How well do you cook?
I've been thinking about this over the past few weeks after chatting with some of my friends about this.
For some framing:
I grew up with my parents not encouraging me to learn to cook and my Mom actively refusing to have myself or my brother in the kitchen because we always "made a mess". Before I moved out to university I'd only ever cooked a couple of meals beyond warming things up or instant ramen + grilling meat. I also learned how to carve a turkey/bird because that would be expected of me at a family gathering later on. At university we had the mandatory freshman meal plan my first year and I lived in my fraternity for three years where we had a cook at our house when school was in session.
It wasn't until I moved in with my girlfriend, now wife, where I started cooking. Learning from either recipes, or watching my wife cook things and asking her how she prepared a dish so I could try to make it. Nowadays I like cooking breakfast foods especially on the weekend when I don't have to get my oldest off to school and have more time since my wife doesn't like to wake up early.
When chatting with my guy friends who are around my age (late 20s/early 30s) I've found a lot of them don't cook much or say they don't know how. Many of them eat out regularly/order delivery or buy instant meals.
Knowing my parents, if I had had a sister growing up she would have been encouraged to learn to cook unlike my brother and I. My wife and her siblings all learned through helping my mother in law prepare food in the kitchen.
This got me curious for a wider perspective on this from other men:
Do you "know" how to cook or are you comfortable cooking for yourself, for others?
Were you encouraged to learn how to cook growing up or did you learn as an adult?
Do you have any favorite or signature dishes you prepare?
I know how to cook, but don't do it much, because I find it an absolute chore. If my choice is eating a piece of toast or a beautiful roast, I'll take the toast, thank you.
There's two parts of cooking, yeah? There's the mechanical process of taking ingredients and making them into food, and then there's the process of taking care of yourself, your family, and your friends on this deep and fundamental level.
When I cook something for my friends group, my wife gets compliments on the food. It strips away a lot of the joy and meaning that might otherwise be attached to the process.
Why does your wife get the compliments if you make it?
Because she does so more often than me, so it's not a terrible assumption. But the moment where I say, "No, I made it." and they pause before complimenting me feels particularly uncomfortable. I struggle with the difference between society's masculine standard and my own self, and so I'm perhaps more sensitive than is reasonable to perceived slights.
Which, I realize as I type it, is exactly fragile masculinity.
I don't think that this is toxic masculinity.
The fact is that you applied your skill and care into making food that impressed, and someone else got credit. That leaves you in a position where you go unrecognized, or you demand credit. That's just awkward, and it's not machismo to feel slighted.
Quick practical suggestion: mention it to your wife, so she can give you credit in whatever way feels natural in the moment. In her position, I'd accept the compliment like "oh thank you, it was brilliant of me to marry such a good cook!"
Second pragmatic tip: Let the guests see you taking off an apron.
It might be a subset for your second part, but I find it more important to have the organisation skills to ensure that the first part is achievable.
That is: given ingredients that match a recipe (written or learned), I can and am fairly good at the mechanics of cooking. I can make some modifications to the meal as I go.
Given a fridge and pantry to stare at 5pm and asked what to make for dinner: nope, impossible. It'll end up being generic staples, eggs on toast, beans, spaghetti bol. A trip to fetch ingredients or takeaways, dinner over about 2-3 hours later.
I am envious of those that can improvise a meal from arbitrary ingredients and have that actually work out ok.
I think that's reasonable? I certainly couldn't whip up a complex meal at the drop of a hat. That's why we always have frozen spinach in the freezer, onions in the basket, and a package of paneer in the fridge. Saag Paneer is fastish, tasty, reasonably healthy, and is made from ingredients that don't go bad quickly.
Interesting. I have never experienced this. But also, all my friends know that I cook so there are no assumptions.
I love cooking. I used to do much more of it than I do now, from stir fries to paellas, cakes, soups, broths and stews.
I can't put my finger on when and why I stopped. I think it was largely when our Son was aged 5 and the cooking became simpler to cater for his tastes, and it never recovered from there.
I only do Pizza Fridays now (tomorrow, yay). I do make the dough though, and the sauce, so it's pretty home made still. So if I have a current signature, that would be it.
I really liked my pseudo not quite paella though. And home made pseudo duck wraps (home made marinaded seitan) with lots of scallions and hoisin sauce. But they are no longer made. :sadface:
I don't have kids, but I totally get how cooking for them would stifle the enjoyment of cooking. My sister and her boys, aged 2 and 4 are visiting for Thanksgiving week and it's always a little annoying to cook something that they actually like, and doesn't suck for adults. I end up with a box of dino nuggets for emergencies just in case I'm wrong about what they like.
Watch them hate the dino nuggets.
May as well look at a horoscope or the moon cycle to determine whether or not my daughter will like something today, because it's impossible to glean otherwise. Food she'd gorge two plates of goes untouched the week after. Except broccoli. That goes well any day of the week.
It really does diminish the fun of cooking because it reduces options and really puts a damper on creativity. Make something interesting and there's a good chance it'll be pushed aside.
If I may take a tangent here, do you make seitan out of gluten flour or do you use the washed flour method? I have always wanted to make seitan but I never had the time or energy to do it. I have time for it now, though, so I am looking forward to trying.
I just buy bags of gluten. There is a thing, I feel, of too much process.
I also follow lazy dave's method, of using a bread maker to make my seitan. Again, too much faff for me otherwise. I just vary the flavour components to influence what I want to use it for
https://vegannosh.me/2009/03/15/lazy-daves-5-bread-machine-turkey-flavored-seitan/
I know how cooking for kids goes. Our sons are such a grab bag right now for liking foods/not liking foods/thinking they don't like a food, but then like it when you finally get them to try it.
Pizza Fridays sounds great! Any pizza tips you'd recommend? Our boys love pizza, but it's a bit more expensive in this country, so we don't tend to get it very often.
I've always gotten good feedback on my cooking, and regularly try to do new stuff to get better. When I was a kid, I would cook with my mom all the time. She would let me look around in the spice cabinet while I helped. When I found something, I'd taste it, and if I liked it, we'd make something with it. Once I started living on my own, I would go to whatever non-American markets I could find and buy lots of spices and herbs, try different things and see what was what/what worked together. In times when the budget was tight, I would buy big bags of basic stuff like rice/beans/frozen vegetables and just try different blends so it wouldn't get boring. When the budget wasn't as tight, I'd go find things I'd never tried to do before and push my skills. A big part of my dating life has been evenings spent cooking with women I liked and talking about food.
I'm not sure how to describe it but in my mind there are different flavor profiles, and in general I know what spices can get me to those flavors. I know how different stuff behaves, so I can manipulate consistency/texture, either with starches/gelatins/etc or stuff like rice/potatoes/grains. I kinda look at it like a set of tools, pieces to fit together that get at my flavor based problems.
I have some dishes I like to regularly make, that change a little now and then because the recipes mostly live in my head. I also make it a point to look in the spice cabinet even if what I'm making is simple - a little garlic powder in the grilled cheese is not something folks expect but they sure do like it. I usually buy a bunch of basic ingredients, and eventually an idea comes along and I put it all together. I'm confident if you turned me loose in someone's kitchen we'd make it to Flavortown, one way or another.
I had a really similar experience to you. Reading through your story made me smile. :)
My Mom always cooked. I can remember getting takeout from time to time, but it was a pretty rare thing, and usually only happened when there literally wasn't the time/resources to cook (when traveling, or moving, for example). My mom never asked for any help, but I was a curious kid so I would always take an interest. When I got old enough to stay home by myself while my mom was working, I would cook meals for my little brother. It was never anything fancy. Usually some variation of noodles and/or sandwiches.
When I got my first apartment, I got my first set of pots and pans. I would pick my mom's brain for recipes, and she would sometimes email me things she found that I might like. One of my favorites was her quiche recipe. I still make a quiche every week for my kids. I keep waiting for them to tell me they're tired of quiche, and sometimes they will take a break for a week or so. But then they inevitably always ask for it again. :)
I don't think cooking was as prominent in my dating life, but I did invite my wife over for spaghetti for our first date. That was 18 years ago and she still lets me cook, so I guess my spaghetti wasn't too bad.
This is one of my favorite things to do. Just look around the kitchen and see what I can make. I'm curious if you have a favorite story of a time you improvised and it turned out really tasty.
One of the things I especially appreciate about where I live, is that on occasion there are moments when I'm making something, my grandmother will try it and we will decide it is time to eat then and there. Lately, she's been dealing with her sense of smell being diminished, so she's asked for things with some stronger flavors. I figured this time I would take it as a challenge, to go one step past reasonable.
Grandma likes savory things and sweet things. She vastly, vastly favors the latter. I'm salty/savory/sour in my preference, so the compromise in my mind is to go savory and avoid salty.
It's a straightforward beef stew with peas, carrots, and onions, about 8 cups' worth, mild on salt and no herbs. Turns out I didn't have a potato so no potato. We had a bag of garlic peeled up, so I opened it and just sort of lazily shook it at the cutting board, deciding whatever came out is how much I would use. When I put the bag back, I remembered we had a green onion seasoned sausage, so I cut that into medallions and sauteed them with some paprika. Last time I was at the store, I found a jar of "spicy roasted onion crunch" - roasted onions in oil w/cayenne pepper. I added two big spoonfuls of that, the sausage, minced up the garlic and stirred it all together for a bit. It was still kinda thin so I added around 1/2 a cup of rice. When I got the rice, I noticed we had a can of gold hominy, and a can of red beans. I drained both and added them. In getting the can opener I passed the spice cabinet. I looked around in the spice cabinet and noticed, I had an inconvenient amount of red cooking wine left, so I put that in, and some cider vinegar. I sat for a minute and thought about it. We had some green onions I didn't know what to do with, and when I pulled them from the bag I got four, so I sliced those and stirred them in. I remembered oregano, and sprinkled some. Then I let it sit for a while and did some reading. After probably an hour or so, grandma came in, and because she saw the pot she asked to try some.
It was ridiculous. But something about the amounts worked out in a special way, because to me I could detect just about everything. Nothing seemed to have too much of an edge, or stood out too much. It's rich and spicy, the sausage gives it a really nice smoky taste thanks to searing pretty well. On spiciness I'd probably put it near a fresh jalapeno. The beans and hominy made it heartier and the rice cooked through/helped it thicken. You can tell when grandma likes something by the frequency of "thank you" and "mmhmm" - it rated exceptional.
If I had to make a guess, folks from the midwest might love it or hate it. I think someone from New Orleans would like it. I think sweetness would work with it if you did brown sugar, or something like roasted basil seeds and some cinnamon. Alternatively, other herbs might work with it, I feel like there's one in particular but I keep second guessing it. You could always add other meats, other beans. I'm not sure how I'd go about replicating it as a meatless dish, but I think it's doable, other grains could help keep it hearty and other spices could do the smokiness. I think more green vegetables would work, like green beans or okra. A roasted pepper would probably come through really clear, I feel like ancho would be a good choice for that.
As I was reading, it was sounding more and more like Jambalaya! I used to frequent a Cajun restaurant (In the midwest haha) that had an awesome Jambalaya with sausage. Needless to say, I'm a big fan, so what you are describing sounds delicious. I'm also a big fan of adding some apple cider vinegar to things. It's my favorite way to add some zing to ramen or any other asian soup.
Thanks for sharing. I'm now super craving Cajun. :)
I used to live in Baton Rouge, and would go to New Orleans pretty much all the time, either on my own or with my friends. Cajun food is just too damn good, I couldn't let that disappear from my life even when I did things like cut out meat and constrained myself to mostly rice and beans. The secret, if there is one, I think is just "another one" lol. If the recipe calls for something, do another one. 4 cloves of garlic is 8 cloves of garlic, and if you happen to grab 9 just roll with that. Let the winds carry you.
Cider vinegar really can't be underestimated in my opinion. Just about anything savory likes it. Folks around me tend to think it's going to mean being sour/pungent, but the longer things cook the more it becomes an accompaniment. I really like sour stuff so I've tried a bunch of different vinegars, and plain old cider vinegar is just hands down the most versatile, far as I can tell.
We also went through a phase here where we put balsamic vinegar on EVERYTHING. We've mostly calmed down with that now, but I still love it on steak and Brussels sprouts.
I forgot to mention that the Cajun place I used to frequent also had blackened catfish. I'm normally not a huge fan of the flavor of catfish, but this stuff was soooo delicious. I'd get it on top of their Jambalaya and gobble the whole thing up. :D
Thanks for sharing! That sounds like an awesome way to learn how to cook while helping in the kitchen. I will keep that spice idea in mind as my boys get a bit older. Right now they mainly watch and my oldest will take a small cutting board and use his plastic knife to help me cut things when I'm preparing to cook.
You've inspired me to be a bit less lazy with my basics and cooking. I've always been a fan of beans and cooking them (my wife not so much) but since she usually cooks the beans I buy tend to sit there and not be used.
If you have any recipes that you'd be willing to share or just dish ideas that live in your head, I'd love to try something new and surprise the family.
Red beans and rice is one of my favorite versatile dishes. Super easy and quick to make, and it makes a great base for adding other ingredients (chicken, sausage, veggies, etc)
I cook my red beans in my instant pot nowadays since I can set it and forget it; this is the only recipe I wrote down over the years after experimenting with my mom's original method. I always make it with the optional jalapeño and habanero. It has one of those slow roll spice kicks that doesn't hit into the 3rd bite. The recipe stays the same even with different beans; I adjust the meat I use. For example, I'll use beef-like round steak cubes/roast them with red beans and ham steak cubes or ham hock for white beans.
Ingredients
For a kick:
Spices
Meat
Fluids
Directions
2.1. Place only the bacon grease in the instant pot
Edit. Life hack in the deli or produce sections in supermarkets of most of the southern states I lived in they usually will have a deli container for sell that's pre-chopped up onions, celery and green onions, usually labeled as creole seasoning.
Sure! I can think of a few things kids might enjoy experimenting with, and I'll just sit in my intuition with it for some ideas of what to do.
Sauces were a big part of how I learned about flavors. For young kids, they might enjoy picking out a spice and adding it to a condiment they like. For me that was ketchup - I'd try adding garlic powder, then the next time, onion powder, and there's a lot else that works. Herbs like basil and oregano, smoky stuff like paprika and cumin, and pepper powders tend to be distinct in ketchup so they can get a good feel for how those all taste (and experience spiciness). They can also try doing the same spice with other condiments, and that will give them an idea of how different flavor profiles blend together (or when they really don't). Since it's condiments, low stakes, and you don't need a lot of any of the spices for them to be detectable.
A step up from that might be a simple "Asian" sauce - sesame oil, unseasoned rice vinegar, and soy sauce. They can work out proportions a little to get a flavor they like, and from there try adding more things to see how they taste. It's a way to avoid using those ramen flavor packets if anyone likes ramen. A good example, they can try adding ginger - first, as powder, then next time get a fresh root and grate some into it, they'll see the difference freshness makes. That sauce is friendly to seafood, so they can try things like fish sauce, and it's also friendly to sweetness by way of brown sugar or honeys. Heating it will also change the flavors a bit, so they can experiment with letting it simmer a little with different stuff and see how that works out. Citrus works with it too, so they can try things like lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, and see if they end up really liking any of them.
Perhaps a step further, they could try roasting things in vegetable oil to see what a difference that makes. A low stakes way of doing it might be with eggs or rice - roast the spice in the oil, then fry the eggs/rice in that. Roasting basil seeds makes for an oil that works with sweeter spices, like cinnamon, cardamom, or allspice, which might help them with seeing how sweet and savory can come together. As they find stuff they like, they'll have a wide range for experimenting more, and with the knowledge of the sauces, they can make anything taste a bit better. It might be a good way to help a picky eater appreciate more things, and they'll have a repertoire they can deploy at bland stuff.
Just sort of thinking to myself, a basic cheese sauce can go in a lot of different directions if the cheese has a mild flavor. Roasting some garlic in butter, then mixing in heavy cream, and whisking in something like monterey jack or mozzarella, can be combined with a specific pepper, an herb, or sweeter/nuttier stuff. One combo that I bet might turn some heads, is the roasted basil seed oil in place of butter, with nutmeg, allspice, and roasted cashews. Folks who like richer foods and sweeter stuff might really enjoy that, and you could go further by adding some smokiness with something like cumin, bacon, or a seared meat. A chipotle might be a cool choice for a sort of "southwestern alfredo" - I've yet to do that myself but my intuition seems to be cool with it.
I don't have kids yet, but this is all stuff I hope to give to them when I do. Being able to make food taste good is kinda like being a wizard, or an alchemist. You can cast a spell and make a bad day into a good one. Brew a potion that becomes a treasured piece of a family's history, the kind of memory even folks at the very end of their roads recall. The practice helps folks learn about why trying again is how we actually get dreams fulfilled. A whole lot of what's in our spice cabinets used to be precious and rare, experienced only by a select few with lots of strange delusions about their lot in life (as well as the spices lol). It might be kinda pricey on the front end, but a little goes a long way and power is always more valuable than currency.
This is awesome, thanks for sharing! My oldest is 3 right now, but I think in the next few years I'll start him down on a path like this. I love food and exploring new things, and I'm excited to see what things my boys come up with while experimenting! I'm sure you'll set up your kids to experience a great amount of new culinary delights and appreciation for food.
I'm also hoping to get some copies of old family recipes from my side so that they get a taste of dishes that I loved growing up, like my Grandma's jelly roll, or my grand aunt's apple dumplings (my wife insists they are not dumplings as part of a running inside joke)
Similar story here: I'm a guy whose mom cooked 95% of the time growing up, and I've carried the torch into my family. Tonight I'm making a stir fry where I just cut up some boneless chicken thighs into a frying pan, toss in veggies, add soy sauce, and cook til it looks delicious.
Easy stuff is great, but I'm passionate about smoking meats. That came out of nowhere because my mom was always cooking Italian food.
I have known how to cook simple things since I was young. I remember making hamburgers, Mac-n-cheese, etc., just by watching my mom cook. Both of my parents work, and my sister is five years older than me. So when I was in my teens, I was home by myself a lot, and my family was too poor to order out much.
I didn't start pushing myself to cook and explore until my mid-30s. I found out that I enjoy it, whether it's inside on the stove or BBQ/smoking outside. I'm now at the point (41) where I'm comfortable doing the entire Christmas/Thanksgiving dinners alone. I rarely use recipes, as I grew up in a Cajun household with the "pinch of this, pinch of that" method. I've never had any complaints from family or friends, and my dad says I inherited my grandpa's talent for being able to wing it in the kitchen.
Edit: My only downside, is when I make something truly amazing, since I don't use recipe’s I rarely write my process down. So nothing tastes the same twice lol. I've toyed around with the idea of putting a couple of camera’s in the kitchen so I can write down the recipe I made afterward.
Man my partner doesn't measure shit when she cooks either and it drives me bananas lol.
She'll spend hours making a lasagna just by feel then take a bite of the finished product and be like "hm the last one had more flavour but I dunno why..."
I'm sure you guys would get on great!
Another one here who rarely measures! It feels much more like art than science to me, and I frankly enjoy the process over the product.
You and my wife would get a long, well in the kitchen! She (almost) never makes things the same way twice. When she has a recipe to follow, she usually starts diverging from it halfway through. Her cooking tends to turn out great, but if I like how something she makes tasted, I have to quiz her on what she did as soon as I taste it so I can start taking down notes and try to recreate it myself.
The funny thing is she also does this with baking, which has that bit more of a "science" to it compared to other dishes, so we sometimes get some interesting results.
I'm not as detailed in taking notes on my cooking as I'd like, but I do try to adjust recipes and then note down my differences and why or make a note of changing different things when I cook to see if I like it more.
When I grew up my Mum was not a great cook. I know I was a fussy kid but I don't remember her ever cooking from scratch. Best she would do is a combination of packet sauces and some roasted chicken or something. Everything else was store bought and heated in the oven or on the stove to some extent.
I don't think we ate badly as such, but I like cooking fresh and she still disagrees with me lol.
Anyway I didn't learn much from her, or school, except how to turn on the oven or stove and not set the place on fire (gas ya know).
University my housemate was a bit food guy and I learned both from him and with him. We used to just have fun cooking something dumb together and eat it for a week. It was a great relationship.
That really enabled me to learn more and keep the interest going. I mean I'm not cooking from scratch, home cooked meals every night, but I enjoy throwing together something like a spag bol, chilli, a pie or some tasty pastas with all the ingredients most nights. Its pretty easy too.
All that said, living alone was a nightmare. I had no motivation what so ever to cook at all. Most dinners were as low effort as I could manage or just takeout. Having a partner makes a huge difference because someone else can actually enjoy my cooking.
Re: having others to enjoy it...
This is critical for me. I'm always sharing my food with others. I enjoy the feedback and it also gives me great pleasure to give something with as much of my soul as the food I spent time and effort creating.
When I was alone, I also didn't enjoy cooking as much.
My Mom, could do some from scratch, but it was only after I moved out did I realize that a number of foods I thought I didn't like were because my Mom wasn't great at preparing them.
That sounds like a great friendship there! I love trying new things and while I didn't do a lot of direct cooking, I would usually team up with a few guys in my fraternity who were staying in the house over a break and throw together something for us to eat for a few days while we had a few beers and hung out. Usually I did the cleanup, since my contributions were minimal to the cooking process.
I'm right there with you on not having as much motivation to cook when I'm by myself. Before we had kids when my wife was gone for work I would either eat leftovers she cooked or just cook one large thing for myself and then eat that until it ran out then the same as you, as low effort as possible.
Both my parents are good cooks and I grew up cooking and baking with them.
I enjoy cooking and have started cooking with my kids — I think it’s a great life skill to have.
I'm trans, so theoretically I should've been encouraged to learn skills like cooking when I was younger, but I still didn't get much instruction or practice with anything more complex than a grilled cheese or eggs as a teen. Some of the stuff I made during college was straight-up inedible as I learned the ropes. This luckily corresponded with me becoming a less picky eater as I grew up (I refused to eat soup or anything with sauce as a kid).
By now I think I'm fairly decent cook. But I need some sort of recipe to follow, even if it's one I kludged together from multiple sources and with measurements that end up being more impressionistic than anything. I work better when I have the steps laid out in front of me like that. Learning to make a basic stir fry was the biggest life-changer in terms of my confidence at simple home cooking. Cooksmart's infographic is a phenomenal place to start, and it's such a good way to add something to your cooing portfolio that has a lot of ways you can vary it to keep it from getting stale. And it's a good way to get more veggies in your diet in a tasty way, since that can be hard when you're not a good cook yet. This was the first dish I made as an adult where I got compliments from my peers for it, and that's something that really makes cooking more enjoyable
Thanks for sharing that, I've not looked at any of Cooksmart's resources before.
I love stir-frying things, and I agree they are a great way to add veggies into the mix. I'm going to try some of the sauces suggestions as I feel like I've been cooking very similar tasting stir frys lately.
Chinese Cooking Demystified is a nice step up to more complex dishes for those who've mastered the basic stir fry -- they tend not to be as beginner-friendly but it varies a lot per recipe, and they have a lot of good instructional videos on technique.
Thank you for the link! As I've learned more about food, and having an ethnically Chinese wife, I've learned just how deep and massive the rabbit hole of Chinese cuisine is. I'm excited to broaden my cooking with this and hopefully get some good reviews after trying to create some dishes from there.
Good luck experimenting!
Pretty dang good, if the people I feed are to be believed. I loved hanging out in the kitchen as a kiddo, and the rule was if I was going to stick around, I had to not be a pest, and do useful things. Turns out you eventually learn. :)
I don't as often as I would like, for time reasons alone. But if I didn't have to work so much, I'd be playing in the kitchen trying new things daily. It's a happy place for me.
I didn't grow up in a very "cooky" household, but it was pretty well split between parents, with my dad doing a little more (he was also unemployed/stay-at-home parent).
In college i would cook with my girlfriend because it was fun. Generally not on my own though.
But after college, when i started getting paid like an actual adult from a corporate job, I began to cook a lot more. It was fun with my roommate, but I also discovered it was an excellent way to date. Much cheaper than going out, no fear of being ghosted (since i was home already), easy to segue into other activities, and relaxed atmosphere. And, I could bank the photos of the food for using in online dating profiles.
Once i had a steady girlfriend (now wife) we cooked a lot, but generally stuck to recipes (America's Test Kitchen). Now 10 years later, we still mostly stick to ATK. But my wife has generally eclipsed me in cooking-- both in skill and interest. I still cook occassionally, and don't mind filling in when she is tired or busy or just doesn't want to do it. Our meals are usually one main item, and possibly a simple salad. We aren't doing sides or multiple courses. We are always in the kitchen together though, because I do dishes while she cooks.
I have friends (men) that are certainly better cooks than me, especially when it comes to meats, but also with baking bread and grilling etc.
I think I'm definitely above average for men, but I'm average among my friend group.
I grew up helping my mom cook and learning on my own. By the time I was in high school I could cook eggs (multiple ways), hamburgers, chili, and box mac and cheese without guidance, among other things. My parents were able to be out late at night if needed (anniversaries, award dinners, that sort of thing) and they knew me and my siblings would be fed.
In college, I started experimenting with more complex dishes while subleasing from some friends over the summer. I was on a very limited budget, so I started getting the most out of what I had. This is when I learned to make mac and cheese from scratch, spaghetti carbonara, chili without a recipe (which was more impressive to me at the time, I had always followed recipes before), and half a dozen other dishes I've probably forgotten. I repeated this the next summer while subleasing, then when I got my own apartment I continued to learn to cook new dishes. I still remember the pork tenderloin and sweet potatoes my girlfriend at the time and I made after three months together. I also distinctly remember asking for a slow cooker for Christmas because my budget was still so restricted.
Now I'm the host and cook for D&D nights twice a month, as well as the more gourmet cook between my wife and me. I can fairly comfortably put together a meal of roast chicken, potatoes, salad, and homemade bread for a group of 8, and my go-to "I don't know what to cook" meal is still carbonara. After the first time I try a recipe (I always follow the recipe the first time), I usually experiment with it and find ways to improve it to my and my wife's particular tastes. My dad thinks that I eat better than most of his coworkers who have stay at home wives, which is a compliment I am proud to accept. My closest friends (who are not part of said D&D group) are just as good, if not better. One hosts our annual Christmas parties and takes care of all the main traditional dishes, and another is smoking a brisket this weekend and invited all of us over to partake. I'm blessed to have opportunities to learn, but also to have friends who cook just as well and inspire me to try to out-do them.
I know that I scrounged together some not so great food before I met my now wife over breaks at university, and I always wondered how my friends who complained about money were able to afford what they did, going out to the bars, eating out, etc. Priorities differing and all that, I guess.
Do you have a Carbonara recipe written down anywhere you'd be willing to share? Pasta is really popular with my boys, and I've been meaning to mix up more sauces lately.
That is awesome that you cook for your DnD group! I miss the group I had and do hope to find one eventually. We played online after we all moved around post college, but I'd love to have that in person environment and a nice meal to go with things.
I think in college, you have students with a wide range of budgets. I was paying for my own housing and food (college itself was covered through various other means) while some people I knew didn't have to lift a finger while their parents paid for everything other than leisure spending, and others were working two jobs on top of full time classes just to pay for those classes and their own survival. I rarely went out to eat and never joined the bar scene, but that was also just due to lack of interest.
I don't have a specific carbonara recipe I use anymore, but this is the video that got me started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AAdKl1UYZs. I've seen a few variations, so the amounts of different ingredients I use has changed over time, but that's still the basis for how I make it. When you're starting out, using thick-cut bacon is fine even if it's not truly authentic. Recently I've taken to using jowl bacon from a local farmers market, as it's fattier and closer to the guanciale used in the original recipe.
D&D is honestly what's stretched my cooking abilities the most in the last year or two. I try to avoid repeating meals too often, so I've been trying my hand at a lot of new recipes. I always make the mistake of assuming I have enough food for everyone to feel full, but luckily someone always comes with a dessert! Surprisingly, the meal that got the most praise was the simplest - roasted chicken leg quarters with mashed potatoes, gravy from those chicken legs, and a caesar salad. For the legs, I literally just seasoned them then put them in the oven at 400 F for an hour - I forgot about them the whole time and they came out perfect. I definitely recommend it if you need a simple meal for a small group like that.
Yeah, that's definitely true. I had friends in all kinds of situations. I think that one of the best social life decisions I made was joining a fraternity and living in our chapter house. Living there gave me a central place that people congregated at, and I didn't feel like I was missing out on much by not going out with people to the bars. Me being more frugal let me drink at the house and hangout with people I enjoyed instead of paying out the nose for the same drinks and be around people who could be a mixed bag.
I look forward to trying to make this and have saved the link, but I think this will sadly be an occasional make for me. I love carbonara, but pork is expensive where I live, since the population who eats pork is a minority in the country.
Simple can often be the best, I hope that my wife and I find some more friends here that we can invite over more regularly. I've wanted to do a board game night, but having small children who need us to put them to bed kinda hampers that.
I’m pretty handy in the kitchen. My mother did the majority of the cooking but it wasn’t weird if my father made something. They both liked to experiment with food so we’d get rotations of many flavors.
I was never discouraged in the kitchen and honestly probably started baking fairly young. I’d make mistakes but the family would roll with it.
I really enjoy cooking. A little THC and a podcast and I’ll cook and bake all day. Aside from HelloFresh meals I don’t cook as much as I’d like due to time constraints. Also baking for two is hard so it gets relegated special occasions or breads.
I quit THC when we were planning to have our first kid, and it's been years since I've indulged. Having newborns and then moving to a country where it is very much illegal and frowned upon make it something I'll wait until I visit some friends in the states again before I get around to it.
I completely agree, it being an awesome way to spend the way, great food and some music or a podcast while you do something productive. And if you cook enough you have leftovers for later, which is always a win in my book!
I am an average cook at best, but cooking as a basic skill has so many upsides:
I cook every day and consider it up there with other fundamental skills like financial literacy and learning how to exercise!
I feel confident in the kitchen. Toss me some ingredients and I can probably make a good meal out of it off the cuff.
Framing:
I grew up having an interest in many things, cooking being one of them. My mom and most other women in my family (almost always the women; I am male) always home cooked meals, and I absorbed a lot from them. My first recipe I learned was salmon and carrots in foil, to go in a toaster oven. It was a nice latch key kid meal.
Fast forward to my teens, and my parents continued encouraging independent cooking. I began working in restaurants, learning more from chefs and cooks. I often watched cooking shows. In college, I was eager to find a place with a kitchen so I could cook, though I still often didn't.
Life took its turns and I ended up not in a position to cook for a few years. I lost interest, until I was able to get a place of my own again. I was still an infrequent home cook, sticking to recipes I knew and rarely if ever branching out.
At some point, I decided to invest in Blue Apron back when it was still pretty small and new in the early 10s. It challenged me to try new recipes, which meant new methods, ingredients, styles... It was eye opening for me. I used that for a year or so before I began branching out on my own.
Things kicked into high gear with covid, I had more time available at home and more time to experiment and try things out. I found some awesome cooking channels on YouTube and learned a plethora of techniques. Most importantly, I learned the why behind what I was doing. This allowed me freedom to improvise.
Now, people rave about my cooking and clamor for leftovers. Luckily, I love sharing! The true joy in cooking for me is seeing the happiness I can create for others.
Thanks for sharing! I think learning why behind doing things is something I should pursue. Do you have any resources that were a great help for you?
I love when I make something that people enjoy, especially when we have guests over. Lately I've gotten compliments on my basil spinach pasta sauce. I grow the basil behind my house, and it's an easy way to get a whole lot of veggies into my boys without them complaining (they like the taste of veggies, but leafy greens can get stuck in their mouth if the piece is too big, or it can be a texture thing).
I used to watch Good Eats as a young man, now it's mostly YouTube stuff like Adam Ragusea. I also recommend Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.
Finally, watching any cooking show will get you little nuggets of wisdom from chefs that you can learn from if you pay attention. French Cooking Academy and America's Test Kitchen area a gold mine, as is Chef John from Food Wishes.
I miss having access to the Food Channel! Unwrapped was a big favorite of mine, though I don't see it available on any streaming service. I've been debating ponying up to get a DVD set one day.
I think I need to start paying more attention to the advice they give during the cooking part when I watch cooking shows and focus less on the spectacle of the people cooking and making mouthwatering dishes!
My Dad was and still is the cook, but he never trained me or showed me anything. Granted, I also didn't have much interest. But even as I got older, I was consistently discouraged from trying to use the stove or anything and at something like age 12 I tried to make pasta in the coffee pot... My Mom also discouraged me from using knives and things. I don't do this now with my own kids. If they express interest and I'm not in a hurry, I do my best to include them, having them chop things with the knife (they're 7 and 4), stir things on the stove, turn the stove up or down, etc.
When my wife (then girlfriend) and I moved in together, my choice was Cook or Clean and since I hated Cleaning, I chose to cook. Now I'm 40 and have been cooking for about 16-17 years and it's become something I very much enjoy and am good at; though I'm not convinced it's not just because I know how to properly salt a meal. I don't mind cooking large meals for when my large family comes over (cooking for 15+ people), though I do find it stressful.
I do cook every night of the week, the only exception really being Thursdays, which is pizza night so I get to just throw a couple of pizzas in and call it a day. Though I usually make a salad to go with it, so...
My Mom always tried to say knives were unsafe, but she also used incredibly dull knives, and a lot of the time like tiny knives that made things a chore. I ended up getting her a knife set one year, but never saw it again after it was given to her.
That sounds great! I end up doing the cleaning which I don't mind, great time for a podcast. I've learned that you can't unsalt food and with having small kids I don't want their taste buds as salt attuned as mine, so I tend to add extra salt after I cook anything these days.
15 people sounds like a lot! So far the most I've cooked for is ~10 for one event and that felt like a lot.
Yeah, I didn't learn too many life skills until my early 20s because my Mom was so anxious about everything. I have that in me too, but I try not to let it bleed over into my kids.
I've definitely failed on the salt front, as my kids tend to quite like salty food. But it may run in my genetics, as my Dad was the same; but we all also drink a shitload of water whether we're eating salty foods or not, so I kind of feel like it may balance out.
Those big events are stressful for sure. I'm trying to be less like my Dad though, doing everything by myself and I'm working at delegating and assigning helpers. Sometimes it means things aren't exactly how I want them, but I'm trying to let that go.
My wife not liking salty food helps since it forces me to cook without or just add in a little bit, then salt later on. I think my kids will keep with that, and I won't expose them to the glory of way too salty butter popcorn until they're older. Caramel popcorn is the most popular type here, so if we go to the movies, they won't get that "butter" concoction they were using the in the theater near where we lived in the states.
I feel you on the delegation bit. I learned a bit lesson in delegating in college and even after getting burned out with some stuff I still struggle to just say "sure you can do that" even when someone offers to help.
I grew up in a household where my grandfather did most of the cooking. My grandmother did the baking. I personally didn't really cook until after I graduated college. I found some random approachable recipes online and gave them a try and HEY! They kinda worked!
I didn't cook too much until I got married though. Once I moved in my wife, I also found myself unemployed as I had moved countries to be with her. I became a house husband and felt that I needed to be productive while I searched for a job, and took on cooking duties. Turns out, I got pretty good at it. My variety of dishes is driven by my wife's desire for a unique variety of tastes. It pushed me from serving generic mid class American meals to exploring various flavors from cultures all over the world.
Ultimately, I learned though YouTube. Honestly it's been a great source of information: from the weird experiments of Babish to the food mythbusting of French Guy Alex. There's also the history element of Tasting History and Townsends, providing context into how people cooked before modern technology, and also how to properly perform some good cooking techniques from professionals like Gordon Ramsay. Because of this, I'd say I'm a solid intermediate and capable of cooking just about anything thrown at me and I have a variety of information that I could learn from and experiment with.
I couldn't imagine myself doing this before the internet. Without confirmation of the progress in videos, I likely would have screwed up a few times, got frustrated and quit, resigning myself to a life of takeout and hoping I find a spouse that could cook for themselves and feed me in the process. Now? I'm someone who apparently is the envy of people at my wife's workplace when she brings in lunches. I've also gotten comments from female coworkers when I say I'm the primary cook along the lines of: "Oh how nice that would be, I wish my husband would do that." I wouldn't trade that ability to break down just some of society's gender roles for anything. It's empowering.
I love to cook, and I've been told that I'm good at it. I like cooking for other people, and joke around that my wife married me for my cooking (she doesn't like to cook). It really started off with my mom teaching me the basics. My parents divorced and my dad wasn't a great cook (he was okay with a few limited things), so I took on a lot of that responsibility as a teenager. After freshman year of college, I moved off campus with friends and we rotated cooking duties instead of buying meal plans (at about 1/5 the cost of a meal plan). I took a few days per week. After I moved out on my own, I really got into it and learned a lot more technique, new dishes, and gathered a huge collection of recipes that I've gathered and modified to suit my tastes over the years.
I'm very thankful that it's a skill I've been able to hone. It saves soooo much money compared to eating out all the time, and in many cases, I can cook a dish to my liking better than what I would get at an average restaurant (there are definitely exceptions to this, of course). The funny thing is, when I was dating (before meeting my wife), none of the women cooked. There was one who sort of liked to cook, but she wasn't very good at it (IMO). The lack of cooking is something I've really noticed about people my age compared to my parents generation, where we very rarely ate out at a restaurant (it was a special treat).
As far as what I like to cook, pretty much everything. Maybe my favorite thing to make when I have time is pasta (from scratch) and bread. But I do all foods, all cuisines, and rotate between fish, chicken, beef/pork/other meat and vegetarian themed dishes to keep things interesting (and for health reasons).
I (male) am a well-above average home cook (9-course tasting menus for dinner parties, etc), mostly because of what my spouse (jokingly?) calls "absolute psychopath behavior." I have a hard time doing anything without trying to be the best at it, so I'll take pictures of my food so that I can make notes of everything wrong with it, go through rounds of phases of trying to improve very specific things, etc.
Currently I need to improve my plating and the general realm of "modernist cuisine." I've yet to make a foam I'm really happy with. I'm tempted to write off the whole foam concept as a gimmicky trend that's better off dead, but I need to make sure I can do it first.
I wasn't encouraged to cook growing up. I was an abominable cook in my 20s!
It was only when I got married, my wife was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, and she was increasingly house-bound, that I learned. I didn't want her to feel the lack of eating fun restaurant-type foods.
I learned how to make pizza. And then Outback Steakhouse-style fried mushrooms.
And then I learned a lot more.
She watched a lot of TV, particularly food network. This got me to watch many cooking contest shows, particularly Chopped! That show taught me how to improvise in the kitchen when you don't have the ingredients you wished you had.
We had years of Food Network on. I got gud.
Signature? Well, I'm a vegan now.
When I was an omni, I took pride in taking cheap ingredients and making them amazing. I would sous vide top round in a mix of mustard powder, garlic, salt, and pepper for 36 hours. When it came out, it put brisket to shame. I served it to 50 people at one event.
Also, mushroom risotto. I borrowed some ideas from J Kenji Lopez-Alt. But then I went nuts finding more ways to pack in umami and mushroom, using different types of mushrooms and copious white wine. Not health food.
These days, I make a pretty darn good vegan sushi boat.
I'm not bad a vegan gluten free ramen (wife is celiac). I don't make the noodles from scratch but the broth and veg are all me.
I make a killer vegan Cinci 5-way. Wife is from Ohio. Visiting, I fell in love with Cinci chili! Had to learn how. Skyline Chili hot sauce is the icing on the cake (for me; wife hates the heat).
Vegan lasagna? Oh, yes. But it's crack. Can't make it often. I make a terrific cheese substitute with cashew cream (cashews, water, mighty blender), nutritional yeast, a little lemon juice, seasonings, tapioca starch, and then apply some heat until stretchy). Then go nuts.
I got into fermented pickling during lockdown. Now I'm all about making my own sauerkraut! I use it on burger salads: beyond burger cooked McD's style (buttloads of black pepper and salt and cast iron fried) over finely sliced lettuce, thin sliced onion, minced raw Brussels sprouts, granulated garlic, then I whip up a vegan thousand island for me (wife uses lemon garlic dressing, like a heretic), and then top it all with a f'ing ton of kraut. That's some good eats.
Oh, learned how to make better than restaurant fried rice. But too slow to do with crappy household burners. And too cheap to drop the money on a big burner for outside.
Sure, I can get more elaborate. But it's the simple stuff, done well, that is so so good to me.
What do you put on/in your vegan sushi? I love veggie sushi, but I never get much variety because it's always on the menu as an afterthought.
Varies. Also, sometimes I prep individual ingredients to create more variety.
Then adds can be sriracha or really anything interesting you can drizzle.
Rice prep is important: good ratio of vinegar, sugar, and salt heated until they dissolve then mixed into the rice then cooling the rice so it's sticky and won't burn you!
Slicing it can be tricky! You need a good knife!
Ok, the miso roasted carrots sound amazing. I'm not sure why I've never seen tofu in sushi before, either. Does any of this work as nigiri or is it better as rolls?
Nigiri has always seemed harder to me but I've never tried.
I suppose some could be nigiri, if the ingredient was prepared particularly well. I like rolls because I can blend simpler flavors to make something delicious more easily.
But then I imagine avocado nigiri would be delightful. And a superbly prepped tofu could as well. Perhaps some sort of roasted veggie.
On reflection, nigiri seems to often be used for ingredients with significant umami. That may be a good guide.
Avocado nigiri has been one of the few veggie varieties that I do see when getting sushi from a restaurant. It's usually quite nice! The other options are usually a mixed veggie roll (carrots, cucumber, avocado, sometimes kanpyo but I'm not so much a fan of that ingredient), avocado roll, or cucumber roll (sometimes the latter two available as a hand roll also). Once I got asparagus nigiri! It looks quite satisfying with the spear tips arranged on top.
Your mention of umami makes me wonder if mushrooms could be used.
I'd quite like to try a tofu nigiri someday, I think.
Oh, yes! I can imagine a mushroom treatment would make an excellent nigiri!
I've had shiitake in rolls before too. They were underwhelming but I blame Whole Foods deli for that.
I'm sorry to hear about your wife's diagnosis. I have a relative with Huntington's Disease. It's awesome to hear you took that on to provide that for your wife!
I've never looked into vegan cooking, so I think I'll see if I spot any recipes that catch my eye and give them a go. I enjoy going to vegetarian restaurants in the area occasionally. Way easier to find good ones here, and when Vegetarian month (Nine Emperor Gods Festival) rolls around, it's even easier to find.
I agree with you on the small burner being a pain for some dishes. After moving here and moving to a gas burner compared to an induction one we had in the US, and I really don't want to move back to one! One thing that I really love about houses over here is the idea of a wet and dry kitchens. Usually this has your kitchen with an outdoor segment for cooking things like curries or fish that can cause the house to smell, or just having your kitchen cut in half with a glass door to keep the smell from drifting into the rest of the house. We had planned for a bigger division in my house when renovating, but due to some budget and job things we ended up just putting a glass door that separates our whole kitchen from the rest of the house that we can close when we need to.
Thanks for the inspiration and sharing here. I wish you luck in handling your heretic of a wife (who prefers lemon garlic dressing?)!
That was my first wife. The disease claimed her after ten years. I did the best I could by her. I wish I had been a healthier man who could have done more good and less harm.
My second (now) wife is the lemon garlic dressing lover. Heh.
Cooking, as well as the fuel, release all manner of particles into the air that aren't good for us! Having a partially outdoor kitchen? Brilliant.
My wife likes to look at houses occasionally, and we've debated moving back to the states at some point. A lot of houses that she has gone "this looks amazing" only have that until I ask her to look at the kitchen. Makes me wonder what kind of person thinks putting a stove with no hood/fan over it to bring out fumes from the cooking was a good idea, bonus points if they put it on a center island.
My wife has a sensitive nose, so if we cook a fish curry or something she'd smell it in the rest of the house for the next day (or longer depending on what we cooked). I have been scolded for opening the kitchen glass door while she is cooking something smelly here and letting the smell into the house when I needed something instead of walking around the house to the back door to get what it is I needed.
May not be a good time to move back here—at least not for four years...
I don't think we'd move back anytime soon, and honestly not sure if we will end up moving back there at all. The international move was a lot, and after having moved ~10 times in 12 years, I'd rather stay put for a while.
We still plan on having more kids, and my wife wouldn't want to have kids without being able to get help from her parents while they are babies. Having family we can trust to help with our kids, and we want to be around our kids, has been such a blessing. We'd also end up back here any way to help care for her parents as they get older.
My mom cooked dinner at least 6 times a week, and I was often in the kitchen doing homework while she cooked. I wish that this had taught me anything, but friction over homework usually dominated any cozy moments for sharing foodways. I do think that a home meal is a lovely place/time.
Much later, in my 20s, I got a job at a resort and they put me in the kitchen. I started prepping food, eventually cooking dishes and then planning meals, for ~20 people twice a day. I was working with someone who had fine dining experience, and he taught me a lot. Like other commenters, I feel like I built out my tool kit, and now I can just reach into the fridge and produce something that people will want to eat.
I've always been the cook for my family, which can be exhausting. It honestly gives me a lot of empathy for my mom, and how ungrateful we were for the food we got. I still enjoy cooking, and look for opportunities to do something lavish for friends, but there's about 3 dishes that everybody likes and that produce a lot of leftovers, so nowadays that's the majority of the calories I produce.
Seeing my sons move through picky phase(s) can give me a headache, especially when they ask for a food and then not want to eat it (my oldest is 3 so it's not the end of the world but can still be frustrating if the dish takes awhile to cook).
Having a year off work where I was the primary cook definitely led me to have empathy for my own Mom. She didn't cook great and a lot of her dishes were pretty low effort to make, but she did cook and wanted to have my brother and I get that experience of eating at home almost every day.
These are very fun stories to read through. The short answer for me is I've become a good cook and decent baker during my early adult life and rather enjoy both. I'm vegetarian and have loved ones with a mix of other dietary needs (vegan, gluten free, etc) so I've gotten good at cooking a lot of plant based dishes. I suspect I could figure out how to cook meat just fine should I have a need to, but it's not something I've ever cooked.
I'm a STEM graduate student so my hobbies tend to still tilt towards science related and cooking and baking are no exception. I love the application of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and chemistry resulting in something tasty I can eat and share with loved ones. I try not to get too carried away experimenting with dinner, but I attribute most of my gains in becoming a good cook to learning some fundamentals and then improvising. I get a lot of food content in my Instagram feed and usually watch a few YouTube videos related to something I want to make if I've never made it before, and then kind of do my own thing to make the recipe work for the ingredients I have. That being said, I made some absolutely dreadful dishes early on, but that was part of the learning experience.
Interestingly and similarly to a lot of folks here, I didn't grow up doing much cooking beyond simple box meals. I did learn to bake more than cook. I wasn't necessarily discouraged, however I recently learned my mom didn't want my sister and I helping in the kitchen because she felt like it would take longer than if she just did it herself. xD so not actively discouraged through family culture or anything, just didn't have much opportunity.
I always had a meal plan in college, but I had a couple summer internships away from home during the summers, and those were the opportunities I really had to began cooking. I resolved to make most of my own food for both cost and practical reasons. I'm very good at learning from Google and YouTube so finding vegetarian recipes I could replicate wasn't too hard though not every dish was a winner.
As a full adult, I pretty evenly split home cooking responsibilities with my wife who is also a great cook. We have a mix of dietary restrictions so we've learned to be creative to make food we can both eat and share.
I agree with there being a lot of fun stories being shared here, and a lot of commonalities of learning to cook as young adults.
That is cool that you transferred your STEM background into cooking! I have a lot of friends who were STEM majors/oriented and for them cooking is not something that interests them at all.
Do you have any favorite vegetarian dishes you make? I've been trying to look for new ways to get more veggies in my sons' diets. They enjoy a lot of different kinds, but sometimes it can be a texture thing, or a mood thing, and it can be hard to predict when they'll gobble up the veggies I could for them and when they'll just refuse to eat it.
If it's about getting more veggies into a diet, blending them into a pasta sauce is a surprising way to disguise them. Especially when cooked and seasoned with the sauce. Have you seen Thee Burger Dude before? I found him on Instagram and his recipes are fantastic. He was previously a chef who went vegan but wanted to keep making a lot of the foods he already liked. Despite being vegan, his recipes are very easy to adapt to be vegetarian if you want to use real cheese and dairy. His Spinach Spaghetti is a good example of adding a lot of veggies (and protein) to a sauce in a way you could NEVER tell. This one blew me away. I highly recommend making this one exactly to the recipe. I know it looks weird throwing tofu into a blender sauce, but it ends up coming through more like cream. The nutritional yeast (Bragg's is a pretty common brand for this) is also a critical ingredient and a great seasoning to have on hand for vegetarian dishes. It's got a tasty cheesy flavor, it's high in protein, and adds Umami to dishes which is often missing in vegetarian cooking. Great in soups, sauces, or on top of popcorn (it's wild, it tastes cheesy).
So I can confidently recommend anything from Thee Burger Dude for veggie dishes because his stuff is packed with flavor and I haven't been disappointed so far.
A really common lazy and moderately healthy vegetarian dish in our house are basically loaded nachos (we call them haystacks and I have no idea where that name came from). You layer corn chips with rice, beans (refried or whole both work great), and then your choice of any of the following: cheese, tomatos, salsa, guacamole, lettuce, cucumber, bell pepper, hot sauce, black olives, and honestly really anything you'd put on a salad. Not sure how old your son is, but the customizable aspect might make it a winner. It's also a great way to clear out veggies that you need to get out of the fridge. The beans and rice make it a pretty filling dish, but I have friends that do basically the same thing but add taco seasoned ground beef as one of their toppings. Generally an easy dish with lots of flexibility.
I know personally I was never adverse to veggies and grew up in a vegetarian household, but was never very enthusiastic. I've found as an adult I like some veggies better oven roasted or air fried (broccoli and brussel sprouts mainly) while veggies like carrots I prefer steamed. So maybe varying prep may be helpful. Honestly it's amazing how much flavor comes from tossing veggies in oil, a pinch of salt, and then popping them in an air fryer for 5-10 minutes.
Thanks for sharing that! Pasta sauces have been my go-to ways to get in the veggies. My boys are under 3, so t's not that they don't like them, it's more it can be hit or miss depending on their mood or potentially the texture of the dish. Pasta has been a big hit, so throwing the veg in a sauce usually works really well.
I grew up with a lot of poorly cooked veggies, and lots of vegetable soup courtesy of my grandma's canning. She'd can tons of soup each year, when I was little my brother and I would each get a vegetable peeler and 100+ lbs of potatoes or carrots to peel while she told stories to us. I always loved vegetables though and will eat them raw when we have extra, and I'm in the mood for a snack. My wife growing up in a SE Asian household always jokes that American's having kids eat raw veggies is why kids don't like eating them there.
I'll see if I can make some of your haystacks! That sounds great and I'm sure my boys will have a fun time with them.
I think my relationship with food is enough to make a psychologist's entire career off of. Maybe an entire medical journal.
As a child I grew up in a neglectful environment, so food was a question of taking frozen meals and putting them in the microwave or the oven. I slowly learned how to cook, largely by myself. I did take whatever was the equivalent of home ec in middle school which included cooking, but by then I already knew everything they taught.
In my adult years I got good at cooking, but I was almost always cooking for myself, and so cooking good meals was more of a special thing and so pre-prepped meals - including fast food and restaurants - were extremely common. I got a job and my time became much more limited, so fast food became the most common type of food that I would eat. This had massively terrible effects on my health. So about two years ago I had made a rather drastic change in my diet, to a whole food plant based diet. So no animal products, no refined foods (including white flour, sugar, or oil), and as little salt as possible.
To circle back to the question, I am a fantastic cook… when making the kinds of food I can’t eat anymore. I used to eat meat for every single meal, and as the primary feature of the meal. The things I was good at was making meat taste good. Now that’s useless to me. It would be pointless to even try to make those foods now because they would make me feel physically ill to taste them.
The sad thing is that work and anxiety got extremely bad, so I had less and less time to cook good meals. I had days where I had been kept from work for 11-12 hours a day but only got paid for 6-1/2 to 7 of them, and that could be as often as three days a week. The anxiety was so bad that I couldn’t even do meal prep because all of my off time was spent trying to decompress, and so most of my meals came out of Subway (not really WFPB compliant, but close enough).
I just quit my job, and I don’t have a new one lined up, so I will finally have some time to cook. Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in an embarrassingly long time and bought some fresh vegetables to eat. It’s going to be good to make something for myself that isn’t soggy microwaved frozen veg mix.
If you were to ask me the question of if I am a good cook now… maybe? My knife skills are doubtlessly bad from lack of practice. My diet has given me a refined palate that can taste the flavors of food in much more detail and so doesn’t need to be loud like you will find in restaurants, so most people would think the food I make is bland. And they’re right in a way; food eschewing fats and salt will always taste more bland. I want to get more into Chinese cuisine right now because there are a lot of very healthy vegetarian and vegan dishes to be found thanks to a strain of Buddhism that was popular there at one point.
I'd like to say good on you for taking your health seriously and making the changes to address that in your diet!
As I'm approaching 30 I've been thinking it is time for me to get another physical and start making sure I'm taking more care of my body. I stopped being able to work out as much as I'd like after having kids and need to stop making excuses for myself and make sure I make any changes I need to as well.
I hope that you're able to find some time to regain that love of cooking and get back into the swing of things again, and that your next job gives you a better schedule and experience than the one you just left.
I mentioned in another comment that Chinese food is a rabbit hole and I hope you have a lot of fun exploring it! After meeting my wife, who is ethnically Chinese, I've learned a lot about cooking, and an appreciation for just how big and diverse China is. I've tried several different Chinese ethnic group's cuisines since moving abroad, and even here I've found a number of restaurants with cuisine from different regions of China that I've flagged to go and try eventually.
It's been fun and of course is all a matter of perspective as you drill into it. Like how "French cuisine" is so varied. It's a never ending fun time of learning. That all being said, I'm sure you'll find some great dishes there, and you may find inspiration just looking at a map of China and looking up the cuisine of a random province or even a major city that you've never heard of.
Thank you for your kind words. I would highly recommend going WFPB if you’re interested in getting healthier. I’ve done so many fad diets in the past so I understand if you don’t believe the “it works!” shtick, but there’s quite a body of research backing this up.
I’m honestly kind of wondering if I’ve exoticized Chinese cuisine to a point. I have always wondered what they did to make their boiled vegetables taste so good. I recently got a tin of mushroom bouillon (which is basically ground dried mushrooms with salt, sugar, and yeast extract - not strictly WFPB compliant but whatever - and that was it exactly.
I'll look into it more, never really considered it or really any fad diet. My health concern is more inactivity now that I've started working again and am generally sitting down at my computer.
Always a good time start investing in that though and being able to keep up with my boys as they get older.
Chinese food is fun in so many ways. Enjoy exploring if and finding new dishes. I was watching Flavorful Origins when I had Netflix which was a fascinating look at Chinese food imo.
Other folks say I cook quite well. I spent many years in the kitchen with my mother growing up learning how to cook basic things, like how to make ravioli or how to decorate cakes, but it was when I went to university and found the book Professional Cooking (which became my Bible) that I truly began to explore cooking. By my 20’s, I was cooking well enough to impress all my friends. Now, in my 50’s, I can cook virtually anything. I rarely enjoy going to restaurants except for the atmosphere, since I know I can do a better job in producing aesthetically and gastronomically better food. I’ll go when the dishes are ones that just take an impractical amount of time to make, the atmosphere is charming, or the restaurant can get ingredients that I cannot. I enjoy fine dining, but I also know that I can produce the same result at home, and I will do soon holidays or special occasions for family and friends. There is no magic to haute cuisine. It is simply a matter of being willing to learn and then practicing.
When we lived in the states, my wife often said the same thing about eating out, and I would agree with her that she would make things the same or better and often times for cheaper. We didn't end up eating out that much because of the cost and even if the environment was nice it felt like such a hit to the pockets to spend so much on an expenerience when the food might not be as good.
Our stance on eating out really only changed when we moved to Malaysia where street food is very common and affordable. There's a number of dishes we could make at home, but it would probably end up being more expensive to make 1-2 portions of a dish like Curry Mee or Penang Asam Laksa, compared to someone who is making it in bulk to sell 200+ bowls a day.
I am going to check out that book and see if I can find a used copy for myself!
I've never cooked for anyone else but myself so my judgement is very biased but I think I cook at a very beginner level. I didn't do any real cooking growing up, only really made instant noodles. My mom taught me one basic chicken recipe before I moved into an apartment in university and I just use that as my base for everything I've cooked.
The meals I cook always involve some sort of cooked chicken. I either season with this ready-made taco-seasoning mix or just with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and chili flakes. I pretty much always bake chicken now since I'm lazy but I've also cooked them in a pan in the past. Next, I do some basic veggies. In college, I'd make steamed broccoli from those frozen steamer bags and eat that 60% of the time. The next 20% of the time, I'd just make "fajitas" and just bake onions and bell peppers along with my meat. The final 20% of the time, I'd just wash some salad mix and eat that. The last piece of my meal is some carb. Sometimes I'd make sandwiches, other times I'd make rice or pasta. Rice was my go-to since I could always cook batches of it and eat it throughout the week, which was great in college.
Thanks for sharing! Have you thought about branching out with your cooking, or has it been something that works for you for the time being?
I saw you mentioned being lazy, and I totally understand that. If you have a bit of extra money, an Instant Pot (or pressure/multi cooker) or a slow cooker really helped me to branch out with my wife. Lately I've been throwing in a whole chicken with some herbs, a small piece ginger that is sliced up, and some spring onions into my multi cooker, then cooking it on low for 4-5 hours at low temperature.
Chicken falls off the bone and go with a variety of things, and you get stock left over which can be used in a lot of dishes or as the basis for a soup.
Funnily enough, this post actually got me to try branching out a bit. I actually don't do much cooking myself since I live with my parents and my mom does most of the cooking. But there are times where I'll cook for myself so the dishes I mentioned earlier don't bore me out. They definitely did get repetitive when I was alone at college though haha.
But yeah, in the last few days I've tried making one new dish and one new side dish! The dish was a simple spicy, creamy vegetable pasta dish made with penne, zucchini, broccoli, and summer squash. That came out really nice and it's definitely something I can add to my small arsenal of dishes. The new side dish I made yesterday in fact was marinated jammy eggs. One of my favorite parts about eating ramen when I go out is the egg so I've been wanting to make it at home. I was craving it the other day but didn't want to spend on ramen so I decided to try making them. I over-boiled it a bit but the flavors were still there.
The Instant Pot/pressure cooker recipes are actually something I want to try out in the near future. My mom makes all sorts of soups in hers and I've watched enough recipes from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt to try cooking in one myself. Just the idea of doing some prep and then basically forgetting about it until the evening is super appealing.
That's awesome to hear this post got you to try some new things! I hope you can keep it up or find inspiration to keep on experimenting when you have time.
Chilis are something I like to throw in the instant pot/slow cooker, but you do need to remember to soak your beans, and check which ones you're eating as there are some beans that need to be "pre cooked" before you throw them in.
I cook well, and I enjoy it. I'm not scared to make "adventurous" recipes or to tweak recipes on the fly.
My parents both cooked a lot, but at different times. When I was younger my mom did most of the cooking because my dad was busy trying to get a business off the ground. Later on, just before I was in high school, my dad finally had enough time to do more cooking. He doesn't do anything part way, so he jumped in with both feet. This is what got cooking on my radar - my family.
I became lazy when I attended university and ate at the cafeteria, restaurants, instant, frozen, etc. It wasn't until I was out on my own that I decided I wanted to cook. The friends I made during this time also liked to cook. So, we would host dinner parties for each other. We made all sorts of crazy dishes, and had a lot of fun doing it. Those are the years when I really came into my own as a cook.
Then, when I started to settle down, I found it to be a good experience to make meals with my partner. Especially on weekend nights, it was nice to make a nice meal together. After kids came along, I didn't cook as much, as I didn't have a lot of time, but I still managed to make a few meals a week. It became easier as the kids got older and they were more independent.
Now as a single dad, I cook a lot for my kids. Just last night I made some honey garlic chicken with rice that they liked. I like showing them that men can cook, and they like trying new things (trust me, it took a long time to get them to that point). We have a rating system, so they can give me feedback on what they liked and what they didn't. It has become a fun activity, and I think it helps to encourage them to try new things because I don't penalize them if they don't like it.
Cooking is a great hobby. It is (usually) cheaper than other alternatives, it is (usually) healthier, and it is a constructive way to spend quality time with someone (partner, kids, friends, etc.). There are a near endless number of recipes to try, so there is always something new to do. You can go deep down a rabbit hole about all manner of cooking topics. Even "simple" foods, like burgers, have a ton of variation and debate on what people like. Although, don't get too hung up on what is the "best" way to make something. Just do what you like.
Currently, I am exploring my culinary roots and am making a lot of German dishes. After a trip to Germany, I picked up a couple German cookbooks and treated myself to some fancy equipment. I've made sauerbraten, sauerkraut, spaetzle, potato salad, rinderrouladin, rotkohl, pichelsteiner, schweinepfeffer, and potato dumplings so far. I haven't quite gotten the dumplings down yet, but I am getting close. It has been a lot of fun to try new techniques and new tastes.
That sounds really fun having dinner parties with friends! My girlfriend (now wife) at the time would host "Sushi Saturdays" for a while where we would buy sushi grade fish and then prep sushi for friends who would come over to pitch in to cover the cost and enjoy it with us. I miss having so many friends in proximity for things like that.
I think it's really cool that you're giving that example for your kids and having a rating system for food. Our biggest thing we tell our young sons right now is to just try anything, if they don't like they can have something else, but they need to try it first.
That is really cool that you're diving into your family's culinary roots. I'd love to explore more cuisines like that. I'm hoping to branch out and grab some more cookbooks for different ethnicities where I can explore the cuisines. I like having things digital for convenience but flipping through a book and picking things out is timeless to me and I never have to worry about the recipe going down or needing to copy things into my own records.
I think I'm a slightly below average cook. If I was cooking for only myself, it wouldn't be a problem - I could rotate between a few staples without complaints. But having to cook for my partner as well (or even just planning meals and trading-off the cooking duties) is more difficult. I would argue my partner is a somewhat picky eater. Seafood is off the table. Generally avoids entire cuisine options (though we're trying one of those tonight). If we try a recipe and it doesn't taste at least moderately good, my partner might never want it again. Also randomly gets tired of "staple" meals if we make them too often. This all adds on to my other difficulties with cooking.
I cook slower than most people. Depending on the day, a "30 minute meal" might take me an hour. When I lived alone, I would get off work, drive 10 minutes to go the grocery store, buy the least I possibly could, drive 30+ minutes home. I usually wouldn't end up eating until 9pm.
My mom wasn't the best cook, but she did cook most meals. She underseasoned and overcooked everything. But I didn't know any better, and was mostly kept out of the kitchen. I made frozen dinners and hamburger helper, and that was mostly it. So I didn't learn too much from her.
I did realize I was a better cook than her when I started doing it myself after moving out. But I had to keep most of my meals really basic for a while since I overextended myself purchasing a house. My partner nearly dropped her jaw when I told her that rice and soy sauce was my dinner sometimes.
I commend you for putting in the effort to cook foods your partner enjoys! I know that's an extra stretch to add in that bit of effort when cooking for someone else to make sure they enjoy it, and I can imagine having a picky eater really adds to it. My sister-in-law is the pickiest eater I know. I had started a list of things she didn't like and ended up realizing it was easier just keeping a list of foods she does like for the off chance I need to get something for her, or we cook for her.
I also realized I cook better than my mom after a few years. She still has a few recipes that she makes well, but I also realize that's more of me enjoying a taste from my childhood rather than the food being well cooked.
We also overextended on a house that we purchased after our move (was told I was a lock for long term in a position and my new boss had plans for how I would fit in the team and fill the gap an experienced admin was going to leave when they retired) and cut down on a lot on our food, we never got to eating rice and soy sauce as a meal, but I've enjoyed that as a snack many times
Yes. 100%
Not until I left home, and had to learn the hard way (pre-internet)
I do most of the cooking, mostly simple dishes, but my favorite dishes are my sons signature dishes. My son is still pre-teen.
I grew up in a family that didn't really encourage me to learn... anything really.
I encouraged my kid to learn everything I knew, but mostly he learned it because he was really, really interested. And because he had Uncle Youtube to teach him stuff even I didn't know.
Which is important. Because while I learnt cooking the hard way, I have learned how to maintain vehicles and houses from Uncle Youtube.
There is no reason, in todays day and age, to feel like lack of parental guidance is limiting your capabilities. Now, it is simply a question of what are you passionate enough to master?
I completely agree with you on Youtube and the Internet giving such great access to learning material, with a lot of it being available for free.
I'm hoping my kids learn from me what I'm able to teach them. There's time when I feel like there was a lot I could have learned from my own Dad if my relationship with him had been better.
I'm simply hoping to I teach my kid that he can do whatever he sets his mind too. If in the process of that, he retains some useful skills, that is just icing. On the cake. That he made. Because he can make cake. And it is delicious. Sorry. Got a little distracted there.
Actually, I am not even sure I gave him that level of confidence that he could teach himself how to bake. I just actively encourage him to learn anything new he seems interested in, and am there to do the cleanup after he is done. Soooooo many dishes. Omg. Now if only I can teach him to clean as he goes....
I guess having me there simply removes all impediments to learning. I can catch his mistakes before he makes them, I let him make those mistakes if he insists on learning the hard way, and I take care of the cleanup or fix things if everything goes totally awry. Plus it's more fun cooking with a sous chef in the kitchen.
So perhaps I am simply hoping to instill a love for continual learning.
Meat + fire = cooking.
But in seriousness, I can follow instructions and cook a fantastic meal, but as user @mimicsquid said, it's a chore. To me food is food and calories are all the same, gulp down some slop and get back to work.
To each their own! I'm fine with eating some slop or mediocre food when I need to, but I love to try to add something new into the mix when I can.
The older I get, the more I realize how non traditional my family was with regards to gender roles. To be honest, neither of my parents are great at cooking, but my mom is god awful. Growing up, she burnt nearly any meal she ever tried, and never really got any better. Shell freely admit that too. She just doesn't have a passion for it, so never really improved. My dad was an ok cook, but would mostly stick to the basics. He made the vast, vast majority of the meals in my family. I started cooking for myself and the rest of my family a few times a week when I was 13 or 14, and I really enjoyed it, and still do to this day.
I cook most of the meals for my girlfriend and I because I really love cooking, especially new interesting recipes. Unfortunately, I almost never have the time during the week to cook what I'd like to cook, which is usually some sort of hearty stew, savory pie, or interesting Asian dish.
It's a skill and a passion I'd love to pass on to my kids when I have them, especially if they're boys, because I've realized that far too many men don't even understand the very basics of cooking, which is really sad.
(And as an extra bonus, it turns out that being a great cook as a man can make you very popular with women)
I found out when I visited my wife's family for the first time that her grandma is apparently a terrible cook and only has a few dishes she'd ever cook, and it was her grandpa that cooked almost everything for their family. I would have liked to learn more recipes from either of my grandmas, but one passed away when I was young and the other lived far away, so I'd rarely see her.
I know how you feel about time-consuming dishes. I've been pushing more for us to do meal prep more often for some dishes we enjoy that take longer to put together.
Completely agree that more men should know how to cook. The first few times I cooked for my girlfriend and put the effort to make something new she was always impressed, and I've had her friends over who are pleasantly surprised when I cook something they enjoy, especially the ones who's boyfriends/husbands don't cook.
Give me a piece of meat, a couple of vegetables, a couple pans, salt, pepper, and oil I can probably make something moderately palatable. I could probably make a bunch of vegetables taste nice alright, as well. I like to think I'm minimally okay, but far from "good."
My family (brother, mother and I) use various meal boxes which have pulled us out of our comfort zones, but that mostly involves making flavorful sauces, which are surprisingly simple, so I could probably come up with one as well, but it would be a bit dicier. I do have a tendency to goof up the recipes by missing one thing usually, but never really ruin anything, which is nice.
Growing up I was allowed to cook, generally, but never needed to. I always had an interest, and loved getting the hang of any basics I could.
I started learning to cook at a very young age. Bluntly, I grew up in poverty with a single mom who was checked out on opioid pills most of the time, so I usually had to fend for myself, and around the age of 9 or 10 I'd gotten pretty sick of eating $0.70 microwave pizzas and cold Spaghetti-o's out of the can. (Although, fun fact, I still occasionally eat cold-can Boyardee as a weird sort of comfort food.)
I had to teach myself for the most part (this was before the Internet) but we had a couple of cookbooks lying around and I'd also watched people do a few of the basics like boil pasta in water or heat ground beef in a skillet to the right color. I started with spaghetti and red sauce because it seemed the easiest and it was. Then started building on it, adding beef and vegetables and seasonings (pepper, basil, etc), then started branching out into other kinds of foods. Never anything too complicated until later, but by the time I left home at 18, you could trust me in a kitchen to chop your onions, dice your potatoes, and heat a chicken breast in the oven that wouldn't put you in the hospital.
I didn't get a chance to cook all that much in my college years between full-time work and studying but always did when I could. I even had a friend (we are still friends today) with a bit more cooking experience than me, and we would set aside a Saturday or Sunday every month or so and make dinner together--he would show me how to make something if I didn't already know how. I also picked up a few things from the food service jobs I worked through college, but those were usually cafes and not full restaurants so I didn't get anything like actual cooking instruction, just the odd tip here or there about how to use which kind of knife for example or how to grill a bell pepper on a gas stovetop.
Once I finished school and had more free time, I started cooking much more often and experimenting with recipes and new types of cuisines. I don't pretend to Michelin-level expertise, but I sincerely enjoy cooking a lot and by now I'm pretty good at it. I consider it recreational and it never feels like a chore unless I simply don't have the time. To me, nothing beats a lazy Saturday afternoon putting on some music and just riffing on what's in my pantry that day.
I feel very confident in a kitchen, and I have a large repertoire of dishes I can make blindfolded, or simply figure out as I go. A few signature favorites from the past are mushroom stroganoff, chicken jalfrezi, and NY strip steak with a simple red-wine demi-glace. I also cook vegan--in fact I pretty much only cook plant-based this last year or two, probably 90% of the time--and it's been an extremely fun (really) challenge looking at food in a whole new way and figuring out what you can do with it. Feels like NG+, but it's also been kind of a blast to explore spices, sauces, and flavors that I used to not spend as much time or attention on.
That's a rough way to start learning how to cook, but I can see the appeal of eating some additional food and branching out from there. My odd comfort food is top ramen/instant noodles that are cooked and then just sit in the soup and get all puffy. My Dad would usually just make like 10 packets of top ramen when my Mom was gone for a weekend and that would be my lunch and dinner for ~2 days.
My wife thinks I'm disgusting for eating it since she is very particular on her noodles not being puffy and gets really annoyed if we're eating noodles and something interrupts us so she doesn't get to eat them before that happens.
Thanks for sharing your story on your cooking background, that's really cool that you were able to grow like that and had a friend who was willing to teach you when you both had time. I agree with you on cooking being fun, the only time I don't like it is when I'm cooking something I'm not familiar with while rushing.
I've never thought of trying to cook vegan like that, I think adding a few vegan or vegetarian dishes into the mix would probably be a fun way to spice things up in our house.