I need help learning the bare basics of cooking...

[4meandthem]

I like Jaque Pepin' techniques for basic skills or a culinary college text book.These will get you basic knowledge and terminology.
Read and try! Fail and try again.Try again and master.

Knife skills are where almost all will begin.
A sharp comfortable paring knife and a 6-10 inch chef's knife depending on your size will take you far.Others will come soon after.I have a Ginsu tomato knife I think is the best tomato knife I have used.I use a fisherman's filet knife not a kitchen one.
I have lots of cheap and expensive knives that work great for other purposes too.You have to find what works for you and your budget.

The biggest thing is to just get in there and do it.If you didn't like something find out where you could have changed it for next time.

Cook what you like to eat too!

 

[Zhizara]

My son loves lime jello but gets absolutely irate if you adulterate it with anything else. What kind of a person really likes lime jello. I warn you, he is designing the aircraft you will be flying in.

Now THAT'S scary

 

[jonchinaski]

Learning to cook is a lot like learning a musical instrument: the best way to learn is to dive in and just start learning songs. Practice, practice, practice. Don't worry about learning specific techniques. Just pick some easy recipes and try cooking them. You'll learn a lot of different techniques incidentally just by cooking different recipes. As for what to start with, soups are pretty easy. Most of them you just have to get the measurements right, heat and let simmer. Pasta sauce can also be pretty easy. Slow cooker recipes are often very easy if you have a slow cooker. You usually just pop a few ingredients in, set the temp and wait.

 

[Furrbrain]

I second the "Betty Crocker" cookbook. It's fantastic for learning. Another good one is "Better Homes and Garden's" cookbook. Spend an afternoon at a Barnes and Noble and look at a few. Make sure they have a "beginner's" section. Once you get some familiarity with ingredients and terminology go a little more advanced. I enjoy watching Food Network though they have some pretty horrible shows lately. Five Ingredient Fix and Ask Aida are two good educational shows.

Let us know how you do.

 

[jujin]

Just want to let everyone know that progress is coming along nicely. I've found a nice website that has helped me out tremendously and thought I'd share.
It's probably been discussed somewhere on this forum but for anyone else who hasn't seen it and is interested it's Online Video Cooking School
All the vids are in HD and are extremely informative. I haven't joined their website though so I just look at all their free stuff. I'm definitely better at cooking than when I posted this three months ago.

oh and I watch good eats religiously.

 

[PattY1]

I did NOT post this.

Originally Posted by PattY1

If you don't disolve it thoroughly you end up with a thick nasty rubbery layer in the bottom of the bowl. I did this for years and it never occurred to me that I needed to disolve it longer until someone told me what I was doing wrong...Okay so I'm dense but in my own defense I was learning to cook with no help. I even refused to bring jello dishes to church pot lucks because I knew how bad mine always was!!!!

I DID post this:

Ok, I gotta know. How can you make Jello wrong???

 

[Kayelle]

Nice to see you again jujin. It's always nice when people check back in to let us know how they are doing.
I checked out the site you found, and it looks like just what you were looking for. I watched the whole video about pan frying and it was really excellent!
So, now that you're here........tell us about some of your proudest moments!

 

[DaveSoMD]

Thanks for stopping by and checking in! So what have you been cooking? What's been your biggest success?

 

[joesfolk]

Patty1 I posted that. You can mess up Jello by not disolving it enough as I stated in the post. That was many, many years ago, and other than the Jello I have had precious little problem in the kitchen. But for some reason I just never got the Jello thing probably because until I started to go to pot luck dinners where the meal was dictated I never made Jello. I mean, let's face it can hardly be called cuisine.

 

[DaveSoMD]

I think in one of the previous posts someone quoted Patty and in the process of typing deleted one of the quote tags. That misquote got carried through another quoted post and it ended up looking like Patty said something she didn't.

 

[PattY1]

So that's why my jello turns out rubbery!! See, you weren't the only one. I really don't like the stuff anyway so it doesn't matter I guess.

I think in one of the previous posts someone quoted Patty and in the process of typing deleted one of the quote tags. That misquote got carried through another quoted post and it ended up looking like Patty said something she didn't.

Well what ever happened, Frank fixed it.