When it comes to cooking, I really don't know much. My father's teaching method for everything has been to make me do it, and have me learn from my mistakes. With cooking though I always got scared that my mistakes would burn the house down so I always avoided it, or handled things like cutting the vegetables (because I know I won't start a fire with just a knife and a cucumber).

But I like food, and I think that as an adult I should probably have at least the basics of cooking skills. Anybody have any tips on what some good first things to learn would be, or good guides for stuff like this?

Simple stuff, like egg fried rice is easy to learn and quite tasty. Throw some rice in a frying pan, beat 1 egg for every 65grams of rice, move around til it all mixed together, let it cook til solid while keeping it loose with a spatula.

Okay, so frying pan, egg, and rice huh? Well the ingredients are simple enough and I like fried rice so I'll give it a shot.

I think for some foods you have to put something in the pan/pot/whatever you're using to stop things from sticking to the bottom and burning right? Does that apply here too, or does something like the spatula bit you mentioned, or the egg handle that in this case? Also, is there a specific temperature that's used for this, or for frying in general or something?

Just find a BF who likes to cook...save yourself the trouble.

Or you could start out with frozen foods...then spice them up a bit to your taste.

Pasta is super simple...just boil water...start with the bottled sauce, add a little pepper, some Italian seasoning, onions, mushrooms...etc.

Garlic bread is also super simple and goes great with the pasta...buy some bakery rolls or French bread...butter them on one side, sprinkle a little garlic salt on 'em, maybe a little pepper and put 'em under the broiler (oven) until they are browned....

Pasta always seemed too easy somehow. I don't trust it. I mean if I set something on fire while making something as supposedly simple as pasta I'd never hear the end of it. From anybody.

...I don't trust pasta. Now that I think about it, that sounds pretty paranoid doesn't it?

Well, maybe just a little..!!

For what it's worth, my wife is a good cook, but I couldn't care less...I'm pretty good in the kitchen too....I'd rather she dress up in heels and stockings and a short skirt and I'll make supper.....

Pasta's not the best example... I always worry my cooking skills will end up being like this:



Although I already know how to do cereal at least, thankfully.

Fried rice really is fairly simple to make. Make sure you boil the rice before you start to fry it. If you've never made rice before there are a lot of instant varieties and some kinds that take just a few minutes to cook up. They've been pre-cooked already and just need a bit of boiling water. The directions should be on the box. If you use real rice then you just have to rinse it off a bit and then boil it in a pan with 1 part rice to 2 parts water. Honestly the instant varieties taste fine and are much easier to cook though.

Your rice will fry better if you put a bit of oil in the pan. Make sure its hot before you add the rice and eggs. Just vegetable oil will work fine. Its best for frying stuff. I think medium-high heat would be fine. Its what I usually use I think.

You can also add a bit of salt, pepper, and soy sauce. Just into the pan once its done frying. Leave it on the heat just a bit longer and then its ready to eat.

Sorry I knew that sounded too simple the first time, ya you will need either olive oil which is too tasty when used to cook eggs or margarine which I personally like. Keep the heat to about 2 thirds maximum.

Also as mentioned above boil the rice first,I like to boil the rice in a pan with salt,pepper and fine herbs which gives the rice a little extra flavour. Happy cooking. Don't worry about starting a fire, before I learned to cook three years ago,I wasn't too domesticated. I once tried to wash a cup and burned the house down. lol