I was SO there. As a newlywed, I didn’t know how to cook ground beef. Cooking from scratch for me was spaghetti. (The kind with the Hunt’s spaghetti sauce.) Lasagna was especially complicated. (Again, the kind with the Hunt’s spaghetti sauce.) Our meals were frozen pizza and corn dogs.
I had a good cookbook, but pretty much only use it for cookies.
Then I got bored with chocolate chip cookies, began the process of expanding my baking horizons. I moved on to sugar cookies. Then snickerdoodles. And then, the creme de la creme of my baking experience thus far… buried cherry cookies.
It was probably four years after I got that cookbook that I realized it had chapters beyond the cookie chapter.
And that change came because I was staying at home, with only one income as opposed to two. I was searching for cheaper recipes. Also, a mother now, I was in the midst of an eye-opening food revelation. (Do you REALIZE how much salt is in frozen pizza?! And don’t get me started on CORN DOGS.) I was beginning the Natural Mommy transformation. I wanted whole foods. Wheat flour. Butter, not margerine. Vegetables.
As I tried new recipes, it was ALWAYS with fear and trepidation. As I said, we did not have much money. The last thing I wanted to do was waste an entire dinner because it a) burned to a crisp in the oven, b) was botched by an inexperienced chef trying to ad-lib, or c) was really a horribly tasting, or even bland-tasting meal, even though the picture in the cookbook made it look scrumptious.
I followed every new recipe to a ‘T’. I leveled measuring cups and teaspoons alike. Oh, who am I kidding? I still do! I cooked with one eye on my food and one eye memorizing the recipe for fear I would skip a step.
Cooking from scratch was my goal, but it intimidated me!
And when you are intimidated, you have two options.
- You can turn right back around and kiss the secure ground you came from. Never ever get back on the scary boat called Change.
- Embrace the fact that you will make messes. You will burn dinner. You will undercook meals. Especially the first time you make them. But you just keep trying! (Motivation to complete this step may, in part, be brought to you by my daughter’s potty training efforts.)
And you know what? Looking back on that stage of fearful abandonment? It was a rather short phase. (Of course, there was that rather lengthy stage of “I’m not deviating from the recipe; I’m not trying anything new. You can’t make me.”)
The more I cooked, the more I learned what food was supposed to look like. I noticed patterns in recipes. Like that thyme, basil, and sage are all used with chicken, but never all at the same time. And that cakes ARE NOT DONE, even if the toothpick comes out clean, if the top still resembles a dome. That dome will sink down and you will be left with an embarrassment of a German Chocolate Cake. (See? Still learning.)
And I learned what food was supposed to taste like. Why, just tonight, I tried a new meal. And it was not good. But instead of throwing out the recipe, I drew from my experience and, suddenly, I became that freak who throws a dash of this with a smidge of that and somehow creates something that tastes good! (Josh compared me to Remy from Ratatouille.)
(And, for your information, it was an incredibly bland chicken casserole. The only spice included on the recipe was pepper! But because I had a bank of information, I knew that garlic salt and lemon pepper go excellently with chicken. Dinner was saved. Next time, maybe I’ll add some carrots and celery, and replace the lemon pepper with sage, who know?! The possibilities are endless!)
And so I end on this point. Get. In. The. Kitchen.
Get a good teaching cookbook (Church cookbooks are nice, but they don’t exactly teach you what you need to know.) I highly recommend Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. From scrambled eggs to creme brulee, they’ve got it all, and make it all very doable.
Save money, eat healthy, feel competent. Cook!
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Does cooking from scratch intimidate you? Did it? What got you over it; and how long did it take?
I’m a scientist at heart- always have been- so I’ve always approached cooking as a science experiment in the kitchen. Just recently, even, I tried to make my own salad dressings, refried beans, french silk pie, and jelly roll (the latter two with homemade whipped cream). It’s an adventure, really. Like you said, I try it and move on, and learn from mistakes- and I’m to the point, too, where I rarely follow a recipe exactly, but instead throw in “a little of this, a little of that” ad see how it turns out.
This, like most of your posts is too funny! I had learned to cook before I married, but I was scared of deviating from a recipe, too. I had a bad experience trying to make croissants in high school and I wasn’t anxious to repeat it. When I first married, my husband expected some kind of bread at dinner. Getting out a loaf of wheat bread and the soft margerine tub didn’t cut it, either. So, we bought lots of cans of biscuits. Finally, I switched to “baking mix’ because I was tired of “flaky layers”. We were living (and still do) on one income and I would cast wishful glances at the bags of flour on the shelf as I picked up another box of baking mix every month or so. Flour was so much cheaper, but I had no idea there was such a thing as a written recipe for biscuits! None of the women in my family ever used a recipe. I thought either your mother, grandmother or one of your aunts had to teach you or you were out of luck. I finally did get my Grandmother to show me how to make biscuits with self-rising flour, shortening and milk. Imagine my surprise, a year later, when I found a biscuit recipe in my cookbook! Now, I have become one of those folks that makes up my own recipes and I enjoy cooking so much more. I don’t even have to look at my pancake recipe anymore!
cooking from scratch didn’t really scare me, it was more that it was a lot easier to open a box then to mix ingredients.
Now I love making things from scratch, my picky husband doesn’t leave much room to experiment, but I’m safe with breads and starches… 🙂
I have never EVER been a “follow the recipe to a T” person. Mostly because I’ll be going through a recipe and say “hmm, I don’t have that, this is close” and I’ll substitute. Most of the time it works, there have been a few disasters.
Anyway, I’m still waiting for the day my husband decides he wants to try new things and I can really get experimenting!
I’m with Jes – it’s not that it scares me, but I am just lazy. I think there’s also a time factor for me too – especially when I’m working. I ALWAYS follow recipes to the “T”. 🙂 So if it says “use canned ___” then I do. 🙂 I think the secret is getting a cookbook that doesn’t rely on premade goods. The Wycliffe cookbook is one of my favorites, because EVERYTHING in it is from scratch (since it was made for missionaries living overseas).
I liked this article, so I linked to it from my blog! I totally need to stop being intimidated and get cooking. Thanks.
S.B.
http://bethriftylikeus.blogspot.com
Joanna – I am SO not a science person. Well, not in the textbook way. I like understanding how things work, but it takes me a looooooong time to get there. (Just ask my husband who tries every now and then to teach me basic physics.)
I think that’s why it took me years to understand the patterns in cooking. And I am NO WAY a learned chef. I have many more experiments and disasters to make. 🙂 And, fyi, I do still cook with one eye on the recipe if it’s a tricky one I don’t know. Like I said, I’m a slow learner. I need to be SURE I understand a recipe before I can deviate from it.
But at least I can deviate now! Be proud of me!
Melinda – Yes! I know! I just recently made my own salad dressing and had that same revelation! I thought Kraft had some kind of special machine to make salad dressing and it could not be done in an ordinary kitchen! (Or something like that.) The feeling of liberation that came when I found that recipe in my cookbook! 🙂 And I definitely want to make the effort to teach Olivia to cook. I want her to be able to make meals and understand recipes! If not for her sake, then for her future husband’s during those first few years of marriage!!
Jes and Ashley, you lucky dogs you. You missed out on the Cooking Fear Gene. Maybe it’s genetically passed. All the more reason to make sure I cook with Olivia! I totally understand the ease of just reaching for that cream of ______ soup can. Especially from your point of view, Ashley, and having to work! And I do hope your husband softens on his food preferences, Jes.
Ashley, that’s a great point about what ingredients your cook book recommends. For the most part, BH&G goes from scratch. Their tuna noodle casserole, for example, DOES NOT include cream of celery soup. And it’s the Best Ever. 🙂
S.B. – Thanks for the linky love! Maybe I’ll post some of my “from scratch” favorites to help you overcome your intimidation. 🙂 You can do it!
The first meal I made from scratch was fried chicken for my parents. My dad called it a “burnt offering.” I truly started cooking from scratch when my husband was in tech school and had several young men over for study group. These guys were hungry for something homemade and some time off base. They appreciated anything that was fresh and flavorful. I wasn’t very good at first, but with practice I’ve learned so much and can now stick to basics while creating several different variations of dinner. I realized pretty quickly that I have to cook a recipe three times before I get it just right. It’s also saved us a great deal of money as my husband and I have never been living a plush exsistence. God’s been good to give us skills that let us make do with the blessings He gives us.
That’s an important lesson, Rachel – to know in advance that it takes three times to get it just right!
And cooking for hungry guys is ALWAYS good motivation. 🙂
Beth – Just so you don’t feel bad… I don’t think it’s that I missed out on the Cooking Fear Gene. Cooking itself terrifies me. But, cooking from scratch doesn’t. I think it’s because I grew up in a country where you HAD to cook from scratch! (We didn’t have to kill our own animals, fortunately, but we did often have to buy them whole. We used to give our maid all the organs from the chicken because we didn’t know what to do with them!) In some ways, I DON’T cook because I feel like it all needs to be “from scratch”, and I get lazy so I have nachos and cheese for dinner instead.
Well, I wasn’t a box-mix person, I hadn’t cooked at ALL prior to college because my mother was tyrannical in the kitchen! What helpedme get over my fear of recipes and fix the recipes that I made that weren’t to my tastes wasn;t learning how to cook, it was learning how ingredients and cooking techniques WORKED.
By understanding the science behind using a certain temperature, leavening agent, cooking method or how a set of ingredients worked together I was able to freely manipulate food to suit my tastes and EVERYTHING I wanted to make, no matter how complicated or new, was much more reliably tasty and less intimidating because I had the tools I needed to change things as *I* wanted them.
Learning which spices create which tastes, especially, wasvery helpful. The biggest commercial help was in the form of Food Network’s “Good Eats”. The entire show is based on one ingredient and the science behind it, the origins, the flavor profile, and examples of recipes using it. It was REALLY helpful and quite entertaining too.
Now that I am a SAHM making tasty food frugally drives my cooking, and a little know-how with the seasoning and substitutions makes it MUCH easier to take a somewhat-expensive recipe and cheapen it up a bit for our budget.
I get your point Ashley. 🙂 But maybe you should consider this: Which is healthier – tuna noodle casserole made with cream of celery soup from a can, or nachos and cheese. 🙂 Sometimes it’s worth it to reach for that can of prepared soup if the overall effect is you eat dinner. 😛
Taryl – The way you describe it , I would LOVE to have the chance to see that show! I now want to learn EVERYTHING about baking soda. And baking powder. And eggs. And salt. And sugar. I know (from my bread machine instruction book) that every ingredient has a purpose, even if some is just for taste. But I want to know what that purpose is! Maybe there’s a Homemaker 101 online course I can take somewhere… 😛
Thanks for peaking my curiousity!
I switch between cooking from scratch and cooking with pre-made stuff. I had to learn to cook when I moved to college. My best friend could bake, but neither of us were real cooks. So I learned. I grew up with a mom that almost never opened a cookbook, so everything was always an experiment. I think I picked that up too. I love cookbooks, but more for ideas than anything else.
I like cooking. My mom and both my grandmothers used to tell me that the more you cook, the more you can read food. I agree. I now know what things are supposed to look like when I am cooking them, and I have also learned what food looks (well at least should) look like in the store.
I will admit to my fair share of odd suppers, but sometimes you just roll with it and it works out. I was making potato balls (think shepherd’s pie rolled into a ball, rolled in bread crumbs and then fried) and I didn’t get the potatoes right, so we wound up with shepherd’s pie with the potatoes mixed in and lots of cheese on top. AJ (my husband) was happy with it and it was yummy.
Molly – I like that phrase, “The more you cook, the more you can read food” – that is so true!
And why is it that we learn to bake before we look to cook real meal?! 🙂
Cooking? What’s that? Oh! That’s what my husband does! 🙂
I don’t cook, Kyle does the cooking around here. I seldom cook, and when I do, it’s something that I already knew how to do. Kyle throws materials together to make meals and often does not use a recipe book.
I’m too busy cleaning the house, laundry, etc to worry about cooking. He takes care of that stuff for me.
Most guys are terrified of the whole kitchen area in general – way to go, Bonnie, you got the only one that wasn’t! 😛
You just enjoy that man.
I too underwent the “natural mommy transformation” My latest experiments have been in bread making.
Mama k – I’d love to exchange bread maker recipes with you! (If that’s the kind you use – I’ve never made bread by hand before.) I actually intend to post my favorite bread machine recipe tonight in preparation for Frugal Friday tomorrow. Stay tuned!
I honestly have never been terrified of cooking from scratch…I started cooking early, and was cooking dinner for my family regularly starting around age 11. My mom didn’t ever use or allow much in the way of convenience foods, so I grew up cooking from scratch. I’m honestly more terrified of boxed macaroni and cheese than I am homemade macaroni and cheese. It looks weird!
I am very grateful that both Daniel and I have Italian moms who love to cook (everything)! For Daniel and I, cooking from scratch is one of the hobbies that we do together (and seperately) and have an excuse to do almost every day! Our first year in the D.R. cooking was especially experimental- I felt like we were so limited. But know that we’re used to what we can get here and know how to substitute, we’re able to do so much more! Living here, it’s either: cooking from scratch or going out to eat (or somwhow finding a ride an hour to Santiago and seeing what pre-made mixes and foods they might have there). But that’s good, because it forces us to cook from scratch!
I’ve always been an excellent baker, but I branched out when I got married. I had practice living in a college dorm where I planned a meal for 30 people once a month, and cooked for them all once a week under somebody else.
Now, I’m pretty confident, but whenever I have a total flop it’s a little depressing.
Favorite cookbook of the moment: The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. My mom bought it for me at Costco for cheap, and I LOVE IT.
Tree, I can only imagine the kind of crazy substitutions you’d have to do, moving to a new country! And the intimidation level is so much higher because it’s food you’ve never heard of! Way to go!
Emily, I am SO Googling that cookbook right now. 😀
Thanks, that was a great read I tried one from this lasagna recipes site before but it wasn’t so hot. I think I’ll try a different one tonight though!
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one of the very first things i tried to make was cookies. i used coconut oil instead of butter, for some reason that made sense at the time, and they came out so disgustingly greasy that my father took one bite, spit it out in the sink, got out his pocket lighter and lit the thing and it went up like a torch, sputtering and spitting oil. he threw it out in the yard and i never tried that recipe again.
Ha! Cookies made with coconut oil are flammable?! I usually just use butter. Sometimes I’ll use half butter/half lard. 🙂