Before arriving to college, my mother pleaded with me to learn how to cook. I shrugged her off since I wouldn’t be doing much cooking in my dorm room.Now in the middle of my junior year of college, I regret not listening to her but I am quickly recovering from that lesson. From late August to currently, I have made a lot of mistakes that could have been avoided if I would have just practiced at home. Hopefully, my simple yet effective tips will help someone else.
1. You can cook with your microwave
I know this seems silly but if you are not comfortable enough to be using an oven, a microwave can save a lot more meals than tinkering with an oven. Even if you do not want to use the microwave to cook an entire meal, you can mix and heat up ingredients in a more efficient way than doing everything on a stove top (butter and bacon are examples).
2. Cook meals on a full/average belly
If you are anything like me, I get very angry and idle when I’m hungry, so cooking while hungry isn’t a good option. There’s at least 5 reasons off the top of my head why eating on a half-empty to empty stomach is a bad idea, but most importantly, you can get impatient and decide to eat some semi-raw food. If you want to eat something simple like eggs, I would suggest cooking when you’re near hungry. If you want a large dish that will last you a week, then it is best to cook on a full stomach. Not only will you cook it correctly and fully heated, you wouldn’t eat half of it by accident. The longer we hold out to eat, the more we eat in one seating which is the opposite of making the food last. I would recommend if it is a time consuming dish, eat a full meal 3 hours before but it depends on your stomach.
3. Heatless options are cooking too
I know I can’t be the only one who used to think if your meal didn’t require heat that it isn’t cooking. During this time, heatless meals will be your go to if you make a mistake. Typically, they are cheap, delicious, and can fill you up quicker. Also if you’re like me, it’s one of the rare times you actually eat greens (salads and sandwiches are examples).
4. Cooking with friends
It’s a quick way to become more comfortable with cooking as well as you see how different/similar you are in relation to taste buds. Friends usually inspire friends and this can be helpful if you’re unmotivated. Friends can also help out in the time consuming meals, like helping out with meal prep and distracting you during the wait. Also they can be your test subject during your experimental cooking.
5. Consistency
In order to get better at cooking, you gotta do it repeatedly. I tend to forget skills as time goes on, so I have to keep doing the particular skill at least once a week. Being consistent also regulates your lifestyle, making a routine would make cooking easier to remember. It’s easier to cook on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 3 pm, for example, than having a scattered eating and cooking schedule.
I know these tips should be known to everyone but it not everyone thinks about this as a beginning adult cook. Hopefully this will help make people’s lives easier.