Updated 8/18/06
Gents it's the 21st Century and many men cook. For me cooking was never part of the "female programming". In fact, I could barely cook as I entered my early 20s. My earliest repetoire involved broiling steak and boiling vegetables to death. The rest were TV dinners, microwaveable food stuffs, and fast food.
What changed?
I love to eat and got tired of fast food which did nothing except make my butt and waist bigger. [Okay, so I still have some weight issues - more about that later]. Frankly, I would prefer to eat sugar over anything else, but over the years managed to learned my way around the kitchen on the savory side (i.e. non-sweets) and have come to utterly love cooking. I now work in a professional kitchen as a pastry assistant after a 6 hours at my day job and tend to spend far less time in the kitchen at home than I used to due to exhaustion and/or burnout.
Some of you might be thinking, why bother cooking? Two reasons spring immediately to mind: (1) Eating at home is far healthier and less expensive than eating out [in transanese that means you save up for surgery faster], (2) it's the perfect way to impress a date regardless of their gender.
My love of food, poor impulse control, an inordinately stressful and sedentary job caused me to balloon up to 190+ lbs which is plenty for my 5'3" frame. That's the most that I've weighed in my life and far too much for my own personal comfort. After trying to diet rather unsuccessfully and watching some office mates work wonders for themselves through Weight Watchers, I finally succumbed and with great reluctance decided to give it a go. It has been the best thing that I've ever done for myself. Seventeen weeks later and a whopping 31 lbs lighter, I felt like a new person - energized and completely renewed. After the first 10 lbs, I was amazed at just how much better I felt. I've come to rather enjoy going to meetings (despite my initial grumbling and reluctance) because the speaker has a sense of humor and provides food for thought. What is utterly amazing is that for the majority of the time I was Culinary School studying Bakery & Patisserie (in the hopes of someday growing up to be a Pastry Chef) and continued to lose weight all the while tasting my school creations. The key has been "tasting" rather and taking everything that I create in school to the office or some other setting where these delicious goods do not call to me. Rather, they can be enjoyed by others . . . but I digress. I had a brief set back during the cake module and now 2 years later am working on getting back on track.
Because of Weight Watchers, I began to cooking more often and as a result exploring new recipes. In this day and age, almost all recipes provide nutritional counts which means that I have more options. Some of what I eat today comes from WW recipes, while others have been obtained from Sunset Magazine, Cooking Light, as well as from cookbooks which I get from my local library. I am eating far better tasting food than ever before. As I run across recipes that I particularly enjoy, I'll post them here (with point counts of course). See the one for Polenta.
Have you ever wondered why you've made the same recipe twice and it hasn't quite turned out the same? More than likely, it's due to how you scaled your ingredients. Allow me to explain.
Most conventional cookbooks provide recipes that measure things by volume. In other words, a recipe that calls for a half cup of flour, requires you to fill the a dry measure container then level the ingredient. Sometimes that half cup of flour will weigh exactly 2 ounces (no this is not a mistake, if we were talking liquid measure half cup would be 4 fluid ounces, but when it comes to flour, trust me - it's 2), but most times you'll be over or under the 2 oz. mark. All professional cookbooks provide measurements by weight which requires you to use a scale to weigh all of the ingredients in the recipe. So using the same recipe, 2 oz of flour will always weigh the same. Therefore, weight is a far more reliable means of measurement.
Warning: DON"T try to convert all of your conventional recipes to weight. There are some complicated formulas that need to be used in order to do that and ensure that what you are making turns out the way that it is supposed to. Also, not everyone has a kitchen scale and you really don't want to have to drag that along on a trip.
If you do have the chance to try a recipe that provides both weight and volume, try halfing the recipe and making it both ways to see the difference.
Here are some common measurement abbreviations for those of you who aren't familiar with kitchen lingo:
t or tsp = teaspoon
T or Tbs = tablesoon
C = cup
oz = ounce
fl. = fluid ounce
pt = pint (16 ounces)
# = pound (16 ounces)
qt = quart (32 ounces)
Toolwise -you will need measuring cups, measuring spoons, liquid measuring cups, one or more spatulas (high heat resistant preferably), a wooden spoon or two, tongs, cutting boards, a medium to large strainer, some pots and pans, and a decent set of knives. If you are on a budget, try to begin to purchase pots and pans that are multipurpose then as budget allows you can get a few special purpose items.
For baking you will need an 8 or 10" cake pan, muffin tins, half sheet pans or baking sheets, and some pyrex glassware - start with the 9x13. Trust me, you'll add to this later, I have tart pans, multiple size spring forms, a 6, 8, 10, and 12 inch cake pans, panna cotta molds, bain maries, ladels, hotel pans, cherry pitter, candy thermometer, multiple other thermometors, cake decorating tips, pastry bags, etc., etc., etc.
Pantry: Your pantry should be relatively well stocked. All purpose flour, sugar, powdered sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pepper, a good vanilla extract (bourbon/madagascar vanilla), herbs and spices such as basil, cayenne pepper, cumin, paprika, garlic powder, ginger powder, rosemary, thyme, and taragon. You'll add to your herbs and spices as you figure out what cuisine you enjoy. If you are baking you always want unsalted butter, milk, whipping cream (not the canned stuff), and a good almond extract on hand.
Note about whipping cream: If you are buying at the supermarket, the difference between heavy whipping cream and whipping cream is .5 grams of fat. Save your money, it won't make a difference. However, if you are buying at a specialty store, sometimes it pays to get the manufacturers cream which is 33-35% fat, particularly when making home made ice cream.
When it comes to regular fare, you can get away with a lot. Forget the salt, no problem, add it at the end. Change or increase the flavors as the dish is cooked.
Baking is an entirely different ball of wax. Use water that is too hot, forget or mismeasure the baking soda or baking powder, overwork the dough in a bread recipe and you'll wind up with hockey pucks instead of dinner rolls. Forget to add salt to it and it's pretty much trash or bird food. [trust me the first time this happens, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about]. But the fact that there are challenges should not dissuade you. Just be a bit more particular in reading and following the formulas or recipes that are provided.
Food Network has a lot of good shows and tips for the up and coming cook. My fave remains Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten. DIY also has a good show called Chef at Home which involves making meals without recipes. Just playing with flavours and paying attention to certain rations. For me (someone who has needed recipes all of his life) the ability to cook without restrictions, but with certain guidelines has been a blessing!!!
Instead of buying a ton of cookbooks, check them out from your local library. Start with beginners books such as The Essential Cook by Charles Delmar which does not contain recipes, but has incredibly useful information on the different tools available to use, how to shop for ingredients, cooking times and temperatures, how to quarter a chicken, dice an onion, and prepare and store certain foods and ingredients. The Betty Crocker Cookbook is something that I purchased for my stepdaughter when she decided that she wanted to cook. Also an excellent book explaining the processes of roasting, braising, sweating, sauteeing, etc., is Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef. I've provided links below for convenience.
When you find someone who you understand or enjoy, then add the book to your "need to have" list.
There's even a handy dandy cookbook critic online to help with some of your choices. She buys the books and makes the recipes to see if they really work. It's a nice resource and the blog contains recipes that she's tried, etc.
Other online resources:
A Chef's Table - Cooking
Tips
Berta's Useful Cooking Tips
Epicurious (Recipe Site)
Recipe Zaar (Recipe Site)
Evan Kleiman - Good Food (Podcast)
There are some people who write down what they are going to make as a means to review the recipe then take notes after its done. I tend to take notes of things that I've changed in the recipe as I go along. If the recipe was good enough to make again I jot it down in a journal with the variations that I made and if any other variations that I'd make in the future.
Practice makes perfect:
The hardest part of cooking meals for me seems to be the timing. How do you get everything on the table at the same time? It's taken a while to figure this out and I am still botch it from time to time. It just a matter of preparation and practice.
Recipes
The above link provides individual recipes as opposed to full meals. At the moment all of them use volume as the form of measurement, but that could change at any moment. The weight watchers recipes are here.
Here are some of my current favorites. I've rated them from simple to complex. If something is not clear please write to me, so that I can fix it or make it more understandable. Others have been kind enough to pass along their favorites so that we can all enjoy them. Please feel free to pass yours along.
Sante!