Reddit reviews How to Cook Everything The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food--With 1,000 Photos
We found 57 Reddit comments about How to Cook Everything The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food--With 1,000 Photos. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Houghton Mifflin
How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything: Basics by Mark Bittman
My favorite general reference cookbook is How to Cook Everything by Mark Bitman, there is also a Basics version.
My favorite blog is Food Lab by written by /u/J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt.
My suggestion is learn some basics like Chicken(Grilled, Roasted, Fried), Fish(Grilled, pan fried, baked), Shrimp(grilled, sauted).
And of course every man needs to learn to make breakfast. [Gordon Ramsay's Scrambled Eggs] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0) will go with toast, pancakes, potatoes, or french toast.
For camping (Sorry, a tad over $100):
For Cooking:
For lots of simple tips, techniques and recipes, I highly recommend Bittman's book, How To Cook Everything: The Basics.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-The-Basics/dp/0470528060
not sure whether there's a translation, but there's a ton of photos so that might be helpful anyway.
How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
How To Cook Everything: The Basics is the book he's looking for. It assumes you know nothing:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-The-Basics/dp/0470528060
Highly recommended for the adult looking to learn how to cook.
If you can't seem to master regular recipes, I'd just stick with the premade baby food. It's not that pricey (of course, it's more expensive than making it yourself) and it's super easy to use. I consider myself a better than average cook/recipe follower, and I had trouble keeping up with making baby food for my 9 month old.
If you're looking to learn how to cook, I'd recommend buying an actual cookbook. Following recipes online is great, but old school cookbooks have a whole section in the front that teach you the basics. I like this one by Better Homes and Gardens, or How to Cook Everything
I just picked up How to cook everything: the basics
And it's pretty great so far! Would recommend!
How to Cook Everything?
https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Basics-Food/dp/0470528060/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HFC803YQH279CXFY3EM3
How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman will walk you through absolutely everything from scratch, including what tools and spices you need and how to set up your kitchen.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Basics-Food/dp/0470528060
I'm going to chime in here and recommend Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, The Basics.Buy a used copy and it's all you need (technique and recipe wise) for a really solid start.
It looks like Amazon has two main options for that book. How to Cook Everything revised 10th anniversary addition and How to Cook Everything basics.
Would you pick a specific one over the other?
For context, the extent of my cooking skill is putting spaghetti in a pot and adding sauce from a jar.
It's a very good place to start. In addition to that book, there is How to Cook Everything: The Basics, which does a fantastic job of covering method. https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Basics-Food/dp/0470528060 It has a lot of pictures and straightforward instructions.
Find your local cheap grocery store...Sav-A-Lot, Aldi, etc. I think it depends on where you are...but...a discount place will help you b/c they usually have smaller packaging, and cheaper ingredients.
Find a basics book like this. You can get books from your library, I also use Overdrive app to borrow ebooks (I use it through my local library, but you can sign up with an email). These kinds of books will explain the steps and process, more than just give you directions on putting ingredients together.
When using a recipe: read through the whole recipe and ingredients first. If you don't recognize everything...look it up, but consider that if you have to look up a bunch of stuff, it might be beyond your scope for the time being and attempt something else.
On supplies: You really don't need a lot, utilize thrift stores, craigslist, FB marketplace - a lot of people give these things away when they get new. For basics:
A lot of this stuff might be sitting in relative's kitchens unused...and they might even give you a few things if you let them know you're looking for some supplies.
In the future, also look into a crock pot. You can use it with minimal effort and make enough to save food for later (large pot of soup - split it up into quart freezer bags and thaw for meals later).
Meal planning for beginners...Find 3 or 4 dishes you can learn how to make and keep making them until you know how to do them without messing up at all. Basic dishes. A rice dish, a pasta dish, a soup, a casserole (like chicken pot pie). Don't worry about trying to make everything from scratch...You can buy minute rice, and pre-made pie crusts, canned and frozen vegetables are cheaper than fresh and don't go bad in the fridge if you can't use them quickly. But frozen tends to be better for most varieties...and you can even buy frozen diced onions...and since many recipes start with cooking onion...using frozen saves you time and effort. You can also buy minced garlic in the jar...which I prefer to powdered, and lasts longer than fresh.
Mark Bittman's cookbook "How to Cook Everything" is really great to learn the basics, and has tons of easy-to-follow pictures in it. Just making all the recipes in this book taught me how to cook very well.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Basics-Food/dp/0470528060
go to your library and check out how to cook everything: the basics. this will give you a very good, easy start!
I second this, and I'll add my 'starter cookbook' to help you out. How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman. My copy is older, I've had it since I was a teenager, so no photos in mine, only diagrams. I still learned a lot from it, and it's still my go-to for a lot of basic recipes.
Cooking at home it's also easier to control your calorie intake, especially if you use recipes that go by weight. A good tip to make it easier for a beginner is to use bowls. Just like on cooking shows, measure out your spices and ingredients into bowls and then they're all ready for you. (Also always chop your veggies before your meat, food safety.) Kitchen timers and a meat thermometer are your friends when you're just starting out, and you're not sure if it's done or not.
Not an online resource, but "How to Cook Everything: The Basics" by Mark Bittman would probably be useful to you. It explains "why" in detail. I got a used copy for $10. Money well spent.
Here ya go - you can both learn!
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Basics-Food--/dp/0470528060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426772178&sr=8-1&keywords=cookbook+for+beginners
How to Cook Everything The Basics - Awesome book with hundreds of step by step photos.
I have several more recommendations but this one is the best, I think.
Edit: formatting.
I sent you a message separately since I don't want to be spammy and link to my own site here. But I'd like to address your general concerns of where and how to begin.
If you want to make some honey BBQ or apricot chicken, that's great. However, starting at that level may actually be a disservice to you, especially as most recipes are structured to assume some base level of knowledge that you don't have. The result can be frustrating as you try to piece together bits of knowledge from wherever you can scrounge them.
The worst part is not understanding why certain things are happening. The Alton Brown recipe that /u/MercuryCrest shared will be unusually good because he's teaching you why you're doing certain things. That will make recipes repeatable and your skills generalizable.
If you can get access to all of Good Eats, that's typically what people recommend. But I'd also like to recommend just a good book, like Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything The Basics which will walk you through a bunch of beginner recipes.
There's a series of books titled "How to Cook Everything". They've been invaluable to me.
Start here: http://amzn.com/0470528060
How to Cook Everything the Basics
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470528060/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1451953027&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=how+to+cook+everything+the+basics&dpPl=1&dpID=514SFQtA8fL&ref=plSrch
This book is great because it tells you how to cook everyday things the right way. Then it gives you many tips and directions on how to make variations. The book also starts with a list of all of the basic tools and ingredients you should have in your kitchen. I've been cooking at home for a while and I recently learned a lot from this book. I hope your club is a blast. Great idea!
It's in the book How to Cook Everything The Basics (Hardcover) (not a referral link) by Mark Bittman page 204-205 (Paella with Chicken and Sausages).
I don't want to infringe copyright so the closest to the recipe that I found was this one by Mark himself:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014667-paella-master-recipe
Modification to this recipe is:
For me, the paella is whatever you want it to be. Too much people complaining about what a real paella is. Let's just eat and enjoy it.
Try Mark Bittman’s Basics. Step by step skill building and tons of photos to follow along. Highly recommended!
I'm in the same boat as you. I can follow a recipe but I have no actual cooking basics. I just bought this book and it is fantastic. Explains everything from the very beginning (hello boiling water) and then gets more complex as it goes along.
I'm going to start at the beginning and cook my way through. Pretty excited about it.
How to Cook Everything The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food--With 1,000 Photos https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470528060/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_dSMfvb07D7242
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470528060/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_dSMfvb07D7242
Hey, I am currently trying to do the same thing!! Right now I am using Mark Bittman's book http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-The-Basics/dp/0470528060/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1346980473&sr=8-3&keywords=mark+bittman he's amazing! Everything he has is so simple and its a good start to learn the very basics of everything. New is only 14! He has a bunch of other basics books including vegetarian. Check it out, and PM if you want to know anything else, I have made about 25 of the recipes from this book and have loved everyone.
no this is
I would really suggest you check out How to Cook Everything: The Basics, by Mark Bittman. It will teach you techniques and how to use them (with recipes) so that you learn how to cook, instead of just learning a few recipes.
It's not a complicated or fancy approach to cooking or anything - it's just an excellent guide to learning what you should about cooking.
In my opinion I think that as a beginner, looking online for recipes can be so overwhelming and it's hard to find what's good and what's garbage without an established sense of taste/cooking. Sure, you can look at the comments, but it takes a lot of time and without knowing how to cook it's hard to know what you're even looking for.
I would highly recommend trying out a beginner's cookbook (Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics or How to Cook Everything Vegetarian are great ones). Look through it, read up on techniques/skills, and pick something you think you'll like and cook it.
Also, you can probably check out cookbooks from your library if you want to try them out before investing money on them.
Remember that we all started somewhere. Nobody is born a good cook, it's a learned skill that you have to practice. Same with taste - if you're used to tasting the same types of foods, you're going to have to adjust to trying new foods. I didn't eat any vegetables at all growing up and now I love them! I just realized you need to put salt and cheese on them, lol. But really I also just needed to get used to the taste, which took some time.
Cooking Basics for Dummies?
How to Cook Everything, The Basics?
No doubt it would. Honestly if you're new to cooking there's a book I can't recommend enough. It's pretty healthy (as long as you keep most of what you're eatin in mind) and teaches solid basic techniques and concepts. It's called "how to cook everything the basics" by mark bittman.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-The-Basics/dp/0470528060
It'll talk about how to cook eggs properly and so on. He's good bring out flavor with very simple and mostly healthy ideas (ignoring the butter he likes to use).
Try reading How To Cook Everything: The Basics. It's basically a cook book for people that just want to make basic things, nothing fancy.
I'd recommend buying this book which has tons of great recipes at a variety of easy levels and it does a great job showing and describing different cooking methods. It's seriously the best.
Mark Bittman is brilliant.
This book is really helpful. A friend of mine can barely cook as well, and this book not only gives recipes, but images showing precisely how the food is supposed to look on certain steps. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470528060/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_ldEpDb8GZ5RYT
Buy rotisserie chickens from the grocery store (healthier than breaded and already pre-cooked). You can even make a simple bone broth with the leftover carcasses (freeze until ready).
I was a beginner cook (age 29!) and this book is excellent to help you learn the basics (boil water, scramble eggs, make a salad, etc) : http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470528060/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1462492744&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=basic+cookbook&dpPl=1&dpID=51ZFp-8FH4L&ref=plSrch
I started following several cooking subreddits to give me motivation to try new dishes . /r/shittyfoodporn helps on those days when i feel like a failure.
But if you keep trying, you'll start to get excited by all the different types of foods there are out there.
This is a fantastic book that I actually got for my boyfriend, but I use it more than he does!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470528060?pc_redir=1396182476&robot_redir=1
It's all about the basics (from how to cut veggies, to how to cook different meats, etc). And it doesn't judge! We don't all have the benefit of great cook mothers who taught us everything we know :)
Starting resource: Bittman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics
Other tips:
Almost anything is great sautéed in olive oil with salt & pepper. You can get fancier from there, but once chopping & sautéing becomes no big deal, cooking gets a lot easier. You just have to level up!
If you are not yet readily chopping veggies into bits, there are lots of pre-packaged bags of salad greens & veggies. I have found veggie trays (carrot & celery sticks w/ ranch) are a quick & easy fix, and more fun to eat as it seems like you're at a party. Other quick finger foods like grapes, nuts, berries, turkey pepperoni or string cheese are handy to have around for a blood sugar boost for meal-making energy.
You can never go wrong with PB & J, grilled cheese, or scrambled eggs.
A slow cooker/rice cooker is your friend. Chili is easy to make and will keep a while. Delicious over brown rice, add cheese.
Good luck!
When it comes to burning fat, exercise alone isn't going to do it. You'd be much better off modifying your diet.
Some diet pointers:
Best of luck!
As a cooking newb, I found How To Cook Everything: The Basics to be an absolutely invaluable source. It goes through all the basic equipment you'll need, explains the techniques step-by-step, and has lots of simple yet extremely tasty recipes. It's divided into sections (Pasta, Meats, Vegetables, etc) with each section having recipes arranged by difficulty. I've cooked about a dozen or so things from the book, and aside from one they all turned out delicious and extremely cheap since he focuses on simple dishes with flavorful ingredients. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-The-Basics/dp/0470528060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348689098&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+cook+everything+the+basics
Mark Bittman is a perennial favorite, great for beginners
Also, look up the Alton Brown books and the Everything Cooking series.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-The-Basics/dp/0470528060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376605340
I LOVE How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman. He goes into not only WHAT to cook, but HOW to cook. Definitely worth it, in my opinion.
How to Cook Everything The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food--With 1,000 Photos
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470528060/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_WkBQDb19H77Y0
Also Binging with Babish on YouTube has a playlist of basics.
Thug Kitchen and Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything the Basics
Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything the Basics is really good for beginner stuff. Thug Kitchen's new book is also a great starting place for learning how to cook cheap and healthy.
My all time favorite cookbook is Mastering the Art of French Cooking which is a great intro to French techniques. The recipes themselves are not always cheap and healthy, but the skills you learn are super super useful for any type of cooking. It is by far the cookbook I have learned the most from.
No one has mentioned it yet, but I learned a lot from cook books.
These are not just lists or recipes, but instruction about techniques and methods and processes.
Some good ones are:
Having an actual dead tree book can be more convenient in the kitchen than a laptop or mobile device with an ebook.
If you can find episodes of Good Eats by Alton Brown he is really good at explaining things. Videos can be good, but a lot of times but really only when you know what it is you're looking for. With a book it is going to give you topics that you might never have thought of.
But for reals now, you are going to get the best value learning how to cook the basics. Your Instant pot is AWESOME for cooking dry beans. Get pound of dry black beans and 3 pounds of water (obviously you need a good kitchen scale). I just put the inner pot of my Instantpot on the scale, dump in the beans, tare it, then pour water in with a big cup till I have 3 lbs. Put in 1/2-1 teaspoon of salt. I also add granulated garlic and powdered onion and some cumin but you don't have to. Set your instanpot to manual for 45 mins and wait. Let it naturally release, if you manually release the pressure the skin on the beans will break, to me it still tastes the same but you have far fewer whole beans. Now you have a weeks worth of delicious, healthy black beans. No need for overnight soak or anything.
Small white beans (a.k.a navy beans) can be cooked the same and they taste different but just as good. Or you can add the extra ingredients and make pork and beans.
You can cook pinto beans with the same basic recipe, and they taste great too. When you want to take the extra time, then with a slotted spoon dish the cooked beans into a large frying pan with some lard or shortening and make your own refried beans. You smash the beans with the back of the spoon or a spatula, and use the bean broth to add liquid till you like the texture.
If you can't tell I like cooking beans in my Instantpot. I have a rice cooker but you can cook rice in the Instantpot too. Beans and rice is healthy and cheap!!! (cook them separately and mix them after cooking).
I personally have not used this cookbook, but I had a friend once that loved it. May be worth a look for your husband - the description (as well as several reviews) state that it does a great job at explaining things in detail
There is also this book by the same author that is apparently more basic and focused on learning proper cooking techniques.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Basics-Food/dp/0470528060
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-boil-water-food-network-kitchens/1007761415#/
https://www.target.com/p/clueless-in-the-kitchen-cooking-for-beginners-paperback-evelyn-raab/-/A-52746137
Good on you for deciding to make a healthy change! Definitely check out the /r/EatCheapAndHealthy/ sub. It's a kind and helpful group that routinely gives great tips and recipes.
If you're just starting out, investing in a basic cookbook is an excellent way to learn cooking skills at your own pace. I'd get one that starts with boiling eggs and such basics, then progresses to simple recipes. How to Cook Everything: The Basics and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian are good ones, both by Mark Bittman. Another good resource is BudgetBytes.com.
Also, you might do some reading up on meal planning. IMO, it's just as important as the cooking and eating.
They are good sources of protein! I bring up shrimp - and lobster too - because they are essentially insects from under the water. (Sorry if this ruins shrimp for you.) And anything tastes good fried.
I just got this excellent cookbook and I am slowly going to work my way through it, honing my basic skills. There is nothing I love so much as cooking, though I hate doing dishes after.
EDIT: So eat something! There's gotta be something around for you to snack on, right?
I really liked this book when I was just learning to cook.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-The-Basics/dp/0470528060/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1408970714&sr=8-1
Gonna quote some excerpts from one of the top reviews:
>How to Cook Everything: The Basics is a "cookbook" designed to teach new cooks the fundamentals to ingredients, cookware, and food preparation.
>Although it is filled with recipes, The Basics is not really a cookbook. It is presented in a very straightforward way that is designed to not only give you starter recipes, but to provide recipes that teach the fundamentals of cooking. For a "basics" cookbook, one thing I look for is whether it truly is targeted to teaching the basics. When I was first learning to cook, I would be thoroughly confused every time a recipe called for "onion," and went to the story only to discover four different types of onions. And what does "salt to taste" mean? Fortunately, Bittman's book takes these things into account and is very good at not making assumptions on the cooking level of the reader.
If you've got $25, check it out.
I also love his How to Cook Everything: The Basics. Most of them are super simple, some are stupid simple (scrambled eggs?), but everything I've cooked from here have been absolutely delicious. It's a nice book to have when you want something simple and fast(ish). Plus every recipe has a picture. I only really buy cook books that have pictures since I flip through books and use the pictures to decide what I want to eat.
Mark Bittman's wonderful How to Cook Everything-- The Basics should help :)
Buy yourself a copy of Mark Bitman's How to Cook Everything: The Basics. It has really good photos for ... well... how to cook everything.