Looking for a little advice...

[quinn1990]

Hi all.

My name is Quinn and I'm going to be a sophomore in college this upcoming school year. I will be moving into a house with 3 roommates and it is my first time both having my own kitchen and not being able to go to the dining halls. That means I'm going to have to cook my own food, and possibly food for my roommates.

I could just go the typical college kid route: ramen noodles, frozen TV dinners and potato chips, but recently I found an old cook book that belonged to my late grandmother. I was around ten when I lost her and some of my fondest memories of her are Sunday afternoons where she cooked marvelous food. Reading this cook book has been one of the best ways to remember her. Going through, I have discovered some recipes she used to cook and it's a truly wonderful and indescribable feeling, it's almost like she's back for a second. A brief scent of her meat loaf shoots by and I can almost taste her strawberry cake on my tongue. I would really like to begin cooking some of her old recipes to make her visits a little more routine. This would both solve my problem of having to cook for myself and would also provide a link to one of the most beautiful people in my life.

But where there's a will there's always a problem: I am a terrible cook! I have really no experience in the kitchen and I am scared I will not be able to cook most of these recipes, as they are rather complex. I was wondering if anyone had some advice. Besides that, some questions I have are:

A) I don't eat beef so I'm wondering if buffalo can replace it in most recipes.

B) What are some of your favorite "beginner's" recipes?

C) A lot of these recipes have mushrooms and/or mushroom sauce in them and two of my roommates absolutely despise mushrooms! Can this ingredient be ignored or replaced?

Thank you all so much in advance,

Quinn

 

[Claire]

Most non-beef red meats (that is to say your aforementioned buffalo, almost all game meat, ostrich, etc) are way leaner than beef. In some cases this is good, but the down-side is it is that it can be very tough when just medium cooked. If you don't eat it rare you have to stew it ... that is to say chili or some similar preparation that is cooked long and slow. But yes, it pretty much can replace beef in most recipes, especially ground.

Favorite beginner recipe? Pierce a lemon and take it and a head of garlic (don't need to peel each clove, just break it up) and toss into the cavity of a bird ... can be a cornish game hen if you're cooking for two, or a chicken of any size, or even a turkey. Bake according to any basic instruction (your grandma's cookbook should have one). Serve with something like rice-a-roni and a salad. You look like a gourmet, the meat is infused with the lemon and garlic flavors (you discard the lemon and garlic).

Yeah, just leave out the mushrooms for your fussy roomies.l If YOU like them, leave them in whole or in large pieces and tell them to pick 'em out.

I think that the best beginners' cookbooks are Betty Crocker or Better Homes and Gardens. Both are in 3-ring-binder format, which means when you find a recipe you like, you can write it on a sheet of paper and insert it. Both are older than the hills and can be bought in new, updated form, but also old at used bookstores, yard sales, etc.

Welcome to DC, and feel free to enter a question any place when you're anticipating preparing a meal.

 

[GB]

I will just agree with what Clair said. Buffalo and usually be used in place of beef, but because it is so lean you will have to be careful to not overcook it or it will be dry and unappealing. I think if we knew why you don't eat beef that would help us give you some suggestions.

Yes leave the mushrooms out. I am not a fan of mushrooms and have almost never had a problem with any of my recipes when i leave them out. Even when it is a major component of the dish, for some reason it seems to usually work if I just leave them out.

 

[Uncle Bob]

But where there's a will there's always a problem: I am a terrible cook! I have really no experience in the kitchen and I am scared I will not be able to cook most of these recipes, as they are rather complex. I was wondering if anyone had some advice.

Yes! Jump in with both feet!!!! What better way to honor your late Grandmother, and feed yourself at the same time? Will there be "flops"? You bet, but you can laugh, and eat those too. Will there be successes? You bet, and your grandmother will smile!! The lessons you learn, the fun you'll have, and the memories will last a life time!! So don't be afraid....jump off the cliff!!! ---- Is that meat loaf I smell???

Have Fun & Enjoy!!!!

 

[ChefJune]

Quinn, just like with riding a bike, you will learn to be a good cook by cooking. At first, I suggest you follow recipes to the letter, and do not substitute. Once you've mastered the dish and decide what you do and do not like about it, that's the time to substitute-- start playing with the recipe.

You have the first ingredient necessary to become a good cook, tho... you WANT to be one.

Good luck, and please come around here and ask questions.

 

[freefallin1309]

Start with the basics I agree with the others, and Claire had a great point by starting with Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Garden. Also, roommates will be jealous and will likely take your food

 

[bigdaddy3k]

Welcome!!

Read through the recipes a few times before hand just so there are no surprizes. There is nothing worse than getting to the "add pre-prepared *blank*" section of a recipe and not having it pre-prepared. Lay out everything you will need in advance of ever turning on the stove.

Are your room mates allergic? most people who "despise" mushrooms do not like the texture. I use mushroom broth or bullion in a lot of recipes that I have served to mushroom haters and they just loved it.

 

[Wyogal]

yep!
How are your knife skills? years ago i checked out Julia Child videos from the library, cooking basics. They were great. Someone said you can get them through netflix.
What type of appliances do you have? Using a slow cooker (crock pot) is nice, you can put dinner in it before classes in the morning and come home with not much to do but toss a salad and cook some rice/pasta. Speaking of rice, rice cookers are very handy, too.I know lots of students also use those countertop grills.
Do you have kitchen chores determined? it helps if you can establish some kind of routine right away, keep things from getting out of hand. If someone cooks, someone else can do the dishes, and another can wipe off counters, sweep, etc. It sounds like common sense, but one can't always assume that one's room mates are thinking along those same lines. Get a dry erase board for the front of the fridge. With organization up front, you'll have more time for... studying?? ha
You sound like a great kid!!

 

[quinn1990]

Thanks for all the replies everybody, I'm super grateful!!

First off, I have some good news: I successfully made my first dish last night. I am still living at home for two more weeks, and I surprised my family with a Buffalo Meatballs & Spaghetti recipe from Grandma's cookbook. There were some problems and some things I would do differently next time (I forgot to add chili powder!) but overall I think it was a success.

I purchased a Crock Pot book on the clearance shelf at Barnes & Noble (it was curiously placed between a book of Serial Killers and a book of X-rated movie stars), and I am very excited to try one of the many recipes. There are several ground beef chilis that I can use buffalo in, and it should work perfectly with my college schedule.

Most of the recipes require some knife work and I'm sorry to say I've never really worked with a knife before. I did some looking around for Julia Child's videos and came up empty handed; however, it seems I may have a perfect excuse to see the new movie Julie & Julia, research! I'm not sure if my friends will buy that one...

I also downloaded an e-version of Betty Crocker's book and can't wait to try out some of the simpler recipes.

Once again, thank you all so much for all the advice and I will be sure to frequent this website often as cooking is becoming one of my newest hobbies. I really like to spend time doing things that will be useful my whole life (learning languages, etc) and this is certainly one of them.

 

[CeliaGates]

Get yourself a Skillet or a Wok - this is essentially a pan in which you can cook anything and everything.

Stir-fry is a quick and easy (AND VERY HEALTHY) was to cook tasty meals. Simply heat a little oil (1 table spoon), chop loads of veggies, get hold of some prawns/fish or anything else you fancy. Chuck it in, stir it round - add a stir-fry sauce sachet - loads of different flavours available and away you go... good luck

P.S: I agree - jump in with both feet and give it a go.

The main thing is just to DO - you'll soon figure out what tastes delicious and what you won't try again!!

 

[AJ Bronze]

Hi all.

My name is Quinn and I'm going to be a sophomore in college this upcoming school year. I will be moving into a house with 3 roommates and it is my first time both having my own kitchen and not being able to go to the dining halls. That means I'm going to have to cook my own food, and possibly food for my roommates.

I could just go the typical college kid route: ramen noodles, frozen TV dinners and potato chips, but recently I found an old cook book that belonged to my late grandmother. I was around ten when I lost her and some of my fondest memories of her are Sunday afternoons where she cooked marvelous food. Reading this cook book has been one of the best ways to remember her. Going through, I have discovered some recipes she used to cook and it's a truly wonderful and indescribable feeling, it's almost like she's back for a second. A brief scent of her meat loaf shoots by and I can almost taste her strawberry cake on my tongue. I would really like to begin cooking some of her old recipes to make her visits a little more routine. This would both solve my problem of having to cook for myself and would also provide a link to one of the most beautiful people in my life.

But where there's a will there's always a problem: I am a terrible cook! I have really no experience in the kitchen and I am scared I will not be able to cook most of these recipes, as they are rather complex. I was wondering if anyone had some advice. Besides that, some questions I have are:

A) I don't eat beef so I'm wondering if buffalo can replace it in most recipes.

B) What are some of your favorite "beginner's" recipes?

C) A lot of these recipes have mushrooms and/or mushroom sauce in them and two of my roommates absolutely despise mushrooms! Can this ingredient be ignored or replaced?

Thank you all so much in advance,

Quinn

Because you're in college, and new to cooking, I really recommend you invest in a high quality cookware set. The quality and ease of cooking is not just determined by a chef's skill, but also the cookware equipment. For example, certain cookware can cook much more evenly, with much less chance of burning, than other types of cookware. And the color of the cookware can make it harder or easier to gauge whether the food has been cooked to the correct point or not (professional chefs prefer lighter colour materials).

 

[2saucy]

I have been cooking since I was very young - probably around 10 when my mom and I would try and replicate dishes we had at restaurants. She was an excellent cook who would pretty much just supervise and instruct as I chopped, sautéed, baked etc. When I got to Jr High and High school, I was the teacher’s aid in Home Ec (I could already sew too).
Make sure you have all of your ingredients out on the counter for ready access. Make sure your bowls are clean, your utensils are ready and the stove works!
Practice on sympathetic friends with the most basic recipes others have mentioned. I still use the recipe for Lasagna from the Better Homes and Gardens 1974 cookbook - with a few of my own 'kicks'.
Timing was a problem in the beginning, but not after a few Thanksgiving dinners where I learned the hard way that you make the mashed potatoes last and not first - before the turkey.

 

[Antiguadreams]

First of all, Congratulations on your trip outside of mom's kitchen! I think it is fantastic that you have all your memories of your grandmom's cooking. Keep the recipies of hers you managed to capture close to your heart. There, you'll gain the most benefit from inspiration for making your own dishes.

I'd like to know why you won't eat beef, but will eat other red meats. Just curious.

I'm a personal fan of osterich, as its wonderful to be able to take meat from a BIRD and keep it red inside without risk of disease like poultry. hehe! ok so perhaps I'm bending the white meat / red meat border here a bit, dispite phylum/genius, etc...

I love buffallo. several years back when I worked as a Network Engineer in PA, I had a client at a school district close to the NY border. This was a good two hour drive for me, and completely worth it. Up there is a Buffalo ranch with meat processing plant, and attached diner. The diner was tastefully a mile or three away from the plant, but they still kept a small coral with three or so buffalos roaming for show next to the diner. You can admire the majesty of the beast, see its differences from cattle, and realize how different the meat tastes just by observing their mannerisms compared to cattle. In the diner, they had typical diner faire with tons of buffalo dishes. their 1lb buffalo burger served "HAI-YA!"style with the steak knife down the center of the fresh baked roll with a combination of chedder and monty jack cheese slices, with three perfect 1/3 lb pattys layered between the cheest goodness. It was too big to get your mouth around!

I digress into story mode too easy! I'd love to provide you with some help, but I think everyone here beat me to the punch!

There's always some amazing info on this forum. I, myself, am a newcommer here. I'm 34 years old and not a chef by profession, but a fixture in the kitchen from as long as I could stand. I'm just realizing now, later in my life, that I want to live the rest of it in the culinary arena. If julia can start in her 30's, so can i.

As for tips....

1) spend a little on a GOOD 8 inch chefs knife. This is an all purpose blade that'll get you through almost every scenario. It comes in 10" too, but the 8" one suffices. Spend for quality, as you need to sharpen it, not dipose of it, after it becomes dull. Thankfully, sharpening comes in two forms...your day to day pre-cutting tune up...with a steel, and your every 2 weeks to 4 months to one year to (insert lazy timeframe) sharpening routine on a stone! Now where do you get more info on knives? search the forums. or you can always PM me for a detail list.
2) make sure your kitchen has a decent stove and oven. I mean if you have a glass top stone, DON'T BUY cast iron cookware! you'll have it cracked faster than you can say "how do you want your eggs, Jim?" typical spiral electric heating elements hold up nice, so do gas ranges. I have a glass top at home, and I do more cooking on my electric griddle and my butane dual pan burner than I do my actual stove. Once you learn what cast iron is about, its hard to resign yourself to other pans.
3) get some decent inspiration to fuel your internal burners! Food TV is good, as is green TV. Yeah, celebrity chefs aren't all that, but food TV has a hidden Gem, who's name is...Alton Brown. This man and his show Good Eats scientificaly breaks down recipies to help you learn how something works, not just how to make it.
4) Julia child. Buy her mastering the art of french cuisine book. she's a goddess of cooking, and her recipies are simple enough to wow anyone you cook for, if you have a little budget to spend.
5) Raman isn't all that bad! all you need is a 2quart sauce pot to make a double batch! Heat up your raman but use soup stock or water with a bulion cube added. or dump some old bay seasoning in instead. Cook the raman until 2 minutes from done and add a half pound (for a double batch) of thawed raw shrimp. they'll boil within a minute or two, and you can dish our your shrimp raman to your roomies, call it a seafood medly (throw on a few slim slices of imitation crab meat on top to boast more than one type of seafood).

Enjoy college life!

 

[chefkathleen]

LOL And welcome. Listen to our Uncle Bob, he always has good advise as do some of the other cooks here. Glad to hear the meatballs were a hit. I too use buffalo and like it as a sub for beef. A plus being that it's not as fatty.

 

[Claire]

Quinn, good luck. One thing, if you don't have the bucks to buy kitchen-ware, ask Mom (or Dad, whoever does the kitchen in your house) if you can bring one skillet and one pot away with you. Or get something cheap from Goodwill or some such. As for knives, if you really want to cook, I'm with those who've already told you to buy a couple of decent ones. HOWEVER, that said, when I had a room-mate when I was young, they'd rob me blind if I didn't watch them every minute. They loved me when I cooked, and then I'd find stuff missing. So if you buy a great knife, hide it under your pillow, no matter how much you think you trust them! Maybe sticking with a ginsu knife set will do for now. Heaven knows I cooked with that set for easily a decade (and the bread knife I still use, and the other knives are better than most in kitchens where I "guest cook"). I guess what I'm getting at is that if you're in a dorm/barracks situation, call me a cynic, but don't invest a huge amount in cookware unless you have the money to replace it.

 

[chefkathleen]

I was thinking along those lines as well Claire. Plus if you get something cheap from Good Will or Kmart and can cook on it, then you can cook on anything. LOL Imagine how wonderful it will be when you get the good stuff.

 

[Claire]

Yeah, buying the good stuff isn't for people with room-mates, at least not in my experience.

The ultimate was that I told my roomie that I was going to go on an assignment with my fiancee. I asked her to start to get things ready to go. She refused to believe I was actually going to leave her. I'D ONLY LIVED WITH HER FOR MAYBE 6 MONTHS. Over a few months, instead of advertising for a new room-mate, she decided on denial. Kept telling me things like, "you aren't really going to leave,right?" It was somwhere between pitiful and truly sorry. I kept telling her I was leaving,she kept denying that I'd go. I do NOT,and seriously, do not understand why she thought I wouldn't go. Anyway, the bottom line is that I left a lot of kitchen ware in that apartment because it was too filthy to bother with.