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preamble
as you might have guessed, i really don't like cooking. however, that doesn't mean i'm bad at it. on the contrary, because i have done it so often and have become extremely familiar with my tools, i'm actually quite good at cooking. and you learn more the more you do it. so this page isn't meant for people who are already good at cooking. what you'll find here will mostly be useful to people who suck ass at cooking and/or are extremely new to it. that or people who enjoy reading the horseshit i write, god bless you.
what compelled me to make this page is that i wish literally anyone at all in my life had told me some of these things when i was growing up. for some reason, my parents thought i was born omniscient and never saw fit to explain anything to me. my mom once got angry at me because i didn't know how to turn on the vacuum cleaner. i had never operated one before. so, you know. maybe that gives you a picture of how my home-ec skills fared for the entirety of my childhood. maybe i could have developed an enjoyment of the craft if someone had bothered to teach me. who knows. probably not, though. i really do hate it quite a bit.
without further ado, i will offer to you the first and most important tip from the jump:
generalized advice
1. actually read the detailed cooking instructions provided at the beginning of recipes that break down the steps and explain why each one is important.
some recipes include in their pre-amble a lot of explanations for why you are doing certain things in the recipe. sometimes they're wrong, but the vast majority of the time, it is sound advice. i've learned tons of things just from reading those parts of recipes whenever i encountered them.
the second most important thing to keep in mind is:
2. if you don't know what you're doing, don't skip steps no matter how frivolous and pointless they seem.
but don't misunderstand, some steps can be skipped if you don't actually give a shit about what their purpose is. if something seems stupid or pointless in the recipe, google it to see what its purpose is.
for example, you might not know why you have to beat heavy cream into "stiff peaks" and get bored of holding the loud-as-shit mixer and decide part way in "eh, they seem stiff enough to me. who gives a shit." the reason why YOU should give a shit is because if your whipped cream doesn't have enough air or structure to it, the shit will deflate and turn into soup. similarly, even if you beat your cream to the stiffest possible peaks, you should always add the rest of the ingredients SLOWLY and in small parts so that you don't also beat all the air out of it and turn it, again, into soup.
much of the logic surrounding why you add ingredients slowly and in parts is concerning creating smooth, stable mixtures. me personally, though, i've never mixed (normal, not weird) cake batter slowly and it never came out bad for me. so those recipe authors can kiss my ass.
3. stovetops and ovens vary in temperature, and the humidity of the climate you live in WILL have an effect on the outcomes of your baked goods no matter how dubious that may sound at first.
when a recipe says "medium-high heat," and isn't more specific than that, this is the reason why. something to keep in mind is that electric stovetops versus gas stoves are completely different beasts. i've used both, and you will always have much more control with an electric stove than you will with an open flame (if you're new to cooking or just suck at using gas stoves).
the other part of this, climate, will play a much more prominent role in your baking (less so cooking) than you might expect. a good example from my personal experience, is that any time i bake bread, i have to keep in mind that i live in a place that is always very humid (and also that i'm using an oven that runs a bit cold). the bread i bake is always gooey and underdone in the center if i follow the directions exactly as they're written. i imagine if you live somewhere very dry, the opposite would occur - you would end up with horribly dry, or burnt bread if you followed the recipe precisely. the only solution to this is trial and error. you will be fucking up a lot of bread, it's going to suck, but you'll get the hang of it eventually.
climate and stovetop heat can also have an effect on things like frying. if you have a shitty electric stove, like i do, that isn't capable of staying consistently at the more extreme heat required for effective frying, you'll have to figure out ways to solve that problem. for me, it's a matter of letting my oil heat back up to frying temperature between batches so the oil is hot enough that it won't immediately soak into my batter and make it soggy and disgusting. it takes a good 10+ minutes for the oil to heat up initially, and a minimum of 3 minutes between batches.
conversely, on gas stoves, you may find that controlling the heat of the stove is difficult to near impossible to master. i was never able to do it, and it was not intuitive for me. some gas stoves aren't very powerful, though, and can be easier to work with.
more specific advice
take into account the order of the things you're adding to the thing you're cooking before you start cooking, and take into account the steps you must take to achieve that order.
okay, but like, why? well, after fucking it up enough times, you figure it out: some things cook faster than other things, and some things take forever to cook compared to everything else, so if you don't do things in a certain order, it'll all cook weird and turn out like shit. example: curry. curry often has potatoes in it, but potatoes cook very quickly, and if they overcook, they turn into mush and dissolve. this is not typically the desired outcome, people usually enjoy having potato chunks intact and a bit toothsome in their curry. to avoid overcooking your potatoes, you'll want to cook things that take longer to soften first (such as simmering your bell peppers and tomatoes for 20 minutes without the potatoes). this is a constant worry, and the sooner you accept that this is something you have to worry about forever, the sooner you'll get used to it and stop being annoyed about it. like i was. if you get really good at partitioning time, you can use the time you're waiting for something to cook to finish up a different task, like dicing vegetables or crushing garlic. that way, it feels like you're never wasting time, which is something i personally really enjoy.
you can buy pre-peeled garlic and freeze it to never have to mince garlic again.
i hate mincing garlic, it's the worst thing on the planet, and i refuse to do it. the great thing about buying already peeled garlic and freezing it is that when you thaw it out, it becomes very soft and easily mashed. this is true of any vegetable you freeze, so if you want to keep your vegetables crisp when you cook them, you won't want to freeze them first. i personally usually make stews, so i like to freeze my bell peppers as well, so that i can always have them on hand. bell pepper... yumy.
if you can, consider getting a bread machine.
sometimes bread machines suck ass and work like shit, so you gotta be careful, but when you get a good one, they're soooooo good. i don't think i need to explain this. it's a machine where you put ingredients into a little basin, turn it on, and 3-4 hours later you have a loaf of bread. it fucking rules. or, it can just make the dough for you, and you can cook the bread, or rolls, or pizza yourself. my wrists are shot to hell from spending my whole life drawing (don't succumb to the evil of passions that result in repetitive strain injury, kids), so i really suck at kneading dough. now i don't have to. >:)
"why do my eggs keep sticking to my pan no matter how much i grease it?"
your pan is too hot! if you're on a gas stove, you may want to try turning the flame down as low as it is possible for it to go to keep your pan at a low temperature so your eggs don't stick. if you're using cast iron, you probably don't have to be as precious with your skillet, but in my experience, a thin metal pan will super-heat on a gas stove and fuck your eggs every time.
to make really good boxed macaroni and cheese, add milk, butter, AND cream cheese.
for once, this is actually something my mom told me about. for each box of macaroni you're making, add 4 ounces of cream cheese, or half of one of the 8 ounce blocks it's often sold in. the milk is the base of the sauce, the butter adds flavor, and the cream cheese adds fat and body to the whole thing that makes the meal more smooth, rich, and filling. you'll want to add the actual cheese packet too, of course, because it adds cheese flavor and salt, which brings out the flavor of the rest of the dairy you're adding. the volume of extra added dairy will cut through the saltiness of the cheese packet flavoring, so if you want to add more salt due to blandness, don't hesitate.
obviously, after that, you just add any seasonings you want, and you've got yourself a tasty meal that's more nutritionally complete than a plain box of mac n cheese with only water added. i personally really enjoy adding chipotle powder to mine, but that stuff is expensive as hell.
you don't have to soak dry beans overnight before you cook them.*
the only thing that soaking beans does is allow them to cook faster by about half an hour. really. that's it. you can just throw dry beans into the recipe, and account for the added time. however, if you're unsure, it's perfectly fine to soak them anyway. i never soak beans because it's a pain the ass and i know how to cook well enough that i don't have to.
*this does not apply to dry kidney beans. dry kidney beans are built different. google how to cook dry kidney beans before you throw them willy-nilly into your chilis and whatnot.
powdered bouillon is great for adding flavor to soups, stews, or any liquid food.
the salt flavor of powdered bouillon (the kind you get from asian markets, not cubes) can be much subtler, so you may also need to use regular salt in addition to the bouillon. but on its own, it adds a really nice, savory flavor.
nutrition ramble
don't use cornmeal. use masa.cornmeal has very little nutritional value compared to masa (nixtamalized corn flour). they have near-identical textures when used to make things like cornbread, and 1:1 identical flavors (in my opinion at least, i could be wrong though because i don't taste things like normal people). there is no reason to ever buy cornmeal. eat healthier and get masa instead.
even if it sucks, you should be eating whole grains if you can.
again, it's about nutrition. whole wheat bread, for example, has more vitamins and minerals found naturally in it than white bread will. much of the food we eat in the US is fortified with certain essential vitamins, so eating white bread from the grocery store isn't really bad for you, it's perfectly fine, but whole grain breads will always be better. besides that, there's more fiber in them, which, y'know. helps you poop good. i know it sucks. some of them taste like burnt dirt. but there's tons of different types of whole grains, so just keep looking for one until you find one you like. also, keep in mind that toasting bread changes its flavor by quite a large margin, so something that may taste like shit untoasted might be edible, or even tasty, when toasted.
you know what, fuck it, get the nutrtion spiel out of the way. you should also be varying the things you eat. don't eat the same thing over and over forever.
there is nuance to this, believe it or not. if you're eating the same meal that is nutritionally complete every single day for every single meal, you don't actually have to worry that much about keeping your meals varied. there are entire cultures that have existed on very limited, but nutritional diets. the reason why this advice is so often given is obvious: try to vary the nutrients you take in so that you're getting as wide a range as possible so that you don't develop any deficiencies. some nutrient deficiencies can be dangerous or deadly. for the love of god, do not eat instant ramen noodles for every meal.
there is no such thing as "bad food" in the sense that it is always terrible to eat and adds nothing of value to your diet.
there are certainly additives in some food that are bad for you in large quantities (salt, sugar, saturated fats), but much of the discourse around "healthy" vs. "unhealthy" food is complete bullshit. the only thing unhealthy about what you eat, is whether or not you're eating too much of it, or if it's the only thing you're eating. you don't want to be eating nothing but cup noodles, but merely eating cup noodles on occasion isn't "unhealthy." it's nutritionally lacking food that requires additions like meat and vegetables to make it complete, and is heavy on salt which, obviously, can be very bad for you in large quantities over the long-term.
there is no such thing as universally "healthy" food, either. diabetic people will not want to be eating a lot of fructose, because it can trick their bodies into thinking they're not eating that much sugar because of the way the molecules in fructose break down in our systems. but people who don't have any health problems precluding them from eating fructose can have it occasionally without any negative health repercussions. and guess where you find fructose in higher quantities than regular granulated white sugar? that's right! over-priced "super foods" like agave nectar. Agave Nectar Is Worse For Your Liver Than Plain White Sugar! i realize that saying this will trigger knee-jerk reactions in a lot of people, but it's just the reality of the thing.
the problem is being aware of what's in your food and making sure you are getting appropriate amounts of each ingredient. think about the ingredients that make up the thing you're eating. let's take an example, a whopper from burger king. a whopper is made up of the following: bread, beef, lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, mayonnaise, ketchup. when you break down your foods like this, it quickly becomes obvious that the perception of "unhealthy" foods is an arbitrary construct. if you make all of those ingredients yourself and construct a whopper out of them, thus avoiding any weird or unknown additives added by the burger king corporation, what exactly about it is "unhealthy?" do you see my point?
finally, and most importantly, don't trust every corporate sponsored, half-assed study that comes out saying you're going to get cancer from god damn... eggs or whatever. you can make some tenuous correlation between cancer and literally anything if you try hard enough. also, simply being alive and experiencing the DNA degradation of aging causes cancer so don't fuckin worry about it so much, okay? you're more likely to get cancer from sunlight than god damn aspartame.
anyway, i think that'll do it for this page. i hope you learned something, or at least found something interesting to think about and looked into it more yourself. i hope you don't hate cooking as much as i do. feed yourselves and eat well!
recipes
here is a collection of recipes i use all the time based on the fact that i transcribed them into my notes app because i made significant enough changes from the original recipes that i was compelled to do so. so the base recipes aren't by me, but the changes are. i think i generally improved them, but it's up to you to decide.
goulash
a large pot1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground or link sausage
3 cups water
4 cups dried elbow macaroni, or a 16 oz. box of some other dried pasta (i like penne)
1 large onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
3 bay leaves
30 oz tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes (or a mix)
30 oz diced tomatoes with juice
2 tbsp bouillon powder
1/2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp italian seasoning
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp dried fennugreek
generous dash worchestershire sauce
some olive oil
1. chop onions and garlic. cook the onions in a large pot with olive oil on medium-high heat until translucent (5-7 minutes).
2. add the garlic. cook further, 3-5 minutes.
3. [if you are adding link sausage instead of ground sausage, cook those separately in a skillet, let them rest a minimum of 5 minutes, then cut them into slices before adding them to the pot.] brown your beef and ground sausage in the pot you're using until cooked through.
4. add everything else except the pasta. bring it to a boil, then simmer covered for 10 minutes.
5. add the pasta. cook 10-13 minutes covered, or until the pasta is tender.
6. discard bay leaves. serve.
chicken fajitas
a large wok5 pounds of chicken, cut into short strips
6 tbsp olive oil
6 tbsp lemon juice
(heaping tablespoons for the following measurements if you don't care; accurate measurements are 1 & 3/4 tbsp, or 4 & 1/2 tsp)
1 & 1/2 tbsp seasoned salt
1 & 1/2 tbsp oregano
1 & 1/2 tbsp cumin
(ok normal measurements now)
3 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp paprika
1 & 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
3 red peppers julienned
2 medium or large onions, diced
toppings such as green onions, sour cream, or shredded cheese
tortillas
1. marinade chicken strips in the olive oil, lemon juice, and seasonings for 1-4 hours in the fridge.
2. using the wok, saute the peppers and onions in a small amount of oil until tender with crisped edges.
3. add the seasoned chicken to the wok and cook through, 10-15 minutes.
4. serve on tortillas with chosen toppings. it'll have a good amount of liquid in it, but ngl i just eat that as soup lol. you can discard it, though.
yellow curry
a large pot or slow cooker, at least 1 and 1/2 gallon capacity.5 lb chicken breast, cubed (optional)
-if not using chicken, replace with 10 small/medium sized potatoes cut into ~1 inch cubes.
potatoes are optional if using chicken. i recommend using 5 potatoes if using the full chicken amount.
2 large onions, diced
3 red, or yellow, or orange bell peppers, diced
2 cans (15 oz) chickpeas, drained
2 cans (15 oz) diced tomatoes
2 cans (15 oz) full fat coconut milk
15 oz tomato sauce
1 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp curry paste, red or yellow doesn't matter
2 tbsp curry powder
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp fresh ginger, ground
6 cloves garlic, minced or mashed
2 bay leaves
2 tsp mustard seeds
2 tsp garam masala
olive oil for cooking the onions
1/3 cup lemon juice (after cooking)
1a. if using a slow cooker, literally just dump it all in and cook on high for 4 hours, then add lemon juice.
1b. if cooking on the stove, first dice the onions. begin cooking them in the pot with olive oil until they are translucent and slightly browned.
2. meanwhile, dice your bell peppers. set aside.
3. mince or mash the garlic, and add them to the cooking onions. cook until aromatic, 1-2 minutes.
4. add everything else EXCEPT the potatoes and/or chicken, and lemon juice to your pot. bring to a boil, then simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes.
5. while your curry is simmering, cut (and peel, if you want to) your potatoes and/or chicken. you can also put on a pot of rice to cook in a rice cooker at this point to have it ready for serving when the curry is finished.
6. after simmering, add your potatoes and/or chicken. bring back to a boil, and simmer an additional 25 minutes.
7. when finished cooking, discard the bay leaves and add the lemon juice.
8. serve over rice.
wren's hulking shit ton of macaroni and cheese
you will need:
- approximately 40 minutes
- a large soup pot
- a whisk
- a sturdy mixing spoon
- a collander
- a sharp knife
- a cutting board
- scissors (for opening packets)
- a large tupperware container for storage
ingredients:
- 4 boxes of macaroni and cheese
- a pound of ground meat (turkey or beef)
- 2 packages of 8oz cream cheese
- 2 cups of whole milk
- 2 sticks (1 cup) of butter
- 1 tsp ground chipotle pepper
- a red bell pepper*
* this is optional. you can substitute any veg you want, or include extras like sauteed onion. depends on how much time you want to spend, and what you have on hand.
1. while you're prepping, cook up your ground meat (medium heat). make sure to sear it a little.
2. (max heat) boil about a half gallon (2 liters) of water in your soup pot. salt the water.
3. while your water boils, wash then dice your bell pepper.
4. your meat will be finished cooking (about 10 minutes) before the water reaches boiling. once it's done, transfer the meat to a bowl for later.
5. start sauteeing your bell pepper in a splash of olive oil. your water should, at this point, be at a rolling boil.
6. add all 4 boxes of macaroni noodles to the boiling water, and lower the heat to medium-low so the noodles don't stick to the bottom. set a timer for 10 minutes. keep an eye on them for minute, and stir a few times to unstick them.
7. at this point, you only need to keep an eye on your pepper or whatever other vegetable/s you're cooking. prevent them from burning by stirring every so often, but you are now free to fuck off for 10 minutes.
8. when the noodles have finished cooking, stir them to unstick them, then drain them in your collander. don't turn the stove off.
9. pour 2 cups of milk into the soup pot. before it heats up, cut open the cheese packets from the macaroni boxes and add them to the milk. whisk until smooth.
10. raise the heat to medium. you can now add your butter, chipotle powder, and cream cheese. it'll take about 10 minutes of constant whisking for everything to melt until smooth. if you stop whisking for too long, milk will cook to the bottom of the pan so don't turn up the heat too high.
11. once your cheese sauce is completely smooth, mix in the cooked meat and pepper. once the mixture is uniform, add the noodles and stir until completely covered.
12. you can now eat.
once your pot of macaroni has cooled, you can store it in a large tupperware and eat it throughout the week. it re-heats nicely and stays pretty gooey instead of becoming overly dried out. if you are the type of person who doesn't like to eat a lot of the same thing multiple days in a row, i don't recommend making this amount. halve or quarter the recipe instead. this is for if you're like me and you hate cooking, so you just want something to throw in the microwave.
good additions: corn, onion, spinach or kale, extra cheese, mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, anything that tastes good with cheese on it.