Perhaps the primary thought I have about cooking is that there are very, very few recipes that need exact amounts of ingredients to be good. Don't be afraid to substitute, sure you will crash and burn once in a while, but I'll bet it isn't often! Also, simple is usually really good.
Sweet-tooth. All sugar is addictive according to researchers who have been doing experiments that involve brain scans and brain chemistry. Sugar + fat is just as addictive to humans as substances like cocaine. So replacing white sugar with honey doesn't work - the same addiction is there, releasing endorphins into our brains. The good news? Things that taste like cardboard at first will reveal themselves as being lovely and flavorful as your brain adjusts. I remember when I quit eating butter on my baked potato. I -could not- taste anything. A few months later I could taste all kinds of things in potatoes, in fact they were really -good- without butter. So be patient with yourself as you detox your taste buds.
I'm going to second the "you don't need gadgets" theme. A good chefs knife, I got a nice stainless one that I've used now for at least 20 years, a paring knife (I love the extra cheap one I got for $3 at the local hardware store) AND a sharpener. If you don't want to learn to sharpen on a knife "steel" then get something like the AccuSharp sharpener (+-$8). Dull knifes are both annoying and dangerous.
I keep a cabinet full of spices, perhaps 25 different bottles (bottles keep bugs out of things) of which I regularly use about 15. If you can, buy spices in bulk from a good health food store. Bottles of stuff on grocery store shelves are often quite old, and they usually cost 3 to 10 times as much as bulk. Throw out unused spices once a year and start over, spices loose flavor as they age. In dishes that use basil, oregano and the like, I also like to use dried nettle, which imparts a lovely subtle flavor and adds great vitamins and calcium.
I roast a couple of chickens at a time, have roast chicken, bone the rest of the chicken and freeze in approximately one or two cup servings, which is perfect for the quick meal ingredient. Bones get made into chicken soup which I also freeze for later use. Having soup frozen in 1/2 cup to quart sizes allows you to use whatever amount you need for a recipe. I like to cook rice, barley, lentils and or beans separately to throw into the soup stock along with handy vegetables (not broccoli). Cooked grains freeze well too. By the way, go look at canned chicken soup labels (or for that matter the cubes) and note the amounts of salt and monosodium glutamate in them. Euuuwww.
Basic vinagrette: vinegar (red wine, white wine, apple cider) or lemon (use fresh lemons, the bottled stuff is too bitter for this) ~ 1/3 cup, big pinch of dill, dash of water if you like (cuts acid a little), pinch of brown sugar (unless some other ingredient contains sugar), salt to taste, pepper if you want. Olive oil, not too much, should be less than 1/4 of dressing unless you need the fat. To this basic recipe I like to add plain yellow mustard, 1+ tablespoons full, depending on how you like mustard. Balsamic vinegar can be added for variety, but I wouldn't make it the primary vinegar.
Salad + protein (tuna, shrimp, chicken) + vinagrette = good quick meal.
Someplace I have a good recipe for curry. Yep, curry is just a bunch of spices cooked together, and if you have a good basic recipe you can then adjust to your taste. It is really easy.
no subject
Sweet-tooth. All sugar is addictive according to researchers who have been doing experiments that involve brain scans and brain chemistry. Sugar + fat is just as addictive to humans as substances like cocaine. So replacing white sugar with honey doesn't work - the same addiction is there, releasing endorphins into our brains.
The good news? Things that taste like cardboard at first will reveal themselves as being lovely and flavorful as your brain adjusts. I remember when I quit eating butter on my baked potato. I -could not- taste anything. A few months later I could taste all kinds of things in potatoes, in fact they were really -good- without butter. So be patient with yourself as you detox your taste buds.
I'm going to second the "you don't need gadgets" theme. A good chefs knife, I got a nice stainless one that I've used now for at least 20 years, a paring knife (I love the extra cheap one I got for $3 at the local hardware store) AND a sharpener. If you don't want to learn to sharpen on a knife "steel" then get something like the AccuSharp sharpener (+-$8). Dull knifes are both annoying and dangerous.
I keep a cabinet full of spices, perhaps 25 different bottles (bottles keep bugs out of things) of which I regularly use about 15. If you can, buy spices in bulk from a good health food store. Bottles of stuff on grocery store shelves are often quite old, and they usually cost 3 to 10 times as much as bulk. Throw out unused spices once a year and start over, spices loose flavor as they age. In dishes that use basil, oregano and the like, I also like to use dried nettle, which imparts a lovely subtle flavor and adds great vitamins and calcium.
I roast a couple of chickens at a time, have roast chicken, bone the rest of the chicken and freeze in approximately one or two cup servings, which is perfect for the quick meal ingredient. Bones get made into chicken soup which I also freeze for later use. Having soup frozen in 1/2 cup to quart sizes allows you to use whatever amount you need for a recipe. I like to cook rice, barley, lentils and or beans separately to throw into the soup stock along with handy vegetables (not broccoli). Cooked grains freeze well too. By the way, go look at canned chicken soup labels (or for that matter the cubes) and note the amounts of salt and monosodium glutamate in them. Euuuwww.
Basic vinagrette: vinegar (red wine, white wine, apple cider) or lemon (use fresh lemons, the bottled stuff is too bitter for this) ~ 1/3 cup, big pinch of dill, dash of water if you like (cuts acid a little), pinch of brown sugar (unless some other ingredient contains sugar), salt to taste, pepper if you want. Olive oil, not too much, should be less than 1/4 of dressing unless you need the fat. To this basic recipe I like to add plain yellow mustard, 1+ tablespoons full, depending on how you like mustard. Balsamic vinegar can be added for variety, but I wouldn't make it the primary vinegar.
Salad + protein (tuna, shrimp, chicken) + vinagrette = good quick meal.
Someplace I have a good recipe for curry. Yep, curry is just a bunch of spices cooked together, and if you have a good basic recipe you can then adjust to your taste. It is really easy.
Link to post where I recommend a cookbook:
http://ranunculus.dreamwidth.org/295566.html