When I first got married, I had no idea how to cook.
“Oh, but you bake!” friends would say.
Baking ? cooking, my friends.
The whole thing was so overwhelming to me, from menu planning to grocery shopping to actually making edible things. If my husband hadn’t been so incredibly encouraging about the whole project and agreed to wash all the dishes (and there were a lot in the beginning, before experience taught me how to streamline better), I don’t know where we be today.
Since I was so daunted by the prospect of making upwards of 200 meals a year, I instead focused on making it a personal goal to simply find five good recipes to “add to the mix.” I decided to research 5 of the diet friendly dishes closest to me, to try and inspire me.
Yes. Five.
That sounds totally doable, right?
It probably also sounds painfully repetitive. Before you start feeling too sorry for us–Wow, they must have gotten really sick of the same five meals each week– I’d like to clarify what this means. No, I didn’t cook the same five things again and again. I tried a number of good-looking recipes, and when I found one that we liked AND seemed realistic to make on a weeknight, I kept it. If it wasn’t delicious, it was definitely out. If it had complicated ingredients or instructions, it was also probably also out. I did this until I found five simple ones that we both really liked. This happened sometime around June the first year I made this resolution, as I didn’t (and still don’t) actually cook five times a week.
If you are relatively new to the cooking scene and feel like you’ll never catch up, take heart! Seriously, if you had asked me in college if I thought people would be asking me for my recipes in ten years, I’d laugh. I’d laugh, and then explain that my daily meals consisted of reheating my dad’s pre-cooked meals (thanks, Daddy!) and getting cheap, delicious food at the nearby Asian Ghetto Food Court. Cooking is not something you pick up overnight, but it can really be as simple as setting a goal to just find a few new favorite recipes a year.
How I Learned to Cook
“Finding five good recipes to add to the mix” became my new year’s resolution for a couple of years, and… voilà! Now people think I know how to cook. Hah! In my first year, I kept maybe one out of every five recipes I attempted, then one out of every four the next year, and so on as I got better and better at spotting recipes that would probably work well for us. Thus, my collection of keepers grew a little each year, and now I like to think we have a pretty happy pile of meals to pick from.
Mint Mango Salmon: Out
I tried some odd recipes that first year. One that stands out is the Mint Mango Salmon recipe. For some reason, it seemed exotic and cool at the time. Now, however, the thought of mint and mango and salmon together does not make my mouth water even one bit. While I actually recall both of us saying we liked it, I never made it again (and Ben never requested it again). Mint Mango Salmon recipe? Out. I also hit upon some real winners that year, like these Fast and Friendly Meatballs and Cooking Light’s New Orleans-Style Shrimp.
New Orlean’s Style Shrimp (sans spicy stuff): In
As I searched for recipes, I’d study the “most useful reviews” and pick up tricks here and there as I saw how others tweaked recipes. For example:
Bajanchef teaches me that you can make your own seasoned bread crumbs, add your own flavorings, and improvise extra cooking steps that are *gasp* not in the original recipe! (from www.allrecipes.com)
I observed how others played with variables such as cook time, baking temperature, and substituting ingredients. This was new to me. I had entered the food world at a young age as a baker, and it was deeply ingrained in me that one must always follow recipes exactly. I was amazed at how some cooks, like my dad, could just make it up as they went and still produce fantastic food.
Ben and I also watched a lot of Food Network during these years, and instead of letting them intimidate me (hello, Iron Chef), I tried to learn from them. Ina, Giada, and Alton were my favs. I liked Ina and Giada’s simple but tasty recipes, and I learned a lot about food science from watching Alton Brown. To be honest though, I haven’t made too many of his recipes. They can be a bit finicky, like this recipe for making spaghetti sauce. I mean, six hours and 24 ingredients… seriously? Yet, if Ben said something looked good, we often tried to make it. Yes, even that spaghetti sauce… which, by the way, is also super expensive for what it is, as illustrated in step #2 of Learning to Cook is Hard:
…Dried porcini mushrooms?? This recipe is no joke.
But I learned something from it. I learned that you can omit star anise, and nobody’s going to notice. I learned that Alton has nice ideas but they are not always practical. I learned that I like things simple. And I learned that our palettes are not so refined that we need a 24-ingredient meat sauce to go with our pasta.
Looking back, I can see that all these things shaped me as the home cook that I am today.
“Eat anything you want– just cook it yourself.”
Recently, I watched this interesting talk by Michael Pollan on “How Cooking Can Change Your Life.” Since it’s a 20-minute video, I’ll highlight the points that stood out to me:
- McD’s french fries are worse for you than you thought! (watch between 3-4 minutes)
- A predictor of a healthy diet is whether or not your food is being cooked by a human or a corporation; “poor women who cook have healthier diets than wealthy women who don’t.”
- Corporations strategically layer fat, sugar, and salt, three cheap and easy ingredients, to make it more “craveable” (i.e. addictive). They use a lot more of these ingredients than a home cook probably ever would.
- As rates of home cooking decline, rates of obesity go up.
- When we let corporations cook for us, special-occasion foods become everyday foods (like fries). If we cooked ourselves, we would never consider making/eating them as often as we do.
- “Eat anything you want– just cook it yourself.”
So if you needed any more encouragement to start experimenting in the kitchen, hopefully Mr. Pollan gives a compelling case! If you find it daunting, just aim for a simple goal, like five (or three?) yummy new recipes to add to the mix for the year.
Hopefully my blog can help you make progress toward your culinary goals, too! 🙂
Bon appétit!
12 responses to “Learn to Cook with Five Recipes a Year”
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I enjoyed reading this, and the pictures are so cute! It was helpful 🙂
Thanks, Bonnie! 🙂 Glad it was helpful!
I was so nervous about learning how to cook! But I finally realized that if you can read, you can cook. And the internet is a godsend – my favorite cookbook is Google. Some of my best recipes have come from googling “easy [whatever I want to make].” I agree, the “most helpful” reviews often have terrific tips. Also, the crockpot is my friend. It took a while, but I finally got to the point of being able to relax and improvise with my cooking as well.
Yes, the Internet community has taught me soooo much about cooking– it’s definitely time to pay it forward! 🙂 I haven’t really gotten the hang of cooking with a crockpot, so if you have some favorite crockpot recipes to share I’d love to try! =D
I’ve been quietly lurking for a few months. 🙂 “When we let corporations cook for us, special-occasion foods become everyday foods (like fries). If we cooked ourselves, we would never consider making/eating them as often as we do.” I’ve even taken this a step farther: how much cheese would I use if I had to make it? Ice cream? Would I use copious amounts of butter if I had to churn it? (And how would I use that much buttermilk??) we have our own cattle and chickens, neither of which I butcher – in fact, I just buy chicken breasts because I hate dealing with bones – but what would our meals look like if I did? (And organ meats – shudder!) reading Laura Ingalls Wilder was enough for me… 🙂 lots to think about when it comes to food, for sure. And I’m still working on building up my stash of recipes we like, I’ve kept way too many “meh” ones, I fear.
Wow, that is really impressive!! That’s some food for thought (heh heh). Yeah, clearing out the “meh” recipes can be like trying to clear out stuff in your wardrobe to donate. It’s hard clearing out some that have just been there for a long time juuuuust in case you miiiight need it that oneeeeee time. But most of the time it just sits there uselessly =P.
We have opposite problems…I’m pretty adept at cooking, but baking is SO daunting! The precision! I’m like a third grade science student reading a measuring cup—about 3/4 cup flour? Good enough! I’ll be using your “5 recipe” rule. So far I’ve conquered Nigella Lawson’s chocolate pudding…it’s a start.
Haha we would make a pretty good pair in the kitchen =]. Some dessert recipes are more forgiving than others! Hopefully I can help you reach your “5 recipe” goal for the year! =)
This is a great post and I love the advice. 🙂 And hear hear on Alton being great for scientific knowledge, but not so much for the simple recipes. The one that sticks in my mind is the “meatloaf” recipe where you grind your own meat. Uh…. no, we just eat the whole thing and call it steak, thankyouverymuch. Heh.
I was lucky to grow up with a father who cooked (he was a chef, once upon a time) but I really didn’t start cooking (perhaps I was intimidated) until I was in the later part of college. And although my husband LOVES to remind me about the overcooked venison with burned garlic that I made, the rest of it wasn’t that bad.
What I find is that a lot of people don’t realize how easy it is to do an entire meal in 30-40 minutes that is entirely homemade without relying on prepared anything. And the biggest obstacle is timing for the different foods. It’s one of my goals to put “whole meal” recipes up… ones that go through the meal from start to finish and the steps are in order of timing, not for a single meal component. I meant to put one up this week but life got in the way. 😛
Lol yes, we usually enjoy our meatloaf in ungrinded form as well ;).
Wow, I LOVE your idea of listing out whole meal-recipes (in 30-40 minutes?!)! I am definitely going to be looking out for those on your blog! What a treasure!