Help a Dummy Cook

[Arnath03]

So I'm trying to get away from my fast food dependence that is partially because of my busy schedule, its prevalence around my place of work and mostly because I have never really done much from a cooking standpoint more than make a sandwich or something from a box. I really need some suggestions on good recipes or a good easy cookbook to get me started on cooking healthy stuff I can bring with me to school and work. Especially because I swear I have problems getting enough protein and eating often enough. I figure it will help me with my goals as well as with my wallet. Any feedback is helpful.

[nburge]

OK, first of all don't be afraid to try stuff in the kitchen. I've made loads of meals, and some have been complete crap, but most are tasty. So whatever you make, you eat. You'll get better!

Secondly you'll need to give me some more info - what sort of food do you like? Dislike? Why? What are the goals of your diet? Bulking? Cutting? This will depend on the recipes/ingredients you will want to eat.

A simple dish to start that most people will love - steak and steamed veg. For the veg - pick anything you like. The time it will take to steam depends on how big/thick the pieces are. So if it's bits of broccoli put it in a seive (colander, strainer, whatever) over some boiling water and put a lid above the brocolli to catch the steam. This will cook the broccoli. It can take 2-5 minutes, depending on how hard and crunchy you like your veg. The less time it steams, the more nutrients are still left in the food (steaming is better than boiing in this respect too). If it's spinach, it will steam in seconds - watch it wilt in the seive. You can cook pretty much all veg like this. A cheap option is carrots - slice them into thumb length sections, then into slices about 3mm thick. They'll take the same time as broccoli probably - try it and keep taking one slice out to see what it tastes like, and whether you prefer them harder or softer.

For the steak, go buy a nice slab from the butcher. Again, the size and shape of the food determines how long it will take to cook. Your own personal preference will also determine this. The hotter the pan, the more often you have to turn the meat so it doesn't burn on the outside. Heat a frying pan with some olive oil in (go for full heat for the time being), whilst it heats up sprinkle a small amount of salt and pepper on either side - a pinch should do. Carefully place the steak in the pan and leave it for a few minutes. Use some tongs (or a fork, or whatever) to peel up the side and see what colour the steak has turned. Don't let it burn. Flip the steak over and do the same to the other side. To see how cooked it is in the middle you have to push the top of the steak with your finger (as it cooks, it firms up in the middle) - push your cheek, your chin (just under your lip, between lip and chin really) and your forehead. These three feelings are just like steak. Your cheek feels soft, like a rare steak. Your chin feels squidgy, but with a bit of firmness - this is medium. Your forehead is firm, like well done steak. Always try and take it out a little early - if it's underdone you can throw it back in the pan, if it's overdone you've just got to eat it. Rest the steak for a few minutes before you eat it (the meat relaxes and it's more tender).

Sauces - depends on whether you're bulking or not. Recipes are all over the internet - pick a sauce you like and see whether you can make it. Or try the steak plain. Or fry an egg in the pan and eat it together/with fried onions/garlic/mushrooms. All the same sort of cooking technique. A steak will take about 10 minutes to cook in a frying pan. So if your vegetables will take 5 minutes, only put them on the hob 5 minutes before the end of the steak cooking time. Co-ordinating the results is one of the biggest challenges for a cook.

I hope it helps - I'll try and write out some more soon if you like this. Or some general pointers on how to cook. Most of all - don't be afraid of trying new foods. Chicken, pork and fish/shellfish are the only ones you have to ensure are well cooked (they can contain bacteria when raw that needs to be cooked to be killed) - anything else and you should be fine.

[nburge]

Oh - breakfast - easy and protein rich. Take 3 hens eggs. Crack them into a bowl (hit the shell on the edge of the bowl, or whack them with a fork). Insert a fork or beater into the eggs and then make a circular motion with your hands - mixing the eggs up. You need to go quite fast. The yolks will break and the white and yellow will mix until it's a consistent colour. Heat a frying pan with some oil in and pour the beaten eggs into the pan. Stir this about and you get scrambled eggs. If you leave it to set as one lump it will be an ommelette.

Ommelette ideas:
veg ommelettes - fry some veg in the pan first. In thin slices it takes ~2-3 mins to cook the veg. Try mushrooms, peppers, onions, whatever veg you like
cheese ommelettes - just before the egg sets, place some sliced/grated cheese on one half, then use a spatula/slice to fold the other half of the egg over the top of it. Let the cheese melt
bacon ommellete - fry the bacon/ham/meat first until it's brown (3-4 mins) then tip in the eggs.

You can go mad on ingredients here. Some of mine have been massive (my favourite is a 6 egg, 6 slice of bacon, tomato, basil and camembert cheese effort) but just about every breakfast time I wolf down a cheese ommelete - it takes ten minutes from start to finish.

[Sam277]

So I'm trying to get away from my fast food dependence that is partially because of my busy schedule, its prevalence around my place of work and mostly because I have never really done much from a cooking standpoint more than make a sandwich or something from a box. I really need some suggestions on good recipes or a good easy cookbook to get me started on cooking healthy stuff I can bring with me to school and work. Especially because I swear I have problems getting enough protein and eating often enough. I figure it will help me with my goals as well as with my wallet. Any feedback is helpful.

Well, what sort of foods do you like? Curries? Chilli? Pasta? Rice? What meats do you eat? Red? Poultry? Fish? Salami? Bacon? Give us some examples and i'll throw you some ideas.

When cooking dishes like the above, saucey dishes that is, i find it a good idea to cook in bulk, then freeze the remainder, (I use old takeaway dishes that you can microwave, but i suppose you can use anything microwaveable, cheap, and strong), then freeze them.

When you want to eat it all you have to do is heat it up in the microwave and whack some rice/ pasta/ whatever takes your fancy and voila! A takeaway that is not only cheap, but you know what's in it.

Edit: BTW i'd say nburge is bang on in telling you to steam your veg, the result is your veg is still crunchy, a lot of people boil the hell out of their veg and the result is soggy mush. Not so much of a confidence booster.

[vhalros]

A good cook book for a person completely ill at ease with cooking is "Help My Apartment Has a Kitchen" : http://www.amazon.com/Help-Apartment-Ha ... 902&sr=8-1

As far as healthy recipies go, the NYTime's "Recipes of Health" series has a lot of good ones, although they vary quite a bit in difficulty: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/heal ... index.html

One of my favorites is this chickpea salad one: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/healt ... ealth.html

[hypergeneric]

Since you are just getting started at the whole cooking thing. My very first suggestion is getting your hardware all setup. You are going to be less successful in the kitchen if you don't have the proper equipment to cook to begin with! like anything else in life, it's the right tool for the right job. here is my list of kitchen items you simply cannot be without.

Chef's Knife
don't make a mistake and go out and buy a fancy set with all the steak knives and stuff in a wooden block. spend $100 and get a single middle of the road quality real chef's knife and steel (sharpener). this is arguably the most important tool in the kitchen, so do it right.
http://www.amazon.com/Shun-Classic-8-In ... 332&sr=1-9

Cutting board
now that you have a solid knife, you need something to cut on. stay away from glass or plastic -- just go with good old fashioned wood. the bigger, the better. i personally use a 16" bamboo block with grooves.
http://www.amazon.com/Round-Cutting-Boa ... 522&sr=1-4

Non Stick Pan
get yourself a 8-10" coated non-stick pan. you want this pan to make stuff like eggs or bacon in. buy a nice one and NEVER EVER use anything on it but plastic utensils. i have had the same non-stick pan for 3 years and it doesn't have a single scratch on it. learn to take care of your equipment and it will last you a lifetime.

Saute Pan
some things (actually most things) you need a good ole stainless pan. when you wanna brown steak in oil and butter - stainless is the way to go. a stainless pan works differently since it retains more heat than a non-stick, and can transfer the heat better to your food. it goes without saying here, you get what you pay for -- try for a copper-bottom to retain and disperse heat better.
http://www.amazon.com/CIA-Masters-Colle ... 031&sr=1-7

Utensils
slotted spoon, regular spoon, and 2 sets of tongs -- all high quality stainless. 2 spatulas - plastic or silicon.

With those items at your disposal, plus maybe a boiling pot and a colander, and you should be able to tackle anything. Having the right equipment will give you a sense of confidence and rules to work within. if you have pride in the toolset, you will be harder pressed to not cook.

as far as the cooking goes, many people's first advice is the right one -- just keep trying. you will fail and you will succeed, but most importantly you will learn. dont give up! the second most important advice i can give you is this:

use more heat. i would say almost everyone i know who cooks does not use enough heat. of all the foods most people eat, most of them require the highest setting possible on the stove. when you cook meat, you want to cook the exterior as fast as possible with the highest heat possible (called searing) as it locks in the flavor. using medium heat will only server to dry out your meat so it tastes like sand. same goes for vegetables -- use high intense heat. the only time you need any other setting other than "high" is if you need to simmer rice or a reduce a sauce or something. but if you are gonna cook something -- cook it.

all that said, i would like to introduce you to an excellent online resource for simple cooking and preparations. the thing i love about this guy is that he tries to use ingredients you can actually find, and puts them together in a simple way. most of the stuff on here isn't exactly the kinda stuff you should be eating for strength training, but it will help to give you a feel for how things go together, and what flavors they make. enjoy!
http://www.thecookingguy.com/cookbook/recipes.php

[nburge]

I'd second all the advice above - one thought I had was to familiarise yourself with cooking terms if you're a real novice. I don't have any links but any online cooking resource (search for your favourite food plus the word recipe in google and you'll get plenty) should have an appendix or glossary of terms.

BBC have a really good website for food and recipes too.

[lionize]

For someone with little time, I'd suggest making large batches of food (chilli con carne, curry, soups, etc) and freezing them in single portion tupperware containers, or refrigerating for upto 3 days (depending on the ingredients). That way you get the economy of scale from being able to buy the "family" deals in supermarkets and you save a lot of time.

I do this a lot, it's so simple to get in from the gym, put on some rice or pasta, warm up your defrosted meals in a small frying pan and eat. You could also have it all ready for you when you get home in the case of rice if you have a rice cooker with a "keep warm" function.

[Arnath03]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback so far. From a goal standpoint right now I would like to maintain weight or maybe slowly put on weight but focus on turning fat into muscle because I just finished a GOMAD. I actually have some really good cooking utensils from a horrible experience with selling Cutco knives, great knives, terrible selling them though and I still live at home so I have a decent equipment base to work with. From a what I like standpoint I'm usually pretty good with most things. I do have some of my own dislikes, like pickles, and I'm not a big fan of fresh onions or tomatoes though I like both when cooked but I'm open to trying most things at least once. I love all kinds of meat I just don't know what the hell to do with it because I'm not going to just open up some cold, raw meat and eat it like that. And with school coming up portability will probably be a big thing so anything that is easy to make a boatload of and reheat is probably a good move. I feel like right now I'm not getting enough protein and that is probably a big gap. Thank you all for the feedback so far. I'm trying to be more brave and just kind of get in there and make some stuff but I'm more of the research a bunch before I go in there guy so I feel somewhat intimidated.

[nburge]

Things like chilli con Carne, bolognese, and stews are probably a good starting point. I'll guess that if you're at home at school then budget may be an issue so they have the benefit of being cheap. I will post up my recipes for these when I get a sec (on a mobile now) but all will have the benefit of being packed with protein, low difficulty and healthy as well as providing a big batch of grub to eat over a few days. Don't be afraid to make a mistake either - it's hard to ruin food! Cooking is easier than you think!!!

[Sam277]

Big chilli fan myself.

Chilli

Whack out a casserole dish, nice and big!

- Slice onions, smallish, doesn't matter too much. 2 medium-large will be enough. I fry it in extra virgin olive oil, don't be stingy with it!
- Once onions are browned, throw in the mince, brown this too. Nicer chilli if you use 800g packs as opposed to 400. OF course you can use whatever mince you want, or chunks of meat, your choice. I'm a minced beef man myself.

Whilst beef browns, prepare to do the next bit, chop everything up so it's ready to go in.

- First of all, chuck in 3-4 cans of chopped tomatoes. I put 2 in myself, but we grow all of our own veg so i chuck in a lot of fresh plum tomatoes.
- 3/4 (quaters) of a tube of tomato puree.
- 4-5 good sized cloves of garlic.
- 3-4 beef oxo cubes.
- Throw in chilli powder/ flakes/ fresh chillis. Very important that you gauge how hot the chilli is before chucking it in, and don't put too much in at once; you can't take the heat out!
- 1-2 teaspoons of sugar, this brings out the taste of the tomatoes.
- Handfull of cumin seeds.
- 5 cans of kidney beans, i personally use 3 kidney beans, 2 cans of chick peas. Just like the variety.
- Chop a fresh pepper and throw it in. Green looks the nicest.

Probably get around 8 good sized portions out of it. I eat big. Serve yourself, then freeze the rest.

I'll post some more up later, got to walk the dog now. Ah.

[steelcutoats]

I'm new to strong lifts, but I've lost 50 pounds from my personal "heaviest" and most of that was done with improving my diet and low-impact stuff like swimming, pilates, yoga, hiking. (Weight has been off for years.)

I highly recommend that you just go out and buy "Cooking for Dummies" and work through the recipes. That got me cooking, and with a lot of practice, I am now pretty competent (regarded by friends and family as an amatuer chef of some ability).

Cutting out junk food and eating healthy home cooking is a major component of fitness. How-to-cook books won't focus on weightlifting diets (for obvious reasons), but the skills transfer in obvious ways. Also, it is more enjoyable if you figure out how to eat with flavor and variety while keeping healthy.

[nburge]

Aye - chilli is good. You can also bulk it out with finely chopped mushrooms, bits of celery, any other veg really. Lob in some lentils if you want to make it cheaper. I'd also recommend the use of ginger (chop it into small bits) for more fire, red wine in the stock (for depth of flavour) and other hearbs/spices like coriander seeds, fennel seeds, paprika etc which can all change the taste in subtle ways. Play around with the amounts/ingredients and see what you like the best.

I like a mixture of minced meat and small chunks of frying steak. Mmm, might have to make this for dinner.