Chapter Text
Learning to Feed Myself
Table of Contents
• Introduction
• General Cooking Lessons
• Tools
• Pantry
• Refrigerator
• Sweet
* Oatmeal
• Savory
* Rice, Beans, and Vegetables
* Frozen Meals
* Instant Noodles
• Drinks
* Coffee
• Things I'm Still Learning
Introduction
I have spent nearly a month trying to cook on my own, and I haven't given up on the plan.
Originally, I started because fast food and restaurants are expensive, and they're often not very healthy. Cooking at home lets you control your own ingredients, your portions, and eventually your budget. I didn't grow up knowing how to cook, so this isn't a cookbook written by someone who already knows everything. It's a record of what I've learned by experimenting.
I'm not trying to become a chef.
I'm trying to become someone who can reliably feed themselves.
Everything in here comes from trial and error. Some ideas worked immediately. Other ideas completely failed. If something no longer reflects what I actually do, I'll update it instead of pretending I knew the answer from the beginning.
The point isn't to be perfect.
The point is to keep learning.
One thing I've learned very quickly is that cooking isn't just recipes.
It's learning how much food you actually eat.
It's learning how to measure instead of guessing.
It's learning which ingredients are worth buying again.
It's learning which purchases you regret.
It's learning how to take care of your cookware so it lasts.
It's learning to buy food for the person you're actually going to be tomorrow, not the imaginary version of yourself that's somehow always hungrier, more motivated, and ready to eat leftovers that never get eaten.
I've wasted food because I assumed Future Me would eat it.
Future Me almost never did.
Now I only cook enough for one bowl whenever possible. If it isn't enough, I can always make more. Throwing away food because I made too much feels much worse than cooking twice.
This isn't going to be organized like a normal story.
I want it to be something you can actually use.
If someone wants to know how I make coffee, they should be able to skip directly to coffee.
If they want to know what equipment I think is worth buying, they should be able to jump straight there.
If they're only interested in recipes, they shouldn't have to read everything else first.
Most importantly, I don't just want to write recipes.
I want to write down the little lessons that recipes teach me.
Sometimes the lesson applies to every meal I'll ever make.
Sometimes it's only useful for one recipe.
Either way, I don't want to forget it.
Cooking isn't just ingredients.
It's habits.
It's mistakes.
It's experiments.
It's slowly figuring out how to take care of yourself.
General Cooking Lessons
Always measure your ingredients.
Do not eyeball them.
Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.
When food looks like a small amount in the measuring cup, it usually turns out to be enough once it's cooked. Rice expands. Beans expand. Oats expand. I wasted a surprising amount of food during my first few weeks because I kept believing I was going to eat more than I actually did.
If you're only cooking for yourself, make one bowl.
Don't automatically make leftovers.
It's better to finish one bowl than throw away a second bowl because you weren't as hungry as you thought you would be.
When you're experimenting with recipes, don't buy twenty ingredients all at once.
Buy a few things.
Actually eat them.
Figure out what you would buy again.
Then slowly build your pantry from there.
I don't want a pantry full of ingredients I bought because they sounded useful.
I want a pantry full of ingredients that I actually reach for.
When something tastes bland, don't immediately assume you need more food.
Sometimes you just need better seasoning.
Learning spices has made a bigger difference than learning recipes.
Finally, don't be afraid to change your mind.
Some recipes I thought were amazing turned out to be terrible after I made them a few more times.
That's part of learning.
There's no point pretending an old recipe still works just because I wrote it down once.