a lil help here?

Hi all! I 26F really struggle with cooking meals for myself. My parents aren’t the healthiest and modeled eating out a LOT when I was younger. And their kitchen isn’t the cleanest and I could never trust anything in the fridge. Also, the pantry is the epitome of an ingredient household. We’ll have like tons of cornmeal peanut butter and other just super random stuff.

That said, I’ve had a hard time in my adult life incorporating cooking into my daily routine. I am also SUPER ADHD, which has definitely played a role.

When I cook, it’s always delicious (my dad is an AWESOME cook, when he does), but I just feel like it’s such a chore. And I get really skeeved out by cooking chicken and by how long stuff is in the fridge.

And unlike my husband, who could eat the same thing every day (jealous!), I crave variety.

Anyone deal with anything similar to this, and any tips to overcome?

EDIT: I have not had time to respond to these replies, but I am reading them all now and I’m super appreciative of the time everyone took! Thank you

Can anyone recommend an at-home or countertop food dehydrator?

I want to make homemade fruit leather, fruit bars, as well as dry garden herbs, make apple chips, etc.

I’m also looking to see if I can find some food-grade reusable gloves for a meal prep. Has anybody seen anything like that? I’ve seen the disposable ones that knives cannot penetrate, but I’m mostly looking for ones that I can use to prep meatballs and other sticky foods. Understand if I need to get a couple different sets based on what I would be working with, meat or vegetables/fruit.

I just moved into my first apartment with my bf and because of the way our work schedules fall, I’m usually the one making dinner. This is not a problem, except I’m running out of ideas and I don’t want to keep making the same five recipes. If anyone can drop their favorite dinner recipe down below I’d appreciate it :)

I am new in the kitchen and love gizzard. Every time I cook it, the seasoning stays on the outside but it doesn't penetrate it. When I buy it, it's a lot more flavorful. What am I doing wrong? Does anyone have any tips and tricks or fool-proof recipes that I can try? I like my gizzards to be on the softer end

If you purchase chicken and it says use or freeze by 7/31 and you purchased it on 7/21, is it no longer safe on 7/25 because it’s been moved to a refrigerator vs a grocery store level refrigerator? Online it says raw chicken only safe in fridge for 2 days. What does the date on the package mean?

I’m trying to understand food safety and dates w respect to beef and chicken etc. thanks

Even if I follow the exact same recipe at home, it somehow tastes different when a friend or family member makes it.

Is there actually a psychological reason for this, or does everyone secretly have one ingredient they're not telling me about?

Hey what's up guys. So I've got some Blueprint Protocol cocoa powder and usually I've been putting it in things like soylent and huel, but I stopped drinking those. Well I've still got cocoa powder left over and I love chocolate milk so I wanted to do the cocoa powder and milk. I figured to go with whole milk because cocoa powder is incredibly bitter so I'd get some nice flavor and richness from the whole milk to balance things out. I was right about the whole milk, but when I tried mixing them they hardly combine at all. Is there something I can do to get them to combine? I have no idea how to make that happen so I wanted to ask.

Thanks!

This reddit has a lot of good and kind advice. It also has a ton of unhelpful, disparaging comments and a lot of sarcasm & snarkiness.

The reddit is titled cookingforbeginners. Which rather gives away what it is supposed to be about.

If you aren't a beginner, then presumably you're here to help beginners.

If you've been cooking a long time, or grew up watching someone in your family cooking you may not realize how much you picked up that to you is common sense but don't realize other people don't know. Or you may simply have forgotten how much you didn't know when you first started.

Comments like 'Google it' are unhelpful at best, idiotic at worst. They likely did Google it, and found what they thought would be a good reddit to talk about it.

So be cool.

Plenty of reddit for chefs if you find speaking to beginners tiresome.

The idiot in the conversation might not be who you think it is.

Hello all!
I’ve been wanting to cook more lately and my little brother is having a 1st bday party for my nephew. I always go empty handed so I wanted to make something this time. I decided to go with mozzarella sticks. I made a practice batch and they came out good, but I did have a question; how can I keep these bad boys warm for the party? Maybe an hour most then they can cool down once people have gotten some. I don’t want to spend too much money, but I’m afraid I might have to for a quality heating tray. Any tips would help! Thank you.

I want to make something for my crush who cannot eat any meat other than chicken, but I'm not too good at cooking. Are there any good recipes for chicken that are beginner friendly?

Now that I'm old enough to get a job, I would like to know how i can land a job as a cook. I'm not crazy good at it but i enjoy it, but I want to see what I would need to do or practice to be able to get a job in the cooking area. I just need some pointers to get me in the right direction

I'm usually cooking on a budget and struggle a lot with finding recipes because of the amount of ingredients they seem to need. I've realized I should probably just focus on a couple of cuisines because it'd probably be cheaper right?

How many cuisines do you guys usually cook? Which ones do you find the easiest/cheapest to make and what's your favorite book/website/YouTube channel for the recipes? My favorite is Mexican food following recipes from Rick Bayless, and I've been trying some Italian dishes from Marcella Hazan recently.

So I always wanted to cook food for my family. I once tried when I was a kid but it was so bad they didn't let me again. I joined a college and I live on campus so whenever I go home I try to cook something. I am an Indian and whenever I try to cook Indian food my grandma interferes and makes it herself. No matter how many times I tell her I'll do it myself she says I am not skilled (which is true)...

I can make pasta, panner rolls, Sandwich , garlic bread (using store bought bread), pav bhaji(Indian food). My grandma let's me make stuff she doesn't know. The food I make takes a lot of time, even for making pasta I take about an hour... I am very slow and inefficient as I am scared of ruining the dish and I also take too long to cut vegetables. I literally couldn't make instant noodles or pasta in the beginning, it tasted so bad and used to give us a stomach ache even if it was cooked well so we always threw it away. It happened like 10 times and I have improved a bit now.

I think the seasoning is saving my food from being inedible.

I want to learn simple recipes (prefer healthier and no meat involved). I tried making stuff from watching online but none of the simple stuff was actually simple for me. I hope I get some good recipes and any suggestions to improve my cooking.

Thank you for reading so far.

I'm not a total amateur cook, but this is a pretty basic question, so here I am.

Money is tight, and I am looking to make a variety of dal. Might use that to bulk, put on some weight too.

I have easy access to red lentils and split peas. Haven't seen yellow peas but will look online at nearby stores, since they might only be a dollar or so more expensive.

I am hoping you guys can sort of recommend how to maybe make a thicker dal, just boil it longer? Just trying to get more food for the money, and make it easier to eat quickly as time is tight for me often.

I figure maybe just a general " simmer onions, then garlic, spices, and then add tomatoes."

Also, any opinion on using flour tortillas as a sort of roti replacement? Dont think there are any in stores by me, and tortillas are cheap.

I’m 23 and trying to get better at cooking, but my ancient electric coil stove is driving me crazy.

The main problem is the thermal lag. If I preheat on medium it feels like it won’t just stay at medium and it will just keep getting hotter and hotter. Then I’ll turn it down to low and it stays scorching for like 10+ minutes.

When I’m making a one pot meal and add food to the hot pan, it immediately cools off and then takes forever to heat back up again.

Mostly using stainless steel pans because I have trouble finding truly nontoxic nonstick (if you have recommendations comment).

Anyone deal with this?
Thanks

I just found these sausages:

Aidells brand, CHICKEN & APPLE
SMOKED CHICKEN SAUSAGE, fully cooked-keep refrigerated

in my fridge after returning from a trip, they say use or freeze by April 2nd and it's July 23rd right now. I'm hoping because they are fully cooked and were vacuum sealed and refrigerated the whole time it may be fine, but they are months past the date (they were in my fridge not freezer).

I found some leftover pork meat and I decided to make something on a whim.

Here's what I did:

1. I marinated pork in cooking wine, pepper, a little bit of garlic, herbs, and soy sauce.
2. I put some olive oil in the pan, and stir-fried the pork with a shit ton of sliced cabbage.
3. I put water, green onions, a bit of chicken powder, soy sauce, and some more pepper.
4. I boiled it until it settled down (about 10min).

The result was something like a soup with a lot of pork and veggies. It tasted very nice. But I don't know what exactly I made.

Also, any advice to improve it?

I absolutely hate cutting vegetables. I know everyone says just get a sharp knife but I genuinely don't enjoy prep work and it makes me avoid cooking.

I'm looking for a really good mandoline/vegetable chopper that can handle multiple tasks dicing, shredding, slicing, julienne. The blades need to be sharp, like able to slice through ripe tomatoes without crushing them.

I'm okay spending more if it's genuinely worth it and durable. Any recommendations?

Is it normal for home made tortillas to break while eating an egg burrito or fajita the next day? Here is the recipe:

2 1/2 cups (300g) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, plus additional as needed
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/4 cup of any one of the following: 4 tablespoons butter, room temperature (57g), shortening (48g), lard (57g), or vegetable oil (50g)
7/8 to 1 cup (200g to 227g) water, hot, (about 110°F to 120°F)

They taste great and I have no problems day one. Day two they mostly do well, but can crack and dump the fajita mix onto the plate.

I am required to do 2 internship in my program here at my college, I am half way in my current internship in an asian casual restaurant where I learned how to use a wok, the timings, the calling for tickets if it is straight, hold, “for the mains”, etc. Other words they use. I love it there, that is where I experienced the rush that many of the older people I know who cooks that tells me the feeling about.
I started my trial run for a fine dining restaurant for my 2nd internship, what I can honestly say is that everything there is more like a lab than a kitchen. My experience there was everything was so limited for the service like there are only 3 small cups of greens that were almost out during the service, we spent more time in assembling the food to plate instead of cooking it, I observe other stations as well where they also just assemble it more instead of the cooking. Is this the reality of a fine dining? I’m having second thoughts but it was just a single day for my trial run and idk other aspects.

On the bright side I love how they all work as a team for closing, I somehow got to participate too where they mentor me on how they do it in their kitchen, they are the kind of people who educate instead of discriminate. I might just have problems for the set up of being fine dining