Do you avoid cooking anything complicated because you don’t understand how to follow recipes? Maybe the problem isn’t with you. Maybe the recipe simply is not written well. How many times have you tried to follow your aunt’s recipe for apple pie, only to get stuck at the crust? I experienced that and believe me it was a very frustrating experience.
The problem is, most people do not know how to write recipes so that they are clear and easy to understand. Maybe it’s just the handwriting. If you are new at cooking, try to follow recipes written by professionals. After you get confident in your cooking skills, then you can tackle your mom’s meatloaf recipe.
The fact is, unless you have experience, it could be hard to fill in the gaps that a poorly written recipe may contain. But if you are experienced, you can probably guess what is missing. For a novice, however, this can only lead to frustration and kitchen disasters.
I don’t know, just my two cents. What do you think?
Having the right equipment will make everything easy. Same thing goes with cooking. Having the right cooking equipment will make your cooking a breeze.
A good set of knives is easily the most important thing that you could have in the kitchen. That and a large cutting board. A lot of people buy the least expensive knives they can find. If you want to learn how to cook and be as efficient as possible in the kitchen, skimping on the knife set is not a good idea.
Visit your local home store and check out their knife display. Most of the knives are locked up but you can probably find a salesperson and explain to them your needs. They’ll let you hold them so you can judge how they feel.
Don’t buy a knife just because it is expensive, however. The grip and balance may not be what you need. Test out knives that are in all different price ranges. There is nothing wrong with buying something inexpensive, as long as it feels good.
So, if you’re really serious about cooking, then you should consider investing on a good set of knives. Wait a minute, forget that, if you’re serious about cooking at all, you should consider investing on good cooking equipment. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.
Top chefs seem to really have it together when they are preparing meals. When we see cook, they don’t scramble around the kitchen looking for last minute ingredients. Everything always seems to be where right in front of them
The French have a term for this – mise en place. This basically means “preparing the ingredients”. You chop and measure things out in advance. It may seem as if this will lengthen the cooking time. But it actually shortens it and helps make your food come out better.
Not convinced? Consider this. How many times have you left onions or garlic to sauté in a skillet, only to realize that you need to add the mushrooms ASAP but they are not cleaned or chopped yet? And by the time they are chopped, the onions are a burnt mess. Well all this could have been prevented if you prepared the ingredients ahead of time.
Wanna know more about the secrets of the Master Chef, you can download your free report here: Master Chef Secrets.
So, what’s for dinner? Do you know? Sometimes it’s fun to shake things up a bit. If you find yourself cooking the same things all the time, it could be that you need try something new, you just don’t realize it. But just as you may be in a rut with the things you could be cooking, you may be looking in the same places to find your recipes. Is your favourite cookbook getting a little stale? Try searching online instead. There are plenty of food oriented websites. Or, if you want to try cooking in a different cuisine, do a search for that cuisine. For example, if you want to find easy Thai food recipes, type in the search phrase “easy Thai food recipes” and you should be directed to a website that will help you out. This is a good way to shake things up.
Have you ever stopped to think about how fast time passes? As a child time seems to crawl by, especially when you are looking forward to something like the holidays or your birthday. As an adult it seems like birthdays come way too fast and no matter how early you start preparations, the holidays catch you unprepared. The years in which my children grew up seemed to fly by. I was always so busy working and keeping up with their busy schedule that they were in high school before I knew it. The opportunities to do so many things with them that I had planned seemed to slip away.
About a year ago the realization of time passing hit me hard. My daughter was beginning her senior year of high school. We were visiting with my mother and she was talking about all the meals I prepared for the family when I was growing up. My daughter made the statement that she did not know how to cook. I looked at her and realized that this was true. Our family meals were so often rushed it was easier for me to make them quickly rather than take the time to make sure that my children knew how to cook. On the way home from my mother’s house I told my daughter that I was going to teach her how to cook so that she would be able to prepare meals for herself when she left home.
From that time on I included my children in the meal preparations. I strongly feel that knowing how to cook is a skill that everyone should have. Both of my children were interested in learning so the task was not difficult. I had them help prepare dinner by washing the vegetables that we were going to east with our meal. Soon they were peeling potatoes and carrots as well as learning how to cook various meats. My daughter started looking through my cookbooks to find recipes that she wanted to try. She found out that she really enjoys baking, especially different cookies and bars. She would invite her friends over to make a batch of cookies and then eat them as they watched a movie. We found we had many great talks as we were making meals together.
On Saturday mornings my son and daughter started making different brunches for the family. We made a deal that they would cook the brunch and my husband and I would do the clean up after. This was a great routine. My husband and I got to spend time together going for a walk or reading the paper while the meal was prepared and then we would visit during the clean up time. We both agreed that we should have taught the children how to cook much earlier so we would have had more years to enjoy this routine.
I just can’t wait to start blogging and sharing my cooking tips with you that I’m posting a new blog post today.
Do you know how to cook? Do you want to? Well, maybe you think you don’t have what it takes. But consider this. You may already have the skills and you just don’t realize it. If you can operate the microwave, boil water, and make toast you may already be further along than you think. Granted, those are just simple things to do in the kitchen. But they form the basis of more complex dishes.
With a microwave you can warm up microwave meals. If you can boil water, you can make pasta. If you can make toast you can also make things like English muffin pizzas and bruschetta. You can cook these simple foods to help give you confidence and to help you learn that cooking is nothing more than a series of steps. Make it a point to learn one new simple skill or recipe at a time. Before long, you will have an arsenal of recipes you are good at.
Hmmm, I’m finally trying to get my hands on blogging and this will be my first post on my cooking blog. If you haven’t checked out my website yet, I’d appreciate it if you do it now or later today for great free cooking tips, cooking recipes and much much more.
Well, we all have different reasons as to why we just love to cook. For me, there’s nothing more satisfying than getting all the praises I received from my family (probably they’re just being nice).
Anyway, we all have our own hobbies. Some love to play golf, some love to knit and some like me, they just enjoy cooking. So, if you love cooking, I’ll be sharing with you my cooking tips and a lot more here. Be sure to drop by often.
For today, I leave you with a video from Robert Rodriguez with his breakfast tacos recipe. Now for those who don’t know who Robert Rodriguez is, he’s a film director who directed blockbusters like Sin City, From Dusk Till Dawn, Spy Kids and lots more.
A film director? Can he cook? Well, why don’t you check out the video yourself.
