good one (her first book at least) - they're all vegan, but you can adapt them (e.g. using cows milk where she stipulates almond etc.) but she has some really easy, tasty recipes and very easy to follow as she couldn't cook at all in the beginning (her measurements, for example, are in mugs). We eat this at least once a week with chips, wedges, a jacket, in wraps or as nachos and it takes 15 minutes to make, very healthy, very tasty.

Final tip - meal plan. My DH can't (genuinely - he's severely dyslexic so really struggles with instructions) cook, so on the days I'm back from work late, I schedule the easiest meals for those days, e.g. pasta and a sauce I've made beforehand, or jacket potatoes, baked beans and cheese. Do the same yourself - there's nothing worse than realising you've got a ten stage recipe you've not made before when you're hungry and it's getting late. We once spent 3 hours making a meal kit that was marketed as 'quick and easy' never again! (Spice Tailor - don't go there!)

PS - seeing your update re G&T, I have learnt the hard way one disastrous Christmas for god's sake, however tempting, don't start drinking until the main meal is ready and the pudding is only one stage from completion. It always goes wrong, even if it's a recipe you've made loads before. That's actually, probably my No. 1 tip

If you are nervous about cooking then I would start by ordering a few weeks of Gousto boxes. So easy, you don’t have to think about anything, and the meals are really tasty. There are always introductory offers to be had and so it isn’t too expensive when you have a voucher.

I came from a similar upbringing as you OP, deep fried chips and sausage/ burger etc every single night. I went to uni not being able to cook at all until my boyfriend at the time taught me a couple of bits. Started with stir fry and lasagne. The lasagne was great as it’s a lovely dish in its own right but also taught me how to make a tasty basic tomato sauce and cheese/ white sauce. Those sauces are the base for many other things eg pasta bake, spaghetti Bol, macaroni cheese and can be easily changed with the odd flavour substitution eg add chilli to the tomato sauce, or make a parsley sauce by adding parsley to the white sauce. This gave me the confidence I needed to try new recipes. Also at uni I went through a phase where I tried a new food each week and had to learn what to do with it. I was veggie so a lot of these were vegetables which helped me identify those I didn’t know. I went to uni never having tried broccoli or fresh sweetcorn and now love a wide range of veg and am a confident and capable cook

OP I totally sympathise. I learnt to cook in my mid to late twenties. In university/first job days I lived on wine and noodles/pizza. My main source of knowledgeable to start with was Nigella. I know she's not a MN favourite but she made cooking look easy and fun and she mostly stayed away from silly ingredients. There's also this food blogger "Natasha's kitchen" and her recipes are unbelievably easy and delicious. DP is a massive fan.
For quick mid week recipes I make a lot of pasta and tray bakes. For total beginners - things like fajitas/tacos/enchiladas. I know it's not heights of sophistication but you can get your kids involved and it helps to seriously up their veg consumption.
I'm 10 years into my cooking adventure and I absolutely love it and we try new things constantly.
One other thing: DP could make roughly 2 dishes when we got together. He got this fancy Cook4Me appliance - basically a pressure cooker with built in recipes, it tells you step by step what to do and watches all the timings. Most recipes require 30 mins tops, including prep. It's honestly fab if you have enough space in your kitchen (it's quite bulky, think a giant pot).

Delia .. huge range of recipes, from basics to dinner party worthy. I’m a crap cook, but her recipes are super easy to follow, no confusing jargon, and they all work - every single time!

Haha thanks @AdventureIsWaiting - tip 1, don’t get sloshed duly noted! Also the Lakeland chopper looks like a game changer! Thank youu!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Boil-Egg-Jan-Arkless/dp/0716022206/ref=ascdf0716022206/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310882654267&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15929277507389856424&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045357&hvtargid=pla-562865754139&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

This book is brilliant! It's a basic start to cooking...how to prepare veg, how much makes a portion, how to do the most basic of tasks...omelettes, all kinds of potatoes, pancakes, how to cook meat, roast dinners etc.

Because it's made for one person, You just multiply the numbers by however many you're cooking for, so adaptable for family meals and dinner parties.

Another vote too for Jamie's ministry of food.

Good luck...once you have a handful of things you've tried, it becomes much easier to adapt to other meals.

Buy some "cook" ready meals and stick them all the a pan so looks like you've made it. Like a curry or something. They're homemade ready meals, healthy and soooo tasty. I guess you were not asking how to cheat but that's what I would do if I couldn't cook. My mates actually invited us over for a meal that was entirely from Cook and didn't hide it, It was delicious and they could relax and entertain us.

I used to be a line cook who did starters so so many suggestions come to mind

SOUP. Its so versatile. I've never met anyone who doesn't like sweet potato soup. I literally just boil chopped sweet potatoe in a saucepan then throw in finely diced onion, fresh coriander and basil (you can do dried but it doesn't taste as good) then salt, pepper, garlic, chilli powder and oregano. Then get in there with a potato masher to get a nice thick chunky soup. Then double cream, serve it then pour little extra cream to get that little white swirl. Add a mini roll and a coriander leaf on top of the soup for a dash of pretension and 🤌 chefs kiss its literally a one pan dish that tastes great.

Curried parsnip and apple is my other go to. All the same ingredients but instead of sweet potato, parsnips and apple and instead of chilli powder put curry powder. You have to blend instead of mash this one too imo

Tinned chopped tomatoes in a saucepan with diced onion, coriander and basil is a stable base for a tomato sauce. You can make pizza base, bolognaise, lasagne, chilli all sorts from it with slight variations (added chilli powder or cumin or whatever)

I hope this reads as helpful and not obnoxious

It’s simply a case of practice op. Some cookbooks I have are incredibly difficult to follow though so you need a very basic, easy one.
May sound mad but consider a cookbook for kids. They usually explain the techniques well and keep it simple and step by step. I had an usborne one for the kids which had actual meals in it which they made and which were pretty good.
Once you’ve got your confidence you can try out something more difficult.
I still have to follow recipes if I’m trying new things but I also have a fair few now I am cook without.
And watch cookery programs, they really do help.

For a simple but arty dinner party meal, go french.
Think roasted chicken quarters, with a few herbs rubbed on (you can buy little pots of premixed herbs for exactly this), Mary berry’s dauphinois potato’s or garlic patnadan crushed potatoes. Both Dead easy but amazing! And some french beans (cooked until soft) wrapped in bacon or Parma ham and the popped in oven for 15 minutes. Serve with a thin gravy (call it ‘jus’)
Good luck

*parmasan. No idea what patnadam is!

Before you start cooking anything read through all the steps of the recipe.
Don't start before you have done this. Make sure you have all your ingredients measured out and chopped up before starting. It sometimes says add water halfway through which may not be listed on the ingredients, for example. Useful to have it measured out in a jug already so you don't panic.

I tend to search the Internet for a recipe and find one which I like the ingredients of and looks fairly easy. Then try a harder one once I have mastered that.
Think of dishes you all like. Chilli con carne, spaghetti bolognese, shepherd's pie. Pastry pies you can cheat and use ready roll pastry. Something like chicken teriyaki is actually rather simple.
Good luck

You're welcome

Sorry to do multiple posts (love cooking, love teaching people to cook). Another few cheats I've thought of that I either use, or have used for entertaining:

• make your own pizza with Northern Dough company frozen pizza dough (defrosts in the microwave in 2 mins, as well as conventionally in the fridge) - I rolled all the bases out beforehand, stacked them, separated with sheets of baking paper and let people add their own sauce (blended some chopped tomatoes with herbs - recipes for fancier sauces are available) and toppings;
• get a really good stick blender and veg peeler, if you haven't already;
• crumble is really easy (Delia's topping here), everyone loves it. DD can make it (this was one of my earliest kitchen jobs as a child), or it takes seconds in a (large) food processor;
• digital kitchen scales are better than the old-fashioned kind;
• once shops reopen, it might be worth spending an hour, if you can get the time, wandering around a big Lakeland, if you have one near you. They have all sorts of ideas, gadgets, time savers and their product quality and customer service is exceptional. I also have this, which I use at least once a week (good for guacamole, houmous, chopping nuts etc.). Their shop assistants are also usually really knowledgeable and helpful;
• try and use non-stick pans wherever you can. The only time I burn things is when I use my standard pan. When you're cooking for a crowd you often need to leave things unattended for a bit, and it only works with non-stick;
• get a steel (knife sharpener), and sharpen your knives at intervals, and always before you carve meat;
• in due course because it was a present and I didn't realise how much DH spent until just now! I recommend a bell-shaped saucepan like this one, used with a silicone whisk for sauces. No matter how hard I tried, I have always ended up with lumpy sauces, of all description (see above: leaving things unattended / multitasking), until I got this at Christmas. It's a complete life-changer, but I'd only recommend it if you want to make sauces (white / cheese / custard etc.) from scratch. I think it's a combination of the non-stick surface and the whisk being able to get into every part of the surface (pan shape);
• don't worry about cheating. I use Bird's custard powder, never made mayonnaise from scratch etc. I tend to read all the ingredients on packets and decide whether it contains everything I'd use myself (some microwave rice), or whether it contains random chemicals (most jarred sauces). I have friends who are food purists, and their food is amazing, but people who make you feel bad about cheating aren't good friends.

Loads of good advice here and I hope you find Delia useful op. One thing I'd add related to the meal planning point is to really read through the recipes and pay attention to how long each stage takes. It might just be me but when I first started cooking this was where I fell down. I was able to chop, peel, boil etc but I couldn't get my head around how it all fitted together and got myself in a right old tizz where one pot would be ready and the other barely started. Even now if I'm trying a new recipe I have to visualise myself doing all the steps, say key words out loud and do a sort of semi walk through. Also get any spices and herbs out beforehand so I'm not all flustered rooting around in cupboards and drawers trying to find them at a crucial stage.

For complicated recipes I also write myself out a timetable : yes, a cookery book will give you timings but I find it helps to have it clear in my head to have an actual schedule. Work backwards for this eg 6.30 pm serve food, 6.20 pm drain potatoes etc.

Loving this thread. I'm not a particularly good cook so picking up lots of good tips.

One thing I have picked up recently though is that an easier alternative to a white sauce is using cream or cream cheese as the base.

From there you can make a cheese sauce or add a chicken or veg stock cube to make a more savoury sauce or a beef stock cube to make a peppercorn sauce.

If you add whisked eggs and feta to that basic creamy sauce you then have a lovely fluffy topping for moussaka.

Assuming you’re of normal intelligence and can read, then get yourself something like Delia’s How To Cook, which unlike too many similar doesn’t assume that you know anything.

And work through it.

I want to give you ideas but partly its just down to practice. And cooking things for long enough or not too long.

It would help if you said what you can cook. Like do you burn pasta. Is your veg always hard, do you leave meat looking pale and swimming in a pool of fat? Is your fish so hard you can pick it up and tap a rhythm?!

I could tell you how to do an easy pasta dish or easy tray bake or easy fish and veg or easy pie, but its not going to help if you ruin it. You need YouTube I reckon. Plenty of people showing you how to cook eady meals.

If you're so indifferent i think hello fresh or gousto is your friend.

Or convenience ingredients from Waitrose or m&s are nice

Some quick tips -

• good cooks need good tools. You need good knives and at least one good pan.
• don’t worry about chopping onions. Cut each end off, take of the skin and then do them on the grater.
• anywhere recipes ask for garlic or spices, they pretty much always taste better with twice as much.
• before you start cooking, get all your ingredients out and ready so nothing burns while you hunt the cupboards for paprika or spaghetti.

Another vote for Nigella’s How to Eat - between that and Delia’s How to Cook the kitchen will hold no fear!

OP find some reliable cookery writers and I see you have already ordered Delia (excellent). In my experience Nigel Slater and Elizabeth David are reliable. I have my reservations about Nigella and Jamie if you aren't a cook already.

For dinner parties exquisite quality simple ingredients have great impact.

Smoked salmon, good bread as a starter.
Leg of the finest lamb roasted with an exquisite salad (walnut and raspberry vinegar dressing works well) and buttered new potatoes.
Strawberries with quality vanilla ice-cream and flake.

Teach yourself the basics:
White sauces
Brown sauces
Pastry
Cooking vegetables
Cooking with eggs
Casseroles
Mousses and setting
.... and gravy!

No shame OP, at least you want to learn & have been given mostly good advice here on MN. Quite a few people don't cook what I would call a proper meal, for whatever reason they eat frozen stuff or food you can grab out of the fridge. My neighbour's knocking on 60 & she's never cooked as her husband's a chef so he does it all. I can remember running up & down the street to my sister asking her about peeling & cooking a potato. In my youth I travelled around working in hotels & outward bound schools & picked up a fair few tips. These days I just make it up as I go along. My skills came from being poor & having to stretch meals by using up left overs. Have a look on MSE there's plenty on there too.