i moved out of my parents house at 24 and i honestly had no idea how to cook anything besides scrambled eggs

for the first year i basically lived off frozen food and delivery bc the idea of cooking a real meal felt so stressed after a long day of work

i would tell myself id start eating better when i had more time but i was just making excuses and my health was slowly getting worse

about a year ago i realized i was spending so much money on takeout and i just felt terrible all the time so i decided i needed to actually figure out how to cook

the hardest part was that every recipe online is written for a whole family of six people and i was just cooking for myself

trying to make a recipe down for a single persn my phone was a total nightmare i would mess up the quantity for the oil or the salt and the food would taste total shit and i would just give up and order a burger

i was scrolling through an old forum thread about easy cooking tips and saw people mentioning ojafi, cronometer and idk what else

i started using ojafi to just resize the recipes down to exactly one portion so i didnt have to do the calculation myself at which gpt fails too lol, and i finallu didnt have to eat the same leftovers for five days straight

it is not a magic solution for being a bad cook i still burn things all the time but it took away the shitty math part of cooking

i can actually try making new things without worrying about wasting a ton of food or messing up the portion sizes

learning to cook is a slow process but having a way to just make exactly what i need for one person made it way less intimidating for me

OMG I DO NOT LIKE VEGETABLES. Well, most of them.
Also, because I'm super picky, i don't like salad dressings. Do not care for ranch or Italian or thousand island, or very much for vinegar and oil.

But holy cow I need more vegetables. Just to be alive. So I have some basic salad, but I want to up the flavor quotient. (lettuce, carrot, shredded cheddar, red or green onion, mushroom, olive, a little tomato).

I have a variety of seasonings and sauces already in the cabinet/fridge, but I'm willing to do inexpensive shopping.

Please help me thing vegetables are something I WANT

I have cans of corn, green beans, peas, and a blend of beans (kidney/pinto/black). All of them are "no salt added" because I need to have a low sodium diet.

I don't want to add any foods because I want them to stay low calorie, otherwise I'd just add bacon to the beans e.t.c..... I have a half cup of each, which comes out to about 235 calories as-is (I also added a little diced tomato to the corn, so probably closer to 250-260). If it will really help, I'll add another food, but want to keep it under 300 calories total.

I added a lot of black pepper and onion powder to the beans, as well as some chili powder and crushed red pepper flakes for a kick. Felt like I added a lot, but didn't taste like it. For the rest of the items I just added black pepper. (I would add garlic powder too but I'm out)

Everything felt bland, like I hadn't even added any spices at all. I understand salt usually helps flavors come out, but since I'm trying to stay low sodium I really don't want to mess with it.

If i get ground beef whether its frozen, straight from the butcher, or in a pack, it smells like a beefy combination of milk + cow sweat. Everywhere online says beef isnt supposed to smell at all, but every single store ive bought it from has the exact same kind of gross smell.

What exactly is this smell? Its only beef that has it, no other meat ive encountered is like this. Scientifically please.

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had a recipe for spaghetti sauce with meat, tomatoes, and to stretch it further, red lentils. The ones I see are either meat or red lentils.

Thanks in advance

I've looked up online and really wanna do some microwave scrambled eggs. I have the mug, all my seasonings, but the only thing I'm confused on is the oil it tells me to add to my cup. I've read that spray extra virgin olive oil is okay to put in the microwave (this would be the lining between my cup) but I've seen conflicting things online saying both spray extra virgin olive oil is okay for a microwave as well as cooking oil in a microwave is a bad idea. Would spray be different from normal oil?

I have a package of chicken that's been in the fridge. I just took it out to boil for shredding and noticed the sell by date was the 12th. Is it ok to cook and use?

Anybody have experience with this?

So, I'm feeling pretty burned out from work and haven't been cooking properly. Somebody told me to make quiche because it's healthy and easy. They said it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to prepare (plus the time in the oven).

I've eaten plenty of quiche Lorraine in my life, so I felt too lazy to follow a recipe. I just threw together the ingredients (leek, onion, eggs, spices, cream, bacon, and cheese) and popped it in the oven...

Only then did I start doubting whether I'd used the right number of eggs. I looked up a recipe, and lo and behold... you're supposed to fry the bacon, onion, and leek first.

But the oven will 'cook' the ingredients, right? How terrible will it turn out?

Update: the quiche turned out okay. I just left it in 10min longer than my friend recommended. The leak was perfectly soft, the bacon a little more chewy than I'm used to but otherwise fine. It's not perfect but still very tasty and enough so that I don't have to think about making food for tomorrow.

New to cooking poultry - photo in comments

I cooked skinless boneless chicken thighs at 400 for about 34ish minutes. I seasoned it very lightly. The coloring looks off to me, seems too white, and in some areas gray? Not really brown anywhere. Has this gone bad? Did I overcook or undercook? Or just not season enough?

i usually buy pre-peeled, deveined shrimp. no matter what i do, the shrimp always seems to develop this weird salty crust that just spoils the whole thing. i've airfried it, seared it, and it still happens. idek what im doing wrong bc i can cook other meats and seafood just fine...

i just thaw it under running water while its sealed in a bag, then i season it and cook it as normal.

edit: to clarify, it's not like just shrimp browning. its like a thin crust on it that doesn't seem like it's part of the shrimp.

I’m making my first chicken stock, and this may be a dumb question, but do I just throw all of the vegetables, aromatics, and bones away when I’m done? Or can I do something else with them??

I didn’t have any duck sauce with my Chinese food. So I looked up a recipe. Of course I didn’t have plum or apricot preserves. So I improvised with orange marmalade and cherry jam. I also added soy sauce and grated garlic. Cooked it on medium low for about five minutes and it was done. It was really good! Better than the stuff you get from the restaurant! I’m proud of myself and excited to learn more things!

one on the face idea is to simply use it in salad. what other things can i use it for?