How did you learn to cook? Ever since ma and pa quit cooking

>>17487188
You can prolly find youtube videos about it these days.

Of course you can. Youtube and google are your best friends with this, there are plenty of good, easy recepies and clear instructions to follow. Once you get started with it and get the hang of the basics it's pretty easy to improve.

>>17487188
I've been told that I'm good at cooking but all I do is follow recipes.

Just google diahes you like and ket it take you away.

>>17487188
I've never personally used YouTube for cooking, but I think it would help if you haven't watched someone cooking before, and don't know what simmering, browning, caramelizing, etc look like... I do lot of cooking, almost all of which started by reading and following recipes, and gradually memorizing the ones I liked enough to repeat.

It's pretty easy except for the fact that I find a lot of the times indicated in written recipes (saute for 10 min, etc) aren't particularly accurate, so if you follow things to the letter without paying attention to how your dish looks/tastes along the way you may wind up over- or undercooking some ingredients (which usually won't hurt you, unless you wind up serving yourself unlucky raw chicken or something, which could make you explosively sick.)

Used cookbooks are really cheap and many can be downloaded. Epicurious dot com has millions of recipes online for free, and the comments threads have lots of ways people have modified various recipes. Look for something that sounds tasty and has a lower estimated prep/cooking time (despite what I said above, a dish a recipe says takes 30min isn't going to take two hours, so it's useful to have a sense of difficulty based on time required).

Get a cookbook that's especially targetted to students living on their own for the first time, or even kids. That's a really easy way to get the basics down, and the food is usually pretty simple and/or bland that it'll still be edible if you fuck it up.

In addition to all these other great suggestions, get a crockpot. Most of the recipes are literally throw all this stuff in there, set on low for 6-8 hrs, high for 4 hours or whatever, and done. It's great for dinner, you set it in the morning and when you get home, dinner is ready and waiting. It's like having a butler cook your dinner for you. And then you have leftovers to take for lunch/freeze for later. Here's a couple good recipes I like:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/34929/pepperoncini-beef/
http://www.tablefortwoblog.com/chicken-tikka-masala-crockpot/
http://cookiesandcups.com/slow-cooker-crack-chicken/
I make those at least once a month. Or just google food/ingredients you like + crockpot, there's recipes for just about every cuisine.

>>17487188
You're starting a bit late but no problem. As others have said just look up reciepies. Once you do a few you will begin to understand the underlying techniques. From there get more practice with other ingredients. When you begin to feel more confident you can stop using reciepies (mosts are shit anyway, I often change quantities to my taste) or freestyle a little. Look in your fridge/pantry and see what you can do. I could be as simple as seeing a steak and 3 types of veg and cooking it up. Bam you can now cook. Keep going and eventually you'll have decent food you can make on the fly.

*Important*

Taste, taste, taste. When you are cooking you have to be constantly tasting. If you are making a lemon curd for something for example, don't blindly follow. You need to be tasting as you go to check tartness, sweetness, texture etc. The same goes for everything in cooking.

Cooking is fun anon. It's a life skill that you will need until you die, bitches love it and you can create restaurant/bistro quality food when you get good enough. You're the one eating it so dw about fucking up, just take a stab at it.

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>attempting to make omelette today
>oh fuck i need 2 more eggs
>turn off burner
>quickly crack two eggs and scramble them
>throw them in
>turn shit back on
>waiting for it to cook
>its too hard in the middle, can't get it to flip
>try my hardest
>eggs are breaking apart, its a sad looking omelette at this point
>fuck it
>break everything up with spatula
>ended up with some pretty good scrambled eggs and veggies

its the small victories guys

>>>/ck/
I just throw everything in a pan with a small bit of olive oil until it gets soft or done, it works most of the time. Sometimes I put soy or teriyaki sauce on it

>>17487188
It's not that hard you just cook google whatever you want to eat and google will give you a recepie and you'll cook it!

>>17487188
buy or look up cooking for beginners. its not hard to do yourself provided you follow the recipe to the letter.
cooking is fun sure some recipes are hard but comes down to practice. the more you try, the better you will get.

>>17487188
Depends on your budget in time and money.

Might as well go on a fitness regime if you're constrained. Grilled chicken breast and steamed vegetables every day and lots of water. Even if you didn't work out, you'd feel a hell of a lot better than with fast food. And you can get portioned chicken breast at a good unit price.

>>17488551
>2 more eggs
>more
How many fucking eggs were you planning on eating?

>>17488629
>olive oil
Honey no...

>>17487188
Boil a few vegies, pit them in a pot with water heat and wait, can't really fuck that up
Cook desired side of meat, sausages are easy as to cook, a cut of meat cook till you get a bloody liquid seep through the top flip and same again and done.
You are no master chef

I started with pre packaged noodles, mashed potatoes, stuffing, diner in a box, and then one by one you Learn to make that shit for yourself because it's cheaper, and you can make it more how you want it.
Start with the simple stuff like rice, beans, mashed potatoes, because most people are young when they're poor. Pinterest is good for recipies now, just pin stuff you think looks good, and give it a shot. And as time goes on you up your game, start learning to cook things you like to order from restaurants until you make it's good, that you ant even order information restaurant anymore because it will disappoint you.
Get a slow cooker and a food processor.

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Basic breakfast food like scrambled eggs I just learned by watching my parents. Pasta is easy as fuck just read the directions. Cooking meats, chicken, and fish I learned on YouTube. Start with eggs, vegetables and other things that seem easy to cook.

I made my own egg fried rice recipe and it took a few batches of trail and error to learn what it needs to taste just right.

>Tldr; Go o. YouTube, watch others, read directions, trail and error.

A great online cookbook is whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com

It's simple and to the point.

>>17488765
What's wrong with olive oil?

>>17488888
Hey man I just wanted to stop by and say nice quints.

>>17488888
Requesting an answer for quints

>>17487188

In my country there is a legendary cookbook called 'good food easy to make'

Just buy a similar cookbook and start from there.
Boiling potatoes and making a groundmeat ovenbased dish is easy as fuck, spaghetti carbonara is easy as fuck, many many dishes are easy as fuck

>>17488909
>>17488888
Flavour can be overpowering and unsuitable for some dishes, and there's mixed evidence about how heating it up may or may not be bad for you. It's really best kept for things like salad dressings or eating with bread IMO.