Member- maggierose
- 7 years ago
- Wedding: October 2011
This is kind of random, but I desperately need help in the kitchen!
I’ve never really been much of a cook. It’s funny because my (working) mother cooked meals for us most nights of the week growing up, but somehow I never learned a lot of the ‘basics’ of cooking from her. I’m also a Cancer, which is supposed to be very good at cooking, and I’m just terrible at it.
I think a lot has to do with me going through slightly disordered eating patterns in college, and for a few years after, meaning that I only stuck to certain “safe” “healthy” foods so was never, ever big on cooking “real” meals. I also lived alone a lot more than I lived with roomates, so i was never motivated to cook. I also get lazy / am a clean freak, so chopping up tons of veggies, cooking, then washing the counters/dishes/sweeping the floor after seemed exhusting.
I eat/ate a lot of frozen lean cuisines, easy-to-make stuff (sandwiches, cereal, pre-washed salad stuff), or get takeout. I can cook some things – omlettes, a handful of different pasta dishes, even roast chicken. But other than that, I just don’t feel that I’m a great cook and it stresses me out. I’ve had more than my share of epic fails in the kitchen – especially when I moved in with my Fiance and tried to be more domestic but ended up ruining various meals or just getting stressed out by cooking or feeling that the food I was making was either a) healthy and tasted nasty or b) yummy but fattening…I just felt like it is such a no win situation!
Thing is I LOVE the IDEA of cooking. Like to watch cooking shows, LOVE to look at cookbooks (and I have half a dozen I never, ever use), I tear recipes out of magazines all the time, and they sit in my recipe box collecting dust. I’ll start the week out w/great intentions – buying a ton of veggies w/ideas of what I’m going to make – even planning out several recipes – but then I get too tired when I get home to cook and I end up having $50 of rotten produce in my fridge at teh end fo the week.
Most recipes either overwhelm me because they call for a lot of ingredients – that I would have to buy for just that ONE recipe – and I hate having to buy all that stuff and watch it go bad. Some of the techniques are over my head too. I get frustrated and want to rush when chopping veggies, peeling, etc, and then I mess stuff up.
I just don’t know what to do! I did take some cooking classes about a year ago and everything seemed so simple then…but at home alone in my kitchen it is a disaster. Luckily, my honey is a great cook but….I would LOVE to have that cooking gene myself! My mom says I will get it through practice, but I dunno, I am almost 30 and nothing yet!
Anyone who is great in the kitchen – do you have ideas/advice to getting started? Simple recipes that are healthy and yummy and that don’t require a lot of ingredients and time? Or things that can be bought to make several recipes in a week? Good cookbooks for beginners w/yummy and healthy and easy recipes or technique advice? What do you do to fit cooking into your busy life when you get home at 7:30 pm exhausted?!? Help!
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