Suggestions for learning to cook?

Right now, I eat tons of processed foods. I am 18 years old and buy my own groceries, as I prefer healthier foods than my family chooses. Here are some of the staples of my diet:

Wheat bread, honey wheat pretzels, honey grahams, popcorn, fruits, cereal, oats, etc.

When I need more calories in the day, or need a snack, I find my only option to be something like lots of pretzels or crackers. When my parents don't make dinner, I can only think of resorting to a sandwich or frozen dinner.

I will have more time when summer comes - I'd love to be able to prepare recipes and healthy fun meals like I see on here all the time. However, I worry of: buying ingredients for each recipe I make ($$), knowing how to make them, and where to get recipes.

Any help?

If your parents cook, I'd suggest helping them out in the kitchen while they're cooking to learn the basic techniques.  Or if you have a friend or a friend's parent who cooks a lot, ask them.  There are things people do when they're cooking that they don't even think about, so it wouldn't occur to them to mention them, so honestly the only way to discover them is to be there while they're cooking.

As for ingredients, you don't have to make things with expensive ingredients or even a lot of different ingredients and I'm willing to bet that the majority of the ingredients you'll need are already in your parents' kitchen.  When I'm cooking for just myself, I rarely use a recipe.  I make simple things like stir fries, so everything's in one pan.

Soups are inexpensive and easy to make.  The receipe part of this website is good and there are literally hundreds of great receipes on the internet.  Look for healthy soups (low in salt and fats).  I make an excellent pea soup that's heavy on carrots and any other vegetable I have handy.  Speaking of which, vegetable soup is excellent if you're careful with the salt.  I figure any food, made with fresh produce, is healthier than prepackaged stuff.

Offer your parents part of the booty.  After they try some, they may be eager to pitch in some of the cost in exchange for some of the goods.

If I could get one of my kids to cook something I would be thrilled.

Browse around the internet. I have spent hours looking at recipes and saving the ones I want to try in a word document. It's fun, and gets you used to what full meals look like all broken down.

As for the money, you don't need to go out and spent $10 on an ingredient you'll use just a little bit of/just once. Most basic meals are made of of mostly basic foods, stuff you already have around or can easily get. There's no reason why it should be too expensive.

As for knowing how to make it, experience is the best teacher. You start small and keep working your way up, and you improve without even realizing it. It's perfectly fine to follow a recipe and the instructions, and as you get more comfortable, you can just decide what will taste good together on your own, and take things off the heat when it looks done rather than after X minutes, etc.

Also, watch Food Network. They always throw out little tidbits of helpful information, and you can see their techniques for cooking, as well as learn some recipes/meal ideas.  

My favorite site for recipes is http://www.recipezaar.com

You can bookmark your favorites and save them in your own personal cookbook. 

I started learning to cook with this book by Delia Smith.  Has everything from how to boil an egg to how to make a fancy rich fruit cake.  I know quite a few people that have found this book by Jamie Oliver (subtitled 'anyone can learn to cook in 24 hours') a good place to start.

Another way to go about it is to start with your favourite dish and then learn how to make that.  Say you liked Spaghetti Bolognese, for example, find a recipe, buy the ingredients and see how it turned out.

If you buy lots of fresh fruit and veg there's always a healthy snack to hand so you're not eating pretzels and crackers all the time. Carrot and cucumber sticks, with hommous or something if you like, punnets of berries, dried fruit and nuts etc.

Google easy recipes or go here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/ which lets you enter up to three ingredients you happen to have at home and will come up with recipes you can make with thoses. They can be a it complicated but you can simplify them and add/take away ingredients.

Simple things like stirfrys, spag bol, lasagne, grilled chicken/fish and veg etc you can play around with.

I always have things like tins of healthy soup, tuna, baked beans etc so if you're short of time you can always have a baked potato with tuna or beans and a salad or something :)

Wow, you should be proud of yourself for buying your own groceries and being interested in getting healthier!  First of all, deal with the snack issue so you are not starving while you try out new recipes.  Try buying some whole fresh sweet potatoes or yams - near the bags of potatoes in your grocery store.  You can wash one off and toss it in the microwave for ten minutes and have a great sweet, filling and nutritious food.  They will keep well uncooked for at least two weeks and only cost about 99 cents a pound.  Same with fruits like mangoes - great shelf life, good price, very nutritious and filling.  Buy smaller amounts of other fruits and vegetables so they don't go bad.  Consider picking up a bagged salad and 0 fat dressing, a bag of baby carrots, a green pepper, a cucumber, some fresh broccoli.  You can make a veggie platter for yourself and bag it individually for quick snacking or put it out on the counter and see how quickly your family becomes fans of fresh veggies.  It might spark some interest in healthier food.

I'm guessing you're not buying a lot of meats to cook since most are packaged larger than one person needs.  Think about making a one pot meal on sunday and packaging it for quick meals during the week.  My family loves my version of stuffed peppers.  Dice an onion, fry with a pound of lean ground beef, drain fat, add a large can of no salt tomatoes (not puree), add 2 cups rice(not instant), 3 cups water and bring to a boil.  Turn heat down and simmer until rice is done, stirring frequently so it doesn't stick on the bottom.  When rice is almost done (about 20 minutes) stir in one chopped up green pepper.  Put lid on pot to steam pepper but be careful not to let rice stick to bottom of pot. My husband puts american cheese on this his but I don't usually want the extra calories.  This is best fresh but can be frozen in individual packages or will keep refrigerated for most of the week.

You can make a healthy chili the same way too.  There are lots of lower cal recipes out there. 
Also, look up ratatouille to use all the great summer veggies.

Good luck!  Let us know how you are doing!

Lori

A lot of recipes involve spices that you should already find in your parents' kitchen, like garlic powder, italian seasoning. A little spice goes a long way. When I learned to cook, I experimented with various recipes. I still do this, by searching the internet for "quick chicken recipes", for example. You'd be amazed at what comes up. I typically don't buy parishable foods in bulk, unless I plan on cooking them that night. The grocery stores we have around here also package meet in smaller single-serving packages, which I liked when I was single so I didn't have a lot of leftover. You can buy raw veggies by the pound, so you can manage it for a single serving.

The best thing to do is to just do it. You'd be amazed at how easy it is once you get the hang of it. Start with something simple, and work your way up from there. These days, I take a recipe and improvise, with whatever staples I already have so I don't have to live at the grocery store.

  Best cookbook ever: Joy of Cooking by Rombauer and Becker. My fave present to newlyweds and newly grads. Covers everything from how to boil water up, with very simple to very complex recipes.Get the *1975* edition (yes, still in print) because the newer edition tries to be an 'haute cuisine' cookbook.

  Welcome to the finest hobby on the planet, cooking and eating well. And the best part? It does not have to be expensive, complicated, or difficult.

  One caveat: If you are cooking in someone else's kitchen, clean up after yourself. (Sorry, just the Dad in me coming out!)  ;-)

-CD

Thanks misscherryjane for the new word! I've never heard of a punnet.

For anyone else who doesn't know

punnet–noun British, Australian. a small container or basket for strawberries or other fruit.

i watch the food network religiously.

I enjoy following a lot of the stuff from www.whfoods.com

That and the old cook has a funny looking face, for some reason he reminds me of a skinny santa claus.  :P

Thanks so much for all the help everyone. I hope I am able to figure this out. :) It's hard for me! I will read through the posts again and try to take your guys' advice. :]<3

Hi askewing, 

I think you sound pretty similar to me, I'm 18 (soon to be 19) and just finished my first year at college - my parents are unhealthy eaters and they're rather wealthy so they tend to rely on restaurant food and ordered food. They go out to eat 2-3 times a week (and they despise chain restaurants so it's not like I could even look at the nutritionals...only good quality homemade cuisine - great for a treat but not a staple) and 2-3 nights a week they order out (usually similar restaurant food). My mom cooks 1-2 nights a week and one of the nights it's usually grilled fillet. As a result, I have taught myself some basic cooking skills. Its nothing gourmet, but I can prepare a simple healthy meal (for 1 or 2 people) in less than 20 minutes.

I got a weight watchers "5 ingredients or less" cookbook out of the library, mostly for ideas, but here's what I do regularly. First of all - do you have a large freezer? When fish or boneless skinless chicken breast is on sale I'll buy it, individiually portion it, and stick it in the freezer. This way, when I'm going to cook dinner I do the following. I grab a veggie out of the fridge (usually onion, pepper, mushroom, or spinach) and sautee a portion with olive oil spray (just olive oil in an aerosole can -helps with using a smaller portion, you could use just a teaspoon of olive oil if you prefer, this can be expensive) or I make a small spinach salad with oil, vinegar, and spices (homemade balsamic vinaigrette). Then I make the "main course" - the 4 oz portion of chicken or fish sauteed in a frying pan with nonstick spray. I top it with some kind of flavoring or dressing - some simple ones I do are a homemade guacamole - 1/2 of an avocado, 1 medium sliced tomato, and a tough of lemon juice, more of my homemade balsamic vinaigrette that I mentioned earlier and a little goat cheese, a homemade simple bruschetta (1 diced tomato, some finely chopped onions, olive oil, and spices). Also, even more simply - add lemon juice, or make psuedo "blackened" fish or chicken by spraying both sides of the fish or chicken and covering it with seasoned salt, paprika, old bay, curry powder, pepper - honestly, whatever suits your fancy. Tomato sauce works well too. I often make chicken breast with tomato sauce and melt a slice of fat free cheese for chicken parmesan. Then a balanced meal would include a grain, either a whole wheat english muffin, a small baked sweet potato, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, or some peas and corn - to be honest with you, I have less advice on that because I usually forgo the grain and opt to have oatmeal for desert later because I feel like I NEED something sweet after dinner so this is how I fit it in - the meals I prepare (without the grain) are usually about 350 calories and extremely healthy. My favorite fishes are tilapia, salmon, and mahi mahi - they're all very easy to prepare. Hope this helped!

Thank you lafoutloud! It's great to hear from someone my age. I love tilapia, salmon, and mahi mahi - at least, the rare times I have had it. :-) I would enjoy making them more for myself. And your way of making such a nice dinner for yourself that is healthy gives me hope for myself. Perhaps my days of endless sandwiches are over!! (For example, when my family went to Burger King tonight haha).

I am going to try to take the advice of you guys... I am going to go to the store and buy fruits & veggies, and I am determined to try a sweet potato...

Try following some blogs, there are lots of food bloggers out there, many of whom blog, with recipies, meal plans, even shopping lists for the week!  I find ones for familys for the week often have the simpliest recipies, a lot of them take pictures of theprocess which is neat to see whats its "suppossed to" look like too!