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

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.

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.

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 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!

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?

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 use flour, i use heavy cream, i use butter, but most of my sauces are still runny and thin. the only thing i don't experience this with is tomato sauce, but i think that'd be hard to mess up.

any tips? is it the order of ingredients? usually i sear my meat and veggies and mix my flour into a blend of broth and cream, then pour that in.

I won't buy any pantry items until everything is consumed.

I have dry beans, chickpeas, lentils, rice, pasta, tomato paste, spices, nuts, frozen meals in the freezer (mostly veggies, so they wouldn't rot in the fridge before I eat them )

It seems like I will eat a lot of pasta with my veggie meals but I don't want to get tired of eating it frequently.

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

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.

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’m pregnant and very sick. I’ve been eating top ramen almost every day since it seems to neutralize my stomach and doesn’t come back up. However, I recognize that it’s deeply unhealthy but I need a safe food that will help with my nausea. Is there a way I can replicate this in a healthy way?

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

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

Like I bought a Mustard Sauce from VEEBA it mentioned that it is a culinary sauce. Now for sort of dishes can I use it like I want it to be budget friendly and easy access to ingredients like I stay in India I can opt for Beef, Mutton, Chicken and Pork. Can I use the same mustard sauce for Creamy Mustard Chicken ?

I was looking at a recipe that said 15 minutes, and somehow I've spent 10 minutes just peeling and chopping things before I've even turned the stove on.

Am I just slow at prepping, or are those timings unrealistic for everyone?

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.

Instead of trying random recipes every night, I want to focus on mastering one specific dish that actually teaches core techniques like heat control and seasoning.

What’s the ultimate starter food that leveled up your cooking skills the fastest?

I’m learning how to cook more seriously and made a creamy Cajun chicken rigatoni tonight. The food came out edible, but I couldn’t get the sauce to properly cling to the pasta. It stayed pretty watery and kept pooling at the bottom of the pan instead of coating the rigatoni.

Here’s roughly what I used:

222g dry rigatoni
871g boneless skinless chicken thighs
101g heavy cream
100g reserved pasta water
54g freshly grated Parmesan
270g sliced bell peppers
138g sliced onion
12g fresh garlic
8g avocado oil for the vegetables
Cajun seasoning/spices

My process was:

I cooked the chicken separately in stainless steel, removed it, then sautéed the peppers and onions in the same pan. Added the garlic, then added the heavy cream and about 100g pasta water.
I let that gently reduce for a couple minutes, turned the heat off, gradually stirred in the freshly grated Parmesan, then added the cooked rigatoni.
The problem was that even after tossing everything together, the sauce wasn’t really grabbing onto the pasta. It was visibly watery and pooling underneath it.

I eventually made a small slurry with 3g cornstarch + 15g cold water, brought everything back to a gentle simmer, and that helped thicken it.
What I’m trying to understand is why I needed the slurry in the first place.

Any advice?

EDIT: GE support looked at a video and concluded the "duty cycle" for the burner isn't functioning properly. Appreciate the 10% of people who told me it's an issue and encouraged me to reach out.

My stovetop goes to 550+ degrees at setting 5.5 (out of 10). I put in a maintenance ticket and got a response that the guy checked the stove and didn't see an issue.

Temperature was taken with an infrared laser thermometer. I'm not crazy, right? Isn't that way too high?

I tried an easy chicken tikka masala recipe the other day involving canned crushed tomatoes and coconut milk rather than cream. It was alright but the flavor was a bit too sour and one dimensional. Any advice on making it less acidic and more well rounded? Obviously I can cut the tomato amount but wondering if there are other tips.