How often do you cook?

[narutofan777]

couple times a week. when im bored.

 

[Shinigami357]

If and only if I absolutely have to, or when my head takes a knock in a particular area. And even then, only if there are some instant noodles handy.

 

[GundamXXX]

Baccon is the food of the gods

That is all

Kebabs rule all

Dude... take away curry and then having it for breakfast!

 

[Edgedancer]

I am cooking tonight. Going to make a nice veal schnitzel with a sauce made of peas and shallots, with some nice potatos on the side. And for desert, going to make a honeydew mellon and rosewater soup.

 

[FAST6191]

At the risk of appearing a snob things that I have to stick in an oven and go do something for 20 minutes I am not inclined to call cooking either.

How often depends on what I am doing during the day or indeed what level of funding I decide to have- more often than "cereal and choice dead thing out of the supply of it in my fridge". Likewise where does cooking up a bunch of stuff at the weekend to eat during the week figure into it all?

As for how to learn..... depends what you want to learn really.
For the true "I burn cereal" types we like to use a wok- they cost next to nothing and can cook loads of different types of food or indeed serve as the only heated container (I kind of like a milk pan and maybe some form of frying pan as well but going for the desert island style kit it is a wok every time). Equally there are loads of wok dishes that take perhaps 15 minutes from ingredients in your fridge to washing up you are about to put off for a few days.

After this it is just a matter of timing- simple things like if you are going to cook a pie that takes 40 minutes and want some peas to go with it you do not put the peas on until about half an hour has passed. Simple as it sounds so many people screw this up and it is a fairly quick way to turn good ingredients into cold nastiness.

If you want to learn to fudge/substitute complex things well on the fly as it were, go off recipe, compromise on oven settings, measure things by eye (or more accurately know when not to do it), delay parts of a recipe to allow others to catch up, make a truly fancy cake like you see on TV or cook for a lot of people all at once and have it come out tasting of something other than basic ratburger that is where skills come in and you will have to actually learn some stuff.

The biggest open secret as it were though is a well stocked spice rack (or at least something you can fake as being well stocked)- it is perfectly accurate to say you can make a meal very quickly/cheaply/easily with basics but throw some black onion seeds on some meat and even a piece of cheap supermarket water chicken usually comes out quite nice to eat. Add two or three (or even six) different spices and life is great.

 

[N!ck]

I don't know how to cook. If I have to make food for myself, I'd just make a sandwich, cereal, or something microwavable.

 

[Hells Malice]

2-3 times a week. Don't really NEED to cook for myself yet.
I can cook though, so when i'm on my own I have no problems feeding myself something more complex then a sandwich and canned soup.

 

[nryn99]

as the eldest child. my parents gave me the responsibility to cook for the family ever since i was 13 years old. at first i only cook once a day, then i cook the whole day, and now it's my younger brother/sisters turn i only cook 5-8 times a week.