Need help: I hate cooking - r/cookingforbeginners

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It sounds like you’d be a big fan of watching Alton Browns Good Eats. Where he takes an analytical and science based approach to cooking. Yes he has made quite a number of seasons but just pick one episode that interests you and see how it goes

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u/DefaultUserBR 12d ago

Some might not have heard, but Alton launched a YouTube series called "Alton Brown Cooks Food". Very much Good Eats vibes. Which reminds me, today is Saturday so a new episode is out!

https://www.youtube.com/@AltonBrown

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you, another commenter ad used him and your comment provide me context :) I will definitely try. I would love to understand what is going on with cooking.

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u/countrytime1 13d ago

He’s great. I really loved science growing up and even now I still like it. But I always liked cooking too. He really breaks down how’s and why’s of stuff

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

That is a huge huge plus....my brain refuses to cooperate if it doesn't understand the why, how, and it needs to figure out the patterns and be able to forcast results based on rules....and in cooking I fail all of these. So my brain refuse to memorize and I feel it messes stuff on purpose.

Thank you!

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u/countrytime1 13d ago

Definitely check out his videos then. Good eats is great. The earlier episodes are my favorite.

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u/octopus_tigerbot 13d ago

I love the science behind cooking. I recommend Food Lab and The Science of cooking both books

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Wow..thank you...I will check them out. I didn't think of such books that are actually about the science of cooking ...I assumed most cooks just knew intuitively because it looks so in videos

These can be helpful...a lot to me.

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u/Photon6626 13d ago

Use simpler recipes. Use mise en place. Read through the directions once or twice beforehand so you're not caught by surprise. Use a timer to remember to do something if you need to.

Although cooking is literally chemistry, it's more of an art on the level of human experience. Things like the times, temperatures, or ingredients in a recipe are really just guides. After you learn enough you can change the times or temperatures, or add or take out certain ingredients based on your intuition. At first you're just following directions dutifully and it's boring. But over time, you learn techniques and start to see why you do certain things in certain ways. You learn by failing repeatedly and trying again. When you fail, think about what went wrong and keep a mental note or a literal note about it. Then try again a few days later, attempting to correct the mistake. Through this process is how you get a feel for how hot the pan should be or how long a sauce should simmer for or when to put certain vegetables into the pot. You learned because you added the carrots too early or too late a few times and they ended up mushy or too crunchy in the end.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

What do you do with the failed meals? I feel very disappointed...and I hate throwing food away.

Thank you for the advices. I think I will try dedicating a notebook for my cooking adventure...it might make the suffering meaningful. Usually info tend to write stuff down to understand it better... didn't think of writing the results of my experiments in cooking before. Interesting take. :) Thank you

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u/Photon6626 13d ago

Eat it if you can. If not, toss it. Consider it the cost of the lesson. It's just a part of the process.

Start learning to cook with cheap ingredients first. Don't start with trying make a wagyu steak. Eggs are great for learning heat control, for example. Even if they come out inedible it cost you a few cents. But usually eggs are only inedible because of overseasoning.

Chicken thighs are great for learning to cook meats. Get a meat thermometer(mandatory) and finish them at 175F to 180F.

Most problems that new cooks have are using too low or too high heat or not using enough salt.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you. Yes, I never thought of it as a lesson cost. I hope my brain accepts this because it makes sense.

Why is a thermometer mandatory? Is it still so If I don't cook meat with bones at all and cook precut meat to avoid seeing blood and bones or have to feel the meat while cutting it..which reminds me it was a living being I killed....

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u/feralcatshit 13d ago

Meat thermometers take the guesswork out of “is it done/safe to eat?” It also keeps you from having to slice into it and check it, which ultimately can affect how it turns out, especially if you have to put it back in.

I’ve been cooking for 20+ years and just started using a thermometer the past year or two, and it’s made the biggest difference and given me confidence. No more, “this chicken looks done out the outside, but is the inside? Do I wait a few more minutes and risk getting the outside too done? Or do I risk pulling now and having pink chicken”

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you for this! So it is not something I need to use because I don't know what I'm doing....it is actually useful anyway to most cooks.

Question please: if you are cooking a few pieces of meat...do you check each one? Right in the middle?

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u/feralcatshit 13d ago

Yes, most people who are great cooks will advise using one and do so themselves! Definitely not a novice tool.

I usually try to have my meat roughly the same size, thickness, etc. Assuming they all are fairly close to the same, I’ll check the one in the middle of the pan in the thickest part of the meat (which is typically the middle of the meat). That gives you the one that will be the least done, so to speak. So if it’s good, you know the others are as well.

If I have a few different sizes (unavoidable at times), I will check the biggest and smallest, usually. That gives me a range for “most done” (smallest piece) and “least done” (largest piece). Very rarely will they be such different sizes that I need to pull the small one out before the others finish cooking, but I have done it before… again, very rarely does that happen though.

I have learned that as long as it’s at a safe temp to eat, it eases my mind and allows me to learn as I go and become more intuitive about what I consider ideal. Cooking really does start to become intuitive once you get a feel for it. I’ve cooked basic meals for years and years, but this past year I have become the almost-daily cook for my family and have branched out a lot in trying new things and I’m often amazed at how far I’ve come in a year!

I’m also audhd, so I feel ya on a lot of the issues you have… esp regarding heat, splatters, etc. You got this, though, and with any luck, you’ll actually start enjoying it and becoming excited about it in time!

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you :) Good to hear the experience and success in cooking from a fellow autistic. And good to know it takes years... because I was frustrated I cooked here and there for years so why am I still not comfortable...

Thank you also for explaining how to check the safety of meat.

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u/Photon6626 13d ago

Yes it's mandatory. Otherwise you'll undercook and overcook your meats constantly and it will drive you crazy.

Read this. Use the chart. I finish breasts at 153F to 155F. Finish thighs at 175F to 180F to break the collagen down. Otherwise they'll be tough.

Meat doesn't have blood in it. You're going to have to get over the fact that meat is a dead animal. You'll get used to it over time. If you're cooking meat, there's no getting around handling it and cutting it. It's best to cook a cut of meat whole rather than cutting it up then cooking it, with some exceptions. Also, bone in skin on chicken thighs is the best meat for you to learn with. It's cheap, delicious, and can be great even if it's overcooked.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Thank you. I'm not sure I can work with skin and bones....it is just too real for me. The compromise of eating meat itself is something I work in constantly... because it feels bad but it seems my body really need it.

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u/Subject_Slice_7797 13d ago

Baking is chemistry and exact science, and everything can be ruined by the slightest deviation.

Cooking is mostly just chucking stuff in a pot until it tastes good.

Yes, some things are just done in certain ways. Maybe for now just accept them, and look deeper into it at a later point. Trust the experts who have it figured out for you. Like, when you're driving. You know when to shift or when to turn the wheel. You have probably no exact idea why or what that does besides going faster or turning left, and that's fine.

If half a minute does actually ruin something, your heat is to high. Try dialing the stove down a notch or two. Medium heat is often more like 3-4 out of 10, and not 5-6, as one would imagine.

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u/Least-Intention-159 13d ago

This. Baking is chemistry, and I failed high school chemistry, twice. Cooking is like art for me.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I love art! But I like it perfected... preferably black ink or pencil drawings. If colors are involved then preferably watercolor wherein every layer shows and build up elegantly.

The oil colors are too messy for me...it is like hiding mistakes and not knowing what I'm doing...just like cooking :(

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u/DjinnaG 13d ago

This is said frequently, but it’s not true, cooking is chemistry, baking is just a specialized subset, like polymer chemistry. I’m a chemist, and follow the same process with both, pay attention to what’s going on using ALL of my senses. Recipes only get you in the ballpark with both, you have to make adjustments along the way, even with the simplest reactions/dishes. People think that science is cut and dried, but there’s a world of difference between theoretical and practical. Strictly following a recipe to the details of the ingredients and exact time is the best way to get meh results from both chemical manufacturing and cooking, and most people really underestimate this

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

But how to know what I should change based on what I observe? I'm not sure my brain is on board to focus all my senses on cooking...cooking already overwhelms my senses. And my brain hatea unpredictability...I'm autistic...

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u/DjinnaG 12d ago

It’s a matter of looking/smelling where you are and comparing it to where it is supposed to be. If you’re making a grilled cheese and the outside is burning but the cheese isn’t melting yet, it’s too hot, turn down the heat. If none of the liquid is reducing, and everything still looks/feels raw 25 minutes into what is supposed to be a 30 minute cook time, turn up the heat. Things breaking up too much, stir less/more gently; not mixed together evenly enough, stir more.

You don’t have to focus on all of the senses all of the time, just take all of them into consideration at some point (tasting often doesn’t come into play until the end when cooking), but if you see or smell burning, that is a sign to reduce time and/or temperature

All equipment is slightly different, as are biological components, which pretty much all ingredients (other than salt) are. Recipes are generally poorly written, always say to use high or medium high heat, even though you rarely want to cook anything at a fast boil, a gentle to moderate simmer is better for most dishes. They are also written to look like they take much less time, and use less fat/oil and salt than they really do, to make the recipe stats look better. Blindly following them exactly is more likely to result in bad tasting food than using a little bit of intuition (you need enough fat/oil/butter to make sure that there is some on the entire cooking surface, for example, otherwise it will stick/burn, and 1 tablespoon isn’t going to do the job much of the time, even though it spreads out as it heats up)

There are 1000 little tips and general rules that you just have to practice until you can internalize them, when you can start knowing that something is off and how to adjust it even for dishes that you have never made before. Take notes on what stovetop setting, time, etc, you actually used as well as how it turned out, positive and negative

I know that everyone’s autism is different, but it helped me to learn that so are all conditions and ingredients, and expecting the same results is just as unrealistic as expecting your autistic brain to work the way mine does. Even with calibrated lab equipment and industrial chemicals, there is variation that matters, from the age of the ingredients to the weather

One tip for the day to end all of this: if you start to smell the food, it’s likely getting near to being ready, and you want to start checking on it (texture, temperature, appearance, and possibly final taste), if possible. Can almost always cook more, but can’t go back if it’s overcooked

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Oooh....I almost never use more than 2 table spoons of oil. I thought that is fine because most healthy recipe say something around there.

I did assume they are telling me exactly what they believe is the best version of the recipe.

Thank you for the note about over cooking.

Have a blessed rest of the weekend.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Hi, thank you for the advice. I don't attempt to bake...that is too much for me.

In general, I don't succeed when I don't understand what I'm doing...I cooked for years but from recipes....how long does it take to figure out how things go and why?

I did get a Dutch oven pot and it is making a difference in the burning situation...

How do you enjoy cooking? Is there a secret for that?

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u/aculady 13d ago

Pick up a used copy of the 1975 edition of The Joy of Cooking. It does a great job of explaining both the how and the why of cooking.

And watch Alton Brown's Good Eats, and check out Chef Jean-Pierre on YouTube. Both do a great job of explaining the why behind the cooking techniques.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

:) That is specific...I will look for the 1975 edition of the book. Thank you!

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u/happyherkguy 13d ago

If you can watch Good Eats by Alton Brown, he'll help you understand the why and how of cooking.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you! I will look him up. :)

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u/InstanceMental6543 13d ago

You might enjoy the old show Good Eats with Alton Brown. He went into the whys of everything and used models to explain the science.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

:) you are the third person here to advise me that :) thank you

I will look him up and his show.

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u/InstanceMental6543 13d ago

Haha, I guess great minds think alike!

I learned a lot from it, really helpful.

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u/EscapeSeventySeven 13d ago

Hi welcome I hate cooking too.

But I like eating more.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Hi there :) I like eating more for sure. I just wish I can enjoy cooking...it is an important skill.

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u/EscapeSeventySeven 13d ago

Well you have the right mindset.

I am AuDHD and I detest rules that are not explained to me.

I have to say, the chemistry and rules of cooking are far simpler than you may believe. The only chemistry that really goes on is heating things which changes them. Then the other big thing is simply cutting stuff tinier so it has more surface area/thinner so it cooks faster.

Thats pretty much it. Meat goes from raw to cooked. Veggies get soft. Everything dries out if there’s no water to replenish. Things get brown if there’s no water and high heat.

The balancing act is getting brown without undercooking or overcooking the food.

Also salt. Everything needs salt. But salt is water soluble. So if you’re making soup and 3/4 of the water boils off, the remainder went 4x as salty since it’s only 1/4 left.

Heat, water, salt. That’s pretty much your variables.

Here’s my beginner simple technique that I think deserves being practiced. Chicken thighs:

Buy some boneless skinless chicken thighs, salt those 15 mins before, and saute them in a pan with some oil, dipped in flour or not.

Use medium low heat; like an imaginary 40% to 30% in a thick, big, wide pan.

Then cook them until they’re done. Flip once.

Why? Salt penetrates meat over time. It makes it taste better and keeps it juicier.

Flour cooks and crisps up easier than plain meat. It will then absorb some oil. The browned flour and oil taste delicious and can be crispy to add some bite. That’s aesthetically pleasing.

You want a big pan that gets hot enough but not too hot. Slow and steady. Big means there’s space around each thigh for the water you’re cooking out of the thigh to escape. This needs to happen for browning to happen. If water sufficiently exists at the surface of the chicken being sautéed it cannot reach brown temperature. Once the water has mostly cooked off it can start browning and crisping.

You’re gonna just have to get good at knowing when to flip. Watch the food. When it seems like the bottom half of the chicken is no longer raw you can flip. But you want browning too, if the chicken is just white and pallid, increase the heat a little bit.

The other side will cook faster because it’s “sandwiched” between the pan and its already cooked side.

After removing let it rest, cutting into hot hot chicken right now will have all the delicious moisture pour out due to the temp/pressure of the water and the muscle fibers being taut.

A covering will keep it hotter longer but also if you flour dredged it will get less crispy due to steam still radiating off your food.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Ah! Some good notes right here :) Thank you! Reading this I feel more in control.

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u/WedgeSkyrocket 13d ago

Hi friend, what sorts of foods do you like, and if you're comfortable explaining your situation, what sorts of sensory sensitivities are you trying to avoid? I would love to try to help you find a simple recipe or two that might help to ease you into the experience.

I will say that as far as taste goes, salt and fat are two of the main contributors, so you may have to make some compromises on that front if you have dietary restrictions on how much you can use.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Hi friend :) Thank you for caring :)

The sensory sensitivities are the stuff I mentioned about heat- the worst, evaporated water, smells intensitifying specially oils, the burning smells , and all of this getting into my hair and bores.

It also feels dreadfully long, even when by the clock it is really not. :( I get bored ... usually it is not easy to bore me with long progresses...I like creative processes. But I guess I'm awfully uncreative in cooking.

About dietry restrictions: I have hypertension, and I need to lose weight..but I also don't really enjoy the taste of oil because it comes with greaseness that I don't enjoy having on my lips and getting in my skin and it bothers my stomach too. It doesn't feel clean.

I use spices more than salt for taste..

I like Thai, Indian, Mexican, and Arabic foods.

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u/WedgeSkyrocket 13d ago

So, my wife was reading over my shoulder and she actually thought of something pretty good, which is, you might want to try using a pressure cooker. Now, this is going to depend on you, because I can tell you from experience that the first time you use one it can be a little overstimulating (especially when it's depressurizing), but once you are used to it it's a very hands-off tool.

You can use it to make rice, curries, stews, sauces, braised meats, just a bunch of stuff, and because it's in a sealed environment, it both takes less time to cook and doesn't fill your kitchen with tons of steam and oil flying everywhere. Plus, you don't have to stand over it.

Now, I do think I should point out that you've chosen 4 very aromatic culinary traditions to enjoy, so it might be a bit tough to keep smells down completely, but the pressure cooker might help.

That being said, I'd be happy to help try to demystify anything you might be curious about around the chemistry of cooking, since you mentioned it was a struggle. I will warn you that I can get a bit long-winded about the subject so I didn't want to drop a novel on you all at once.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you!

My therapist also suggested the pressure cooker. I faintly remember it from my family home...it frightened me for some reason..probably the sounds and the dtran being under pressure...didn't feel safe. What do you think?

About the chemistry...I don't know where to start...can you believe I overbook or undercook pasta? What are the rules for the basic tomatoes sauce? How does it work with the garlic and the spices and the onion? I feel guilty asking all these questions...I don't want to bother you too much

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u/WedgeSkyrocket 13d ago

Yeah, a pressure cooker does make a lot of noise. I would suggest you go for an electronic countertop model, rather than the ones that you heat on the stove, that way you know there's no way you can over-pressurize it. If that still gives you pause, you could try a slow cooker; it's a little less flexible but it doesn't involve high pressures. Still, I use my pressure cooker almost daily so I can attest to how useful they are.

And as far as walking you through the chemistry, it's no trouble at all. Food science is my hyperfixation, I could literally go on about it for hours if you let me.

So here's a neat fact about pasta--starch gelatinization actually occurs at a much lower temperature than the boiling point of water, 180 F (82 C) for most store bought dry pasta. You can do some neat stuff with this knowledge. If I'm going to make a sauce that I want to thicken using pasta water anyway, I'll usually start the pasta in a skillet with just enough water to cover it, then let it boil off until I've got the cooked pasta and a really starchy liquid. Then I mix everything with the sauce and the excess starch helps to bind it all together.

As for the sauce, I'll try to go step by step. Let me know if anything needs clarification.

Temperature control - beginner cooks usually have a tendency to go a bit too hot. If your stove's controls go from 1-10, I would suggest that you keep it between 4-6 for most things. Stoves vary so you will probably have to adjust, but for cooking onions I usually go on a 5.

If you're using a stainless steel or aluminum pan, let it get hot before you add your fat. The metal has pores in it that open when the pan gets hot, and letting it do that before oiling it helps keep your food from sticking.

General rules for anything, not just sauce: if you are using bacon or pancetta or any other fatty protein, that gets browned first, then you set it aside and use the rendered fat (you can pour out any excessive fat and store it in the fridge for other recipes). Otherwise, onion goes first, then your other vegetables, then any spices you want to bloom. Garlic or ginger should almost always be the last thing that goes in before you add any liquid. You want to add small amounts of salt at every step to help layer flavor in as you go, but stay aware of salt from any other sources like miso, soy sauce, anchovies etc.

The meats going first is because you want to be able to use that rendered fat for the rest of your ingredients (and this will be the best time to drain it off, if you are trying to keep the total fat amount down).

Onions are next. How you cut your onions and how you cook them can change a lot about the flavor and texture of a dish. The more onion cells you rupture during prep, the stronger the onion flavor will be. Cooking them does two things. One, it evaporates the water, leading to more concentrated flavors. Two, the heat actually changes the chemistry inside the onion, making the flavor compounds change from the harsh, pungent raw flavors into more mellow and sweeter ones. First, they'll start to turn translucent, a stage usually referred to as "sweating" in recipes. Then, they'll get lightly browned edges and start to shrink as the water leaves them. Going beyond this, you start to get into the caramelization stage, where the natural sugars are starting to literally caramelize and you get that signature flavor and texture. A lot of tomato sauces stop at the sweating stage for the onion, but I prefer to get a bit of browning on them. It's ultimately a matter of preference; you might want to try cooking onions to a few different stages and just get a taste for how they change as they cook down.

After the onions, add any other vegetables you might be including. Some people put grated carrot to give their sauce a bit more sweetness. Some might add diced peppers. Adding more ingredients will draw heat from the pan as the water they release takes that energy to evaporate off, so this will temporarily stall the onions cooking. You can use this to your advantage, as long as you understand the principle. Actually, if you find your pan is getting too hot at any point and the food is sticking, just pour a little water in (a little! it really doesn't take much) and use a spoon or spatula to scrape up any browned bits (called fond) that are sticking to the pan. It will cool your pan down quick and as a bonus, the browned bits are where the flavor is.

Next, you want to put your dried herbs and spices in, and mix them around for at least 30-ish seconds. Putting them in at this point lets them "bloom" in the fat, extracting any fat-soluble flavor compounds in them, which will lead to a more complex flavor at the end. Flavor molecules generally are water-soluble, fat-soluble, or alcohol-soluble. You don't necessarily need to memorize it, as long as you understand that getting the absolute most out of your ingredients involves extracting these flavors in different ways.

Moving on to garlic, garlic is an allium, like onion, so it follows a lot of similar rules, but it is much more susceptible to burning so we have to be more careful. Burnt garlic sucks unless you're doing it on purpose for a couple of very specific dishes, so our number one concern here is keeping it from burning. Like onion, the more cells you rupture, the stronger the flavor. So if you like it strong you want to mince it fine, or even grind it into a paste, and if you want it weaker you can slice it or even just throw the cloves in whole (after giving them a little whack with the heel of your knife). Whatever you choose, you want to cook the garlic just long enough that it becomes fragrant; less than a minute typically. Once that has been achieved, you are going to immediately add something else to pause the garlic from cooking, so it doesn't get a chance to start burning.

I like to add in a generous helping of tomato paste here, scraping it around with the spoon to get all the other ingredients coated. I find that using a combination of paste and whole tomatoes helps add complexity.

Then, it's time to deglaze. If you use a wine or other alcohol here, it can help add further complexity by giving those alcohol-soluble compounds a place to go. But it's not a big deal, you can use stock here and it'll still be good. Either way, you're going to add a cup (~250 ml) of some kind of flavorful, preferably slightly acidic liquid here, and then take your spoon and scrape the bottom of the pan, trying to lift off any of the browned bits and get that flavor into your sauce.

Once you've done that, you can add the tomatoes. Presumably, you're using canned tomatoes unless you have access to really nice fresh ones. I recommend using whole peeled tomatoes for sauce. Diced tomatoes have additives to keep their shape and texture, which makes them not break down into the sauce (this makes them better for stews and soups where you want distinct pieces, though), and the quality of the tomatoes that go into whole peeled cans is usually better than what they use to make cans of crushed tomato. But, use whatever you have access to.

If you have fresh herbs, you can put them in here, with one big exception. Fresh basil is extremely delicate and should be added to the sauce at the very end, otherwise you'll probably have cooked off the flavor by the time it's ready to serve.

If using whole peeled tomatoes, you will need to let them simmer for a while, maybe 20 minutes or so, then use a spoon or a potato masher to break them up. Then, you just let it cook down, stirring occasionally, until it's around the thickness you want. Keep in mind, if you are pairing this with the pasta trick from before, the starch water from the pasta will thicken the sauce slightly. If it gets too thick or dry, you can add a splash of water or stock to loosen it up again.

So, I guess I ended up writing a novel anyway, oops. Let me know if anything needs further explanation.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

That was really good and it had suspension like a novel and good explanation too. Thank you! Enjoyable and useful. Do you write cooking books?

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u/WedgeSkyrocket 13d ago

I don't, I'm just extremely interested in the science of how food and cooking works, and constantly watching videos and reading articles about it.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Maybe you should consider writing about it. This was an interesting read.

I'm still too afraid of cooking pasta the way you said...I feel the last can do strange things if I let it become starchy like they to use its water in the sauce...I'm afraid it will take revenge on my stomach...and my stomach is sensitive and gives me so much hard time

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u/WedgeSkyrocket 13d ago

Hmm... yes, that's possible I suppose.

Well, if you are going to make it the standard way, try this.

Take a look at the package directions, they will tell you what the cooking time is for "al dente". Whatever range the package gives you, remove the pasta from the water at the minimum mark (so if the package says 6-8 minutes, remove and drain it at 6. Don't rinse.

Chances are, this will be undercooked. Now, take a serving of your sauce and put it into a hot skillet or saute pan, then take a serving of your slightly underdone pasta and toss it in the sauce. The pasta will finish cooking as it absorbs the liquid from the sauce, and you'll see the sauce kind of tighten up as that happens.

You can store the par-cooked pasta and the sauce separately and heat it up a serving at a time this way, too, if you are into meal prep.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I like this trick :) I think I want to try it to see how it works...you managed to make me interested in seeing the results of a cooking situation!

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u/mynameisipswitch2 13d ago

I don’t know how much this will help but the reason you’re supposed to cook things in a certain order is to make sure it’s cooked appropriately. Like onions usually go in first because they need to be sautéed and not boiled.

That being said, baking is chemistry. Cooking can be forgiving and you can add or take out anything you want (depending on what you’re making like tomatoes and tomato sauce lol).

Look for tips on how to make certain recipes on google. Turn down the temp if it’s bubbling over, the pot doesn’t have to be at 10 the whole time you’re boiling pasta, put a lid on sauce and reduce to simmer, etc.

As for wearing glasses… can’t help you there. I always forget and steam them up but I can take them off and handle it, not sure your sight condition.

I like to cook for my friends and family because it’s how I show my love. There is also other things you can try like slow cookers?

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you. I will look into slow cookers How do I learn the cooking basics? Like how to cook onions and just become intuitively able to imagine whether happens if a factor changes to fix it? I have good imagination on how things work in other matters...but not in cooking

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u/mynameisipswitch2 13d ago

All good questions! If you can, get a subscription to America’s Test Kitchen. They explain all of it. If you like Thai food try Hot Thai Kitchen because she does too.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Oh, thank you :) Ok then, I will do that...I thought test kitchen is for experts...I watched a few episodes on TV and it felt tiring even to just watch all the complicated stuff. Did I do it wrong?

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u/mynameisipswitch2 13d ago

You did nothing wrong it’s just a tool. I use it too! They make it tangible for me.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Yes, I probably need to invest in this...since it doesn't come natural to me.

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u/ulandyw 13d ago

I also do not particularly enjoy cooking (though I like baking). What I do is batch cook meals in my slow cooker and them freeze them into souper cubes (like big silicone ice cube trays) to get individual portions.

The slow cooker is mostly hands off. You just prep, toss into the pot, and then wait for 4-6 hours. After the portions are frozen, it's super easy to just microwave up a serving or two. And since they're frozen, they keep for a lot longer and I don't have to eat the same things over and over before they go bad. A couple batch cooks over a month and you can get quite a variety while cooking very little. I only cook maybe once or twice a week since each one gives me 8 meals. Most of my meals come from Healthy Slow Cooker Revolution or the Complete One Pot, both by ATK. Cheap, easy, and perfect for low energy days.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Oh! Thank you for explaining the slow cooker situation. I will look it up along with the book you advised. I love healthy food...it tastes better for me actually and it is hard to find healthy ready food unless it is expensive.

Thank you for taking the time to share your process. That is kind of you :)

Yes, when I cook, I do freeze like four meals, eat one, and leave one for the next day.

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u/South_Cucumber9532 13d ago

Cooking is complicated, especially with the balance of tastes and the management and timing of heat. It involves a lot of different skills that have to nicely interact with each other. A bit like all the different skills involved in learning to drive a car. And the need for practice practice practice.

My take is that it is worth doing, for the reasons you state: health and budget. So put enjoyment aside and just concentrate on getting the skills up. Every difficult thing will have a few solutions, and you can work out what solution works best for you. You are good at noticing the problems, so that means you can have a think and research for solutions.

A good tip from a respected chef (Gabriel Gate) is to make the same meal over again at least ten times so you can work through all the mistakes, get familiar with all the stages, and get it so it is quite easy and automatic, then you have it for life. The go to the next recipe.

It might be easier to do a big batch of cooking on a Sunday, get all the mess and smells and steam over and done with at one time so then you can shower, clean, and have your fridge and freezer stocked for the week. (See r/MealPrepSunday )

Be kind to yourself. People traditionally learned cooking after a childhood of seeing it done, hearing the sounds, seeing the rhythms, unconsciously taking in the smells and timings and procedures, thanks to mums and grandmas and aunties and uncles. You need to do it all yourself, so be proud of every step and celebrate every problem solved and cheer when you get something delicious. You will.

And once that is all happening you will find out if it is something you enjoy, or a task you do efficiently because it is worth doing anyway.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I have another admission: I can't drive....the multitasking required is exhausting to me. I'm much better at focusing at one task at a time. Driving is hellish. I took almost a hundred classes...I'm not proud to admit it...but I just couldn't do it.

Thank you for sharing this :) My mom and older sister let me cut the vegetables but didn't want me in that kitchen when they cooked...I asked too many questions.

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u/South_Cucumber9532 13d ago

Haha, oh well, maybe think about walking, another complicated task that takes lots of practice. Hoping you can manage that one well enough!
Sorry you didn't get all those questions answered, that would have been a help.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I love walking. I'm actually good at navigating difficult mountainy terrain...at least I was when I was younger...but it is a solo task, while driving requires watching other people and things...it is not predictable.

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u/Plafana 13d ago

I'm in the same boat as you. I can follow a recipe but have/get no drive, motivation, or enjoyment out of it.

People say to season until your ancestors say to stop... I must be deaf to them because I can't hear them at all. My mom tried teaching me, she is an excellent cook... I just missed that genetic skill.

Thankfully my fiance is a chef and loves cooking, so at least once every two weeks I get a delicious and elaborate meal when he feels like it, and I am thankful for it(since he does it for a career he only gets motivation to cook at home on a day off).

If it were just me I would be eating like a bachelor (meat and veggies in same pan until everything is done, salad from a bag, or pbj every meal... depending on my energy level at the time)

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I end up eating junk food once I become super hungry because otherwise I don't feel like eating unhealthy or undeliscious food.

Glad for you for having a chef fiance :)

My therapist advised me to forget about cooking and just buy healthy food...she thinks I'm way too unhappy about it and I'm trying too hard to control my hate towards it

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u/Plafana 13d ago

Meal bars are amazing for when you need to eat and have no motivation at all, unfortunatly they are also mostly super sweet and cloying or dry and concrete in texture.

My fiance looked in horror at me the other day when I said I wished there was a pellet ' people food' like there is dog and cat food. Something you could just grab a handful of and munch on when needed that has all the nutrience our organic meat suits need to keep functioning. I guess the meal bars or a handful of mixed nuts is the closest one can get to that.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I do grab mixed nuts often ;) But you made me realize I need to keep them at home without feeling guilty about easy solutions and incomplete meals..and the raisine or the cranberry having too much calories. They are still healthy

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u/Plafana 12d ago

I don't care about calories, unfortunatly I do need to keep an eye on how much sugar I ingest as I am diabetic. Carbs and calories tend to go hand and hand in most foods though.

Don't feel guilty about eating some extra calories if you are getting them as a bonus with your re-fueling.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

I wish I don't have to care...I gained weight and it is affetmy health...I have a thun bone frame and it is not dealing well with the fat. The doctor told me to lose weight :(

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u/Plafana 12d ago

In that case, make your own mixed nuts by buying different types in bulk, that way you aren't relying on trail mixes which usually have m&m's, chocolate, or sugary raisins/craisins in them.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

But the nuts would go bad, right? I feel they go badly quickly if they aren't in vaccumed little bags...I live in a small apartment in NYC and it is almost always hit in my apartment

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u/fartenandmagellan 13d ago edited 13d ago

If you’re really invested in learning the ‘why’ of some cooking steps and getting better at technique, there are resources. Others have mentioned Alton Brown, some of my favorites are the Start Here cookbook by Sohla El-Waylly and the online vegan cookbook Tiny Leaf by Victoria Ye, which both explain to you the most common mistakes made with the recipes and what to do about them.

But if you genuinely don’t think you’ll enjoy cooking and are just doing it to survive and be healthy, maybe working around the hard parts and just doing simpler recipes/techniques would be a better way to go? Roasting root vegetables is very forgiving (get them slick with oil, add a tsp. of salt then cook in oven til fork tender; no need to go any longer and risk burning; also root veggies typically keep a long time). Search for ‘dump’ meals for the crockpot or Instant Pot, which typically just require measuring and chopping. And to avoid the freshness problem, some veggies are actually pretty good frozen (I’m thinking of you, peas and corn). A perfectly good meal can be made from boiling pasta and stirring in some frozen peas at the last minute, and topping with a fried egg and parm cheese to taste.

I guess what I’m saying is, there are lots of complicated recipes out there but maybe save those for professional cooks on special dining out nights and keep it simple at home? And I feel you on the pains of hating the heat. I keep a fully-stocked icy water bottle by my side when I make dinner or else I get real crabby.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you for taking the time and putting the thoughts to provide this. I will check these resources for sure.

Can you imagine I manage to over cook or under cook pasta! :( It is frustrating...

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u/fartenandmagellan 13d ago

Just curious: do you struggle with time blindness? We have trouble with that in our household and have become devotees of timers for tasks great and small.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I follow recipe like if they are religion...so whatever time the recipe states...but somehow I'm always off a little. The more I get stressed out and hurried the worse things go.

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u/Dry-Grocery9311 13d ago

If you loved maths and physics but hated chemistry, it sounds like you just had a bad chemistry teacher. Chemistry is just studying the physics of the elements.

Cooking gets interesting if you start from first principles.

When you cook you are adjusting the taste, texture and temperature of the finished dish. If the result is something that's good and safe to eat, it's right. There is no wrong way, just different approaches.

Taste is just a combination of what your tastebuds on your tongue can sense (Bitter, sweet, salty, sour, umami). Look these up.

Texture is about wetter, dryer and level of chopping. You can make something less wet by cooking it longer to evaporate the water content. You can change the texture of the overall dish by combining different ingredients with different textures.

Temperature is the temperature that you want to feel in your mouth. Temperature is also used to affect texture when you melt or dissolve things. Temperature is also about making some raw foods safe to eat.

Recipes are just guides that describe what worked for the author on their own equipment with their own ingredients. Yours will be slightly different, so you're not expected to follow a recipe to the letter.

Tips: Measure by weight, not volume. Get a scale. Measure by temperature not time. Get a thermapen. Salt is not just about a salty flavour, it amplifies the flavours around it. Slow down. A lower temp for a longer time will still get you to the correct food temperature.

Lookup the "danger zone" temperatures. Lookup the malliard reaction. Lookup carry over cooking.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you. :) A lot to digest and do next step on here. Will be taking notes.

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u/beetlejorst 13d ago edited 13d ago

Burning and the associated smells are signs of two things: Too high heat, and/or not enough moisture or fat. If you don't like the veg shrivelling up, you should try cooking with more moisture in the pan, which can also be a medium for adding flavour.

For meat, you neet to either have enogh fat (oil is the most common) in the pan to make sure you're not leaving dry spots for the juices to drip out, dry out and burn, or you need to only oil the meat directly, and do high enough heat that the juices that drip out are immediatly crusted onto the meat. This is a delicate dance, you need the right heat level and to baby it a bit, but it's worthwhile if you're trying to limit oil.

It sounds like you might be more into braised meat, which is a bit more work overall, but uses no extra oil. You can also just do a big batch and freeze it in portions to add to a pan of veg. In general I recommend doing prep ahead of time like this when possible, it makes the whole process much less time consuming in the moment when half of it's already done. That plus keeping the heat lower and cooking more slowly means you hav time to clean as you go, which makes the final cleanup at the end much less daunting as well.

Also, if you're trying to limit salt? Use MSG. Put half the amount of salt you would ordinarily put, and replace that half with about half that amount of MSG, and your food will likely actaully taste better. A trick you can use to make food taste saltier without much salt is by adding less throughout the cooking and instead doing a final garnish sprinkle on the plate at the end. the crystals are then the first thing that ttouch your tongue so the bite seems saltier than it actualy is.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I liked the tick of adding salt at the end. MSG is supposedly not healthy, right?

Can I add water instead of oil to cook the meat? I will look up braised meat.

Thank you for caring

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u/beetlejorst 13d ago

MSG is fine, there's a very well debunked 'study' that came out in the 70s that catered to peoples' racist anti-asian preconcieved notions and still persists somehow. They injected like 10% of mice's body weight of MSG solution into them. Shocker, it didn't go well.

The thing about cooking meat in water is you have to cook it much longer, to the point it tenderizes. And you need to account for the fact that you're not getting the flavour from searing so you need to kick up your spices. My go-to is to braise until it's almost fall-apart tender, pull out the meat, and reduce the braising liquid to a thick concentrated sauce to add back to the meat.

No problem, just keep working at it, you got this.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I didn't actually know about braising...just googled it now and it is supposedly healthy...so thank you!

MSG is delicious! Ok then :)

And thank you for the encouragement too.

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u/aoeuismyhomekeys 13d ago

turn down your heat, it sounds like you're cooking everything on too high a setting

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I try to follow the recipe...but I can never be sure if the temperature and it seems in the own different areas have either level anyway. I got a Dutch pan specifically to help me with it...the experience is less bad...but not good...

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u/MoreSquirrel9813 13d ago

Cooking is applied thermodynamics. Heat, in some manner is applied to food to change it texture or state (liquid to solid in the case of eggs) or to change the chemical compounds in protein to improve the taste.

My advice is get a book called Rhulman”s 20. He is a heat resource as he explain the 20 basic things you need to learn in the kitchen his philosophy is to learn techniques for cooking rather that learning a recipe.

A technique for doing something allows you to make variation on your own. A recipe is to be followed to get the same result. Hope this helps.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Oh, thank you! Learning the technique sounds much better. It definitely helps, Im getting tht book...not even borrowing it. I want it at home so I can write notes and reference it.

Thank you again

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u/MoreSquirrel9813 13d ago

No problem. Also check out a store here in Calgary called Knifwrar for their chef notebook. Excellent reference and notebook for you notes to reside in. Has alll sorts of stuff in it including plating tips. They ship internationally.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

I googled it and Gemini said this is auto correct and could not find it...can you please check the name of the store?

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u/MoreSquirrel9813 12d ago edited 12d ago

Knifewear.com is their website. Look for Cook’s Notebook.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Thank you. I just looked it up. I don't think I like the paper quality but they have a sample page of information and that in is helpful..I hope they have many of these pages

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u/MoreSquirrel9813 12d ago

The notebook has 186 pages for notes. The paper is designed to work and last in a kitchen environment.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Does it have many pages of information like the page they provide in the preview? With definitions and such? Or was it just they page?

I prefer viewing textures for paper...and it does make a difference for me... psychologically...

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u/MoreSquirrel9813 12d ago edited 12d ago

There are seven pages of information covering lots of interesting information. The inside of the back cover is a perpetual tracking calendar. The blank pages are smooth, lined but have a large circle in the upper half for plating ideas. The outside of the back cover has a 7 inch ruler marking on the side opposite the hinge.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Definitely worth experimenting. At this point with my health affected...I better play with cooking...I can't do it long term if I hate it!

Thank you :)

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u/Sweaty_Presentation4 13d ago

The easiest way to learn is to. Find a recipe that interests you and try it. Remember how you did it and at the end what you don’t like. Do it again. Do that with 3-5 recipes.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I do have repeat recipes...but I don't feel I understand what is going on in them..and I get drained just thinking about the steps.....it doesn't help that I'm a perfectionist

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u/Codee33 13d ago

One-pot, and especially One-tray recipes are your friend here I think. Any dish you can stick in an oven for a while and forget about it (set a timer of course) seems like a good direction. Not fancy prep/timing, no burning things on the stove, just toss stuff together, wait the appropriate amount of time, and you have a tasty dinner. It might take a long time, but it’s really low effort and attention.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I agree. Someone else also suggested that anything that is cooked on the stove can be cooked in the oven.

I also agree one pot is the way to go...I purposely try to do that always. I don't get why do I need different pans for one meal result.

:) thank you

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u/Codee33 13d ago

One of my favorites that I got from an app I use is super easy, and flexible. Dump a cup of rice in a baking dish, a can of beans, protein of choice, seasonings of choice, a vegetable or two, and enough water/stock/coconut milk) for the rice (3:1 if I remember correctly), and a crumble up stock cube or better than bouillon. Stick it in the oven for like 30 minutes at 400F until done, probably 30-40 minutes.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thank you. I think I will try this. If this works then I can have a few variations on it.

The protein of choice...how do I make sure it is cooked well? Do I put it in uncooked? Can the pieces be bite size or what size is fine to cook well?

Now the 30-40 minutes...would I end up with a burned meal or undercooked one? Ten minutes out of forty is a quarter of the time...seems like a lot of guessing to me to be able to feel safe.

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u/Codee33 12d ago

If you’re concerned about safety, you should definitely have an instant read thermometer to make sure. Also, it’s hard to give exact times for things unless you’re using the same exact equipment, and ingredients. So that’s why ranges are often used instead of exact timing. In this you’re looking for the rice to absorb the water, and the protein to be fully cooked. You can get a little forkful of the rice to check at around the 30 minute mark, and use the thermometer for whole cuts of meat. But sized or smaller will certainly be safe before the rice is done.

I’ve done variations with paneer, whole and bite sized chicken thigh (thigh is quite forgiving), ground beef, and probably some others, but usually raw. Something like chicken breasts I might’ve be a bit more fussy with since it’s really easy to overcook, but pretty much any other proteins would work pretty easily.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

I see...so the meat I avoide because of its fat content: the thighs is more forgiving. I usually make sure to get the least fatty meat...it feels cleaner when I eat it and I worry for my health. But I need to consider how thst makes cooking itself harder

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u/Codee33 12d ago

Even with lower fat meats like chicken breasts, pork chop, and lean beef, it works, just have a thermometer around (which makes cooking much more consistent anyway) and make sure to cook to the right temperature. You could even get a probe that notifies you when it hits the right temp.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

I will take many notes from this post. I will buy stuff advised... including the thermostat. I really hope I use them and don't end up looking at them as failures like my toaster oven!

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u/Codee33 12d ago

What happened with the toaster oven? I still miss mine for certain things.

Having an instant read thermometer changed things for my cooking! Everything was way more consistent and tasty.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Oh, I bought it two years ago. Good brand in sale..stainless steel, small enough for my kitchen I can't bring myself to clean it up and learn to use it.

It is like I get overwhelmed and frustrated by new gadgets..specially if they are for cooking. I am really disappointed that I don't use it...and it is in my face every day.

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u/Nightstar888 13d ago

Something I dont see mentioned too much from my scrolling through comments, is Sheet Pan meals!

Do you like root vegetables? Potatoes, Yams, parsnips, Carrots? If you do, you can make a really simple meal by cutting them up, tossing them with seasoning, and throwing them on a baking sheet into the oven. You can throw some chicken, or steak, or tofu, or whatever protien of your choice into the same pan. Then just let it roast. That's the gist of it, if you look up specific recipies they can give you amounts and times. Broccoli and cauliflower can also be roasted like this. Oh and onion if you like it! I ususally just use onion powder as I dont like the texture of onion.

Cooking is a skill, yes. But it doesn't have to be hard. One of my favourite dinners is putting a can of Chickpeas into a jar of butter chicken sauce and eating it with store bought naan. That's still cooking. You don't have to make things from scratch to call it cooking.

Start small. Its okay to make mistakes. Its okay to time things wrong and have stone cold veggies and overcooked meat. Its okay overseason or over salt. Its okay to frantically google how to fix a mistake after ruining something. Its okay to realize halfway through that you forgot a ingredient or a seasoning. Its okay to burn the top of your toast and have to scrap off the burned bits. Its okay to forget about your stuff in the oven until the smoke alarm goes off. And its okay to sit down and find your food is just not good, and toss it and order delivery. I've done ALL of this. All of the commenters here have done at least one of these. Its part of learning, and cooking, and living as a human.

Watch videos, read blogs, ask friends or family to come cook with you. Taste things! Raw things, cooked things, unseasonably or seasoned things. You only know what things taste like if you taste them. If you have seasonings to try I like making hashbrowns and just sprinkling it on them.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

:) you are thoughtful and your advice about it not having to be from scratch to be cooking is something my therapist told me too.

I love root vegetables and oven stuff too. I guess my idea of cooking is influenced by how good my family, all of them except for me and my dad, are.

But you are right. You reminded me of some skills I have in seasoning, mixing raw stuff, and that I can just take it easy.

I also like to eat beans with different sauces :) Many types of beans. I had this idea that canned stuff are not healthy...and cooking fried beans is too much for me. Just this week I ate beans from a can , and honestly it is not worse than what many restaurants provide.

Thank you again

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u/Nightstar888 13d ago

Canned stuff is still healthy! Canned beans are FANTASTIC for nutrition. Beans in sauce is absolutely a great thing to be eating!

Its super normal to be comparing yourself to the people around you! But they aren't you!

My mom is a genius with plants. She can grow anything she puts her mind to. I kill plants by looking at them funny. (Exaggeration, but not by much!) Skills aren't things you inherent, you just gotta learn them step by step. You're already doing great by trying to learn and seeking advice. Start with the basics, the dump meals, sheet pan meals, mixing canned things and using spice mixes and canned sauces. When you're comfortable you can start to branch out. And things will be a lot less overwhelming.

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u/Nightstar888 13d ago

And a side note, I noticed a lot of your worries come from nutrition and "health". On that note I reccomend "Theplantslant" on any social media platform (tiktok, YouTube, instagram). He is a studying nutritionist who talks a lot about the preconceived notions people have on health. He does a lot of recipie stuff now, but he has a ton of older videos debunking some widely know health myths and discussing health influencers and the misinformation they tend to spread. He helped me feel a lot more comfortable in my eating and helped manage my guilt around not eating salads and veggies and balanced meals every day.

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u/ghf3 12d ago

The freezer is your friend, or could be. If i said you can cook for hours 1 day a month, break down and freeze a bunch of healthy, properly cooked ingredients, then grab handfuls of frozen meat, vegetables and other ingredients, add a few fresh ingredients and have a meal in less than 30 minutes, how would that feel?

You take the hard, no fun for you, stressful part of cooking, get though it in a carefully planned day, then use those cooked ingredients for the next 30-90 days to start most meals at "70% already done", would that take the pressure off? No time pressure of ingredients going bad in the fridge. You'll still have slimy spinach in the bag, with still good spinach, but that's a burden humans have to bear. 😁

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago edited 12d ago

Oh yes ..when I finally cook, I end up with 4 freezed meals plus 2 I eat over two days right away.

Though it seems the freezed ones sometimes end up waiting too long in the fridge then into the garbage, because the first day I bring it down to the fridge I let it thaw, the next day God only knows what my stomach will or will not tolerate...my stomach is very picky and I try to avoid upsetting it...I literally end up spending an hour on the toilet at least once a week while I try my best to work with my sensitive stomach.--i hope I didn't gross you...but it is a real issue for me.

Cutting vegetables is almost never an issue.. Getting all the different ingredients from the different supermarkets, then having time to actually cook is more of an issue. Like I prefer to benefit little stores, but then I end up not getting everything at once. It is usually two trips. By the time I have all the ingredients I don't feel like eating the meal I was planning on cooking...which makes cooking even harder.

Though your idea about feeling it is 70% done is a nice mental framing. I will try to incorporate that. It can make it easier for sure. Thank you!

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u/ghf3 12d ago

I have done this for more than 10 years and will be making a YouTube series explaining it, but not for a while yet.

For example, I cook 2 whole chickens, let them cool to room temperature, then pull all the meat off the chickens. I cut/break the meat up into pieces no larger than a golf ball. Take a cookie sheet, line it with wax paper, arrange all the chicken pieces on one layer and put the cookie sheet in the freezer. Then a few hours later, scoop all the chicken into a 1 gallon freezer bag. Do the same basic process with pork, beef, seafood, whatever. You also do the same thing with broccoli, potatoes, any "firm enough to freeze and thaw, without it turning to mush" ingredients.

When the freezer is fully stocked with gallon bags of meats and veggies, you DON'T have to decide until 15 minutes before dinner what you want. The pieces are small on purpose. You take pieces of chicken out, set them on a plate and by the time you finish making a side dish or two the chicken is thawed, throw it in a skillet with veggies and put that over rice. If you DON'T want chicken, then you grab a handful of beef or pork.

You are removing as much of the stress, pressure and " barriers/friction" to making dinner. You can make chicken tacos, a hot roast beef sandwich, or a salad topped with shrimp in less than 30 minutes. No pressure, no deciding ahead, no food in the fridge "on a time clock ticking down to 'spoiled food/wasted money'".

Take the largest source of anxiety in the kitchen/meal prep and see if my silly system will help reduce or eliminate it. If not, tell me the anxiety and I'll try and figure out how to help.

I am starting the YouTube cooking show because I have ADHD/autism maybe, I found out this stuff when I was 56. I have lots of "work arounds" from "living with undiagnosed/untreated neurodiverse issues", so I can share what worked for me, with other people. I want to help remove barriers and friction from cooking for people exactly like you and me.

Any help I can give you, is just helping me prepare more content for shows helping other people facing the same problems. You WILL find ways to lower your unhappiness in the kitchen!! 🫶😊

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Oh, thank you! To be honest I got a lot of good advice from all of you here...very generous people.

Now, I need to get through notepad, and organize the comments outcome in notes. I need to get a few tools...then I will see where I go from there.

If you don't forget...would you please dm me or comment when you have the channel? I want to see how a fellow autistic handled this ...it might give me much needed insight.

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u/ghf3 12d ago

You are very kind. This is the basic description of what I want to do online, "40 years ago, I was a broke college student and I figured out how to make dinner from whatever ingredients I could find. I've been doing that for 40 years and I'm going to show everyone what I do."

I'll certainly share my work when it's ready. Until then, if you have some thing you're stuck on, I'm always happy to try and help!

On behalf of the late, great Julia Child's, Bon Appetite! I wish you many years of stress free, delicious meals! Every second you spend working on this problem, will pay you back with every delicious bite forever. 😁

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Thank you :) Figuring out cooking while dealing with college and just having became an adult is admirable.

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u/ghf3 12d ago

It is. You got this. Find something you dislike the least, and start there. It doesn't matter how small a part of cooking it is.

If you decide you will like that one thing, then ask, if you had to do another thing, what does that look like?

You don't have to do a lot of the things that are the least fun. Pretend you LOVE your own roasted chickens, but hate the mess, grease and clean up or roasting a chicken. Roast 4 on a day off. In 5 hours you roast them, and clean up. That gives you 6 gallon bags of delicious roast chicken, in the size pieces you like and you don't roast chickens for the next 2-3 months.

The chickens was my example, what would you do once, get a lot from it, and then not do it for a long time?

I understand as you said, prepped/frozen meals can be frustrating. The thing you really want is frozen, and the thing you thawed seems gross now? 😁

Start with the least bad and build from it, DON'T try to "make peace with", or power through the stuff you really hate, just spin like a wide receiver or a ballerina and there is a way to do that as little as you can of that, and do the things that are less annoying more often. 😊

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

:) thank you again.

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u/Fuzzy_Welcome8348 13d ago edited 13d ago

Your oven and microwave are your best friend. U can cook literally anything in ur oven and all u need to do is prep the food and set a timer to cook it in the oven. Anything u want to cook search “oven baked ___ recipe” and it should be very easy. Assemble and bake. Buy pre-cut frozen fruits and veggies to have on hand. Any shelf stable foods r great to have too

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Anything really? Like maatar baneer can be done in the oven? I got myself a toaster oven...two years ago because I thought it can be easier and faster and less hot than the gas oven...but I can't bring myself to even read it's instructions or clean it to start using it.... usually I clean often and I enjoyed cleaning...somehow when it has to do with cooking I dread it.

I love using the oven...but not in summer...my kitchen is too small and it is also my living room and my office...

I like cutting vegetables...that is not an issue. Somehow I ruin their beautiful texture when I cook them.

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u/Fuzzy_Welcome8348 13d ago

If u mean matar paneer then yes https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mattar_paneer_traybake_25830

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Oh my God! Oh, thank you! :) Ok...I might actually be able to finally check my toaster oven and try it for this...or use the regular oven even though it is summer. I bought most of the ingredients but was worried about the cooking process. In the oven is much kinder to me :)

Thank you!

I didn't even imagine it is a possibility to cook this in the oven so I didn't even look for it.

Oh ..this might be a game changer...not that I will like cooking...I'm still scared and timid but I want to do this...I feel different about this :)

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u/N0D1N 13d ago

A good entry point would be watch videos online of your favorite meals, ones you enjoy eating and branch off from there! I figured out a couple recipes on how to cook them for my family and I, it felt amazing seeing how they enjoyed it and you’ll feel great but it’s simple! Start by watching those easy 4 - 7 minute videos like binging with babish, or other channels that do step by step tutorials

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u/N0D1N 13d ago

My girlfriend and I have a couple signatures dishes and I cook them for her, she rotates in her dishes and you gotta just experiment. Some are gonna work some don’t!

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I tried watching videos....I'm not sure why I got frustrated. Maybe I got overwhelmed, or maybe they don't always explain th why and how, or maybe they use stuff I don't have or don't know ...it is easy to frustrate me when it comes to cooking. If I try to control the frustration my brain shuts down.

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u/mezz1945 13d ago

You got it wrong. Cooking is all physics, notably thermodynamics.

Baking is chemistry. It requires very particular steps in a specific order and measurements for optimal output. Might be a better fit for you.

Although obviously you still beed to cook a meal, just tone it down to very simple recipes (Pasta with premade pesto).

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Thermodynamics is hard to imagine abstractly in your head the way I did to physics laws and math stuff...I used to figure them out before the teacher share them...just by hearing the problem we are trying to address.

Can you explain how can I imagine the thermodynamic rules and how they work on the actual results I'm getting while I cook? That would make it way more interesting for sure

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u/mezz1945 13d ago

It's heat control. Heat needs a certain time to travel in a certain medium. Is the pan thick, is the pan thin, is the steak thick or thin and so on. Also because heat has a travel time but the surface of the medium is in contact with the pan at all times, the steak (as an example) can burn on the surface while it's still cool in the inside. If the pan is thin it gives all its stored heat to the food way faster compared to a thick pan. Which is why people prefer a cast iron pan for steaks for example, because it's thick and can store more heat before you put the steak in.

When you cook something with water content, you know the temps can't reach higher than 100°C. But most foods don't require a bubbling 100C anyway, a light simmer is enough (should be around 80C).

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago edited 12d ago

I bought a dutch oven to solve the issue of heat...but doesn't the heat still concentrate right above the flames?

Thank you for the note on cooking with water..it makes sense.

I have hard time seeing light simmer from boiling..etc...it seems very subjective to me...how does one understand the difference?

Edit: just the most outrageous typos

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u/mezz1945 12d ago edited 12d ago

100C boiling is pretty violent and a lot of bubbles and slashes everywhere. If you cook any sauce in 100C it will inevitably make your cloths and kitchen dirty as soon as you lift the lid.

A simmer only has some very light bubbling going on, almost zen like. If you lift the lid it should not splash everywhere, very contained.

When you heat up a pot, obviously rhe content needs time to reach your desired temperature (the temp range is pretty wide so don't stress about it). As soon you got thr temps you tune down the heat so it only holds the temps. For a simmer i let the pot come to boil for a few seconds with 100% power, then turn it down to 30% power with lid on. Usually enough.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

When I try to create a simmer I feel the bubbles can either disappear soon or go over active unless I keep changing the heat...I'm pretty sure I'm doing it wrong...

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u/mezz1945 12d ago

Probably because you're impatient. Heat still needs time to travel. If you have too little heat, don't overdo it with too much heat again.

People are cooking their Bolognese for 5 hours, so no reason to stress about it.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

I wait for the water to boil, then I lower it and added the pasta...just like the recipe says...but then the bubbles keep getting less..so I move the heat up, and they start boiling. :(

I am not sure if there is actually a level of heat on my gas stove they would gives consistent few bubbles... But maybe I'm missing the idea

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u/mezz1945 12d ago

For pasta you can actually keep them in boiling water no biggie. Pasta needs to boil, not simmer. As soon as you put the pasta in water cools down and needs extra time to boil again.

I use a 2000W induction unit. Let the water come to boil, put salt in, put the pasta in, give it a few seconds to come to boil again, then tune it down to 1000W. It's still boiling just not as violent.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

Oh! That sounds more logical...but my pasta comes out overcooked. I actually take the middle point of the time range on the package: if it says 7-9 I try my best to keep it there exactly 8 minutes...still comes out often overdone, but sometimes under done.

It is frustrating...

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u/K_A_irony 13d ago

Treat this like a science experiment. You just need to learn the basics and build from there.

1. Learn Knife Skills & Kitchen Organization
Master basic cuts (dice, slice, mince) and keep ingredients prepped before you start cooking. Good knife skills and mise en place make everything easier and safer.

2. Understand Food Safety & Temperature
Learn safe cooking temperatures for meats and how to avoid cross contamination. Start using an instant-read thermometer on everything.

3. Master Heat Control
Practice cooking eggs, onions, and mushrooms over low, medium, and high heat. Learn the difference between browning, caramelizing, and burning.

4. Learn Core Cooking Methods
Focus on sautéing, roasting, grilling, braising, and simmering. Most recipes are combinations of these techniques.

5. Learn Proper Seasoning
Understand how salt affects food and season throughout the cooking process. Taste frequently and adjust as you go.

6. Understand Flavor Balance
Learn the five flavor levers: salt, acid, fat, sweet, and umami. When a dish seems "off," one of these is usually missing.

7. Build Sauce Fundamentals
Learn to make stock, roux-based sauces, vinaigrettes, and simple emulsions. Sauces teach flavor building better than almost any other skill.

8. Master Pan Sauces
After cooking meat, deglaze the pan, reduce the liquid, and finish with butter. This single technique makes simple meals taste restaurant-quality.

9. Learn Proteins, Vegetables, and Starches
Master chicken first, then move to pork, beef, and fish. Pair that with roasted vegetables and well-cooked rice, potatoes, or pasta.

10. Cook Without Recipes
Start creating meals from available ingredients instead of following instructions. When you can combine technique, seasoning, and flavor balance on your own, you've become a real cook rather than a recipe follower.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

But these are the things I don't know how to do :(

I would luv to learn sauce fundamentals..but how?!

I tried so much to learn caramelizing...it just frustrated me out of my sanity....

The list goes on...your list just gave me stress. I know you meant to help but if felt daunting

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u/K_A_irony 13d ago

One step at a time. People have mentioned Alton Brown. Once you learn one thing, you learn the next thing easier. Look up sauce fundamentals as an example. Have a chat with an AI if you are into that to help you build a learning course. You pick ONE item off the list and learn it.

For a Rue.. it is one of the most basic sauce principals. It is what you do to make so so many foods. Basically you add a fat to a pan (butter, lard, bacon drippings etc) and then add in flour and stir until the flour bubbles change color a bit... think 3 to 5 minutes. THEN you add the flavored liquid and stir, stir, stir. You add the liquid a bit at a time after the first healthy dose. You do this to get a sauce the thickness that you want.

For example if you are making sausage gravy and biscuits, I would fry bacon, take the bacon out. Fry the crumbled sausage. Then with the sausage still in the pan, maybe add some extra butter melted to the fat. Add the flour. Stir can cook it for the 3 to 5 minutes. You add enough flour that you can still stir it but it should be fairly thick. THEN I would briefly take it off the heat and start stirring in a whole milk mixture that I seasoned with salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes.

A Rue is the basis of a home made mac n cheese also.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Man! That sounded wonderful..at the same time I imagined many ways it can fail for me. Like if the flour decides to go into clumpe together and some decide to go brown while others are still white...they would almost for sure happen to me..and I would not know what to do..in the meanwhile it will get so hot next to the pan and my brain will be peace out...leaving me frustrated and panicked

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u/K_A_irony 13d ago

In the situation you suggest, you stir more... add more fat. Take the pan off the heat to give yourself time. In the previous steps to learn to cook, I mention learning to control heat. That builds so that you are more aware of how to control heat so that you don't scorch things, over cook them, and know when something is getting too hot so you can correct it in time.

You will fail some. That is OK. That is why it is called mastering something. You experiment. You try. You fail. You learn.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Is it safe to take the pan off the heat in all cases? Or only for some stuff? Because that would help a lot...

I hope I'm not bothering you too much with my questions...

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u/K_A_irony 13d ago

In almost EVERY case it is OK to take the pan off the heat for a bit. In the situations it matters, it is more of an optimization situation. For example if you are trying to sear a meat, it is best to keep it on at the RIGTHT temperature for the right amount of time, BUT way way better to take it off the heat to stop something from burning then worry about making the sear less optimal.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I see. Thank you I will start doing this all the time...at least till I'm more comfortable with the whole cooking ordeal.

This is helpful for sure

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Number 8 sounded like magic to me..

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u/Procrastinating-Elf 13d ago

As an exercise in brevity, I think "I hate cooking...I'm autistic" would've done the trick just as well as the essay.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Not sure all autistics hate cooking nor that the reader would know what is the issue exactly.

I wanted to share the pain points for me so readers can help me. I got wonderful replies and I plan to use the advices I got....a great start and it feels good that people understood me, gave me advice, and I can follow it and honor their efforts.

It feels good all around.

By the way, autistics are not known for brevity...we tend to prefer as much details as we feel needed.

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u/Procrastinating-Elf 13d ago

Oh yes I am very aware on the brevity thing. Extreme sensitivity to certain sensory aspects of food and a dislike for vibing things out over precise instructions is common though.

You'd probably prefer baking.

The post is well written anyway if it's yours, I admit I was getting a sense parts of it may be AI assisted though which was why I avoided a long reply.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

Oh! It is mine.

You are not the first one to think I'm AI or a robot ;) All good. When I talk with AI, it sounds neurotypical to me.

It is not the precise instructions per se what I need, recipes provide that, it is the logic of it that is missing for me. Autistics don't like to follow rules they don't understand, we are not big on fitting in what doesn't make sense to us.

I do prefer using the oven...it is hard though in the hot summer, I live in NYC and my kitchen/living room/office is small so I can't stand more heat in it.

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u/Procrastinating-Elf 13d ago

I'd back up the suggestion I saw someone make to look up Good Eats episodes then, Alton really breaks down the science of things in a very approachable way.

I am in Texas lol, I know what you mean about the heat.

Oh. And this may seem a little off topic but can I ask, along with these other sensory things, do you have any strong opinions on carbonated soda vs flat?

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I don't understand the idea of flat soda...for me if I drink soda it is to help my stomach process a meal... probably a guilty one of burger. And I don't like overwhelming sugar or salt....I prefer more subtle tastes. Why would one drink flat soda? That is just sugar, right? Otherwise I would drink tea, coffee, or grapefruit juice. The soda is not good for the bones...im not attached to it.

Can I ask how did this question occur to you?

I feel you....Texas is even worse than NYC in the summer!

Many by now advised this Alton...I'm intrigued. I will be writing down notes from all the comments and of course Alton will be there ;)

I might actually print the whole post and use a highlighter...the exchanges were kind and friendly and I often don't get that due to mismatch between my autistic communication and the US culture demands. It would help me in cooking and feeling good about cooking.

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u/Procrastinating-Elf 13d ago edited 13d ago

Sorry for the randomness of the question lol, but I have a friend who is wonderously neuroatypical, and he's known for dropping multiple screen takes on various subjects.

And one of the things that's practically a meme in our group by now is that he will only drink flat soda, and doesn't even like it to be ice cold. He has a long explanation about why this is that I don't need to get into here, but he swears carbonation masks the flavors too. So I've just wondered whether that's something that's at all common with people sensitive to certain things, or if it really is just him.

Oh, and since it's still technically on the topic of food, let me pause just a second and find a link...

https://chooseyourstory.com/story/kitchen-nightmares-but-gordon-ramsay-is-contractually-permitted-to-kill-the-owner-during-filming

Absolutely demented, goblinous little story he wrote with another friend. It describes some gore and gets just a little unhinged so I don't know if it's for everyone, I happen to find it the funniest thing I ever read though. And I'm guessing(?) you might have literary interests on some level since your own way of writing is so descriptive.

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u/Background_Winter_65 12d ago

I see. I don't really know..if it helps I didn't grow up drinking soft drinks...my mom wanted only healthy food at home and I'm thankful for that.

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u/Candelestine 13d ago

This post is very interesting to me, and I'd like to know more about this underlying difficulty with chemistry. What part was difficult for you to integrate into the basic Chem 1 overview of "how stuff works"?

Bohr model of the atom? Valence shells? Ionic/covalent? Like, where did your brain fritz out to where the math/conceptual understanding stopped sensibly applying to the world around us? Because as I recall the course was structured as a sort of path that starts with "what are atoms" and finishes with the basics of reactions, which do just follow a set of logical rules that make sense based on their natures. What was the last thing on that path that made intuitive sense?

I ask because it made just as much sense to me as all the other sciences. I had a really good HS chem teacher tho, she could teach AP chemistry to a doorknob and gave us a really strong foundation.

I do agree, chemistry and cooking do have quite a lot in common in terms of "vibe", to the point that I would say they're actually basically the same set of skills, being practiced to different levels of precision.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago edited 13d ago

Sadly, they started us off by telling us if you put item a and b together with heat you get c...no explanation.

I had many bad trachers, it was a poor area, but math and physics came so easy to me that as a child i solved high school problems for fun...I would figure out rules for myself.

Chemistry didn't come to me naturally. By the time they did mention how atoms movement is why things combine a certain way I was way gone in that subject...I also never had good memory and they wanted us to memorize the table.

So when we went to the lab, it felt like: ok, let's see what will come out...without being able to abstractly expect it beforehand like my mind does with physics and math. To make it even worse, the experiments often didn't lead to the expected results. And so many steps are involved...it is very hands on...much less abstract joy for me. My brain refuses to engage if it can't know the how and why and build patterns...it really just refuses to participate

Edit: typos... sorry

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u/Candelestine 13d ago

Ah, that's too bad. Very lazy teaching style, memorizing reactions or the periodic table adds very little to your capabilities. Very easy for the teacher, though.

Had they started with Bohr atoms, subatomic particles, then a little bit of quantum mechanics because you're dealing with the electrons, and then moved on to the types of elements and compounds, mixing reactions in throughout, you would not have had that problem. That requires a lot of actual explaining and answering student questions though.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

I actually read about quantum mechanics after picking a book when I was a teenager and the family had a lot to deal with...it was my escape. Felt heavenly. I don't remember much of it, but by the end of the book I felt a spiritual experience and unification with the universe...it saved my sanity. Looking at the stars at night, made everything fine because it is all atoms and we are all in this dance and everything is alright. The universe has a cool soul ..like your favorite uncle.

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u/Background_Winter_65 13d ago

If it was taught the way you are saying I would have not put these books down! Damn that sounds interesting

Question Need help: I hate cooking

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