Cooking from scratch can save you money but what happens if you have spent years relying on eating out and convenience foods or just starting out as a self-sufficient adult? How do you get started with learning to cook?

The first step is gaining the basic skills:

Cooking 101 has an excellent set of instructions on cooking that begins with the basics, lists for necessary pots and utensils and lists for essential foods to keep on hand.

Meal making begins with basic skills 

Kitchen 101

This informational posting was inspired by comments in the January 2008 Food Stamp discussion. Check the conversation out for more links on cooking tips or if you need tips on using food stamps.
 

 For those here who already know how to cook...where did you learn?

I learned a lot from an Aunt that lived next door when I was growing up. My Mom worked and didnt cook  a lot. I still use a lot of my Aunt's receipes. When I married and moved to NE, I found a few cookbooks and ask people for their receipes. Babs

The Food Network was advised in the food stamp discussion as a good place for info.

I found they have cooking guides.  

Probably like most others, my mother & her mother taught me.  I also learned from a seventh-grade home economiocs course.  (Eight-grade was sewing; seventh was cooking.  I did not pick up a cookbook until late in high school.

Back in those days (the late 50's & early 60's), there weren't many convenience foods on the market, so it was either cook or be stu ck with canned tuna & PB&J.

Yours in Him, Deb

I had home economics in high school for 3 years, but for some reason I really didn't absorb it very well. Never had as much interest in cooking as much as baking, baking was an art form!  Betty Crocker cookbooks were my help in being a newlywed. Even then I only had a few ways of cooking hamburger or chicken, which is about all we could afford. I knew nothing about cooking fresh veggies. It wasn't until years later when we got the Food Network on cable that I started paying attention to being a better cook. There was little else to watch on TV on Saturday when I was crashing after working all week.  I learned or re-learned how to cook watching Tyler Florence, Rachael Ray, Giada DeLaurentis and most of all Paula Deen. They did the basic down to earth food, not the gourmet. I watched their techniques and it helped quite a bit. E

I'm still learning how. I could cook the way that mom taught me (kinda) but since I'm having to eat a different way, I'm learning by trial and error. For me that's the best way... silly thing is though, the new movie, Ratatouille, is kind of my motivation (the phrases "Anyone can cook" along with "the only limit is your spirit").

Lioness,

In what ways is your cooking different from your Mother's?