I've read a few people say here "I would do (x, y, and z) for my diet, but I can't cook", so I thought I'd make this thread in response to that.
This is not meant to be condescending- I'm not looking down on anyone here. I was there nearly two years ago- I never bothered to learn to cook, and then I moved from out of home, in Australia, to the UK, where obviously my mum's cooking wasn't going to help me. With neither the money nor the inclination to eat out all the time. Aargh! Now what? This thread is aimed at me two years ago- so if you find it too simplistic, apologies.
The most important thing is food safety. Read packets carefully, and with meat, be strict about the storage instructions (well, I find repackaging meat ok, but keep the use by dates in mind, including the ones for freezing). With vegetables, you can go on more of your senses- most stuff lasts a little while after the use by date, but if in doubt, chuck it out. Secondly, remember cross-contamination- in other words, don't let raw meat juices near food you may eat raw (or not as well cooked as the meat). The principle here is, if you're handling raw meat, do what you need to do then thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water before touching anything else. Also, if you're chopping up raw meat and (say) vegetables, either use separate chopping boards, or, at the very least, chop up the vegetables first, clear them to one side, and then chop up the meat. You shouldn't chop anything up after the meat until the board has been cleaned. Also watch out for spills of meat juice in the fridge as well.
The simple thing first- vegetables. The low calorie way to cook most vegetables is to either boil or steam. For most vegetables, steaming is preferable as it keeps more of the nutrients and flavour in it. You can get specialist equipment (steamers and pan inserts) for steaming, but there's a simpler way. Get a microwave safe container, put a tablespoon of water in the bottom, put your veggies in (cut up first- in whatever size pieces you like), cover the container, and microwave them (you can even use a microwave safe bowl if you don't have a microwave safe container that can handle boiling water). Unfortunately, this technique requires a little experimentation, as different vegetables require different amounts of time in the microwave (my stock standard combination is carrots most, zucchini/ courgette middle, capsicum/ pepper/ bell pepper least), and different microwaves will respond in different ways. You want the vegetables to be a little softer than they were, but not mushy (except things like leaves in spinach, where I find there's a fine line between a little bit wilted- which is what you want- and mushy). There's also nothing wrong with eating most vegetables raw. (This steaming approach also works for fruit- steamed apple is gorgeous, particularly in Greek yoghurt with some berries and a little bit of honey
)
The vegetable I would recommend boiling is potato. Put water in a saucepan, bring it to the boil, add the potatoes, and wait for between 10 minutes for very small baby potatoes to 35 minutes for very large ones. The end result should be you should be able to put a piece of cutlery (knife, fork) into the potato relatively easily without it disintegrating. If the skin's coming off while it's boiling (and you didn't do anything to cause that to happen) then it's done. (note- edited to add: As Holly points out below, for nutritional purposes, potatoes count as a starch, like pasta, bread, or rice, rather than a vegetable. So don't count it towards your vegetable intake for the day, but rather as a serving of starch)
The final option I'll present here (higher calorie) is sauteeing. Sauteeing is like frying- put a little bit of fat (cooking spray, oil) in the bottom of the pan, add chopped up vegetables, and brown them. The less cooking spray/ oil the better, but my feeling is that learning how to cook is a better long term weight loss strategy than just about anything (and will also help reduce other hidden nasties you're taking in from processed food), so if you need to experiment with a bit more, then take the fat that day, try a bit less next time. The less oil you use (to a point, I'm talking about the difference between a couple of tablespoons and a couple of teaspoons, not half the bottle), the more likely it is you'll burn your food. I find this is the best option for onions, although you can sautee most vegetables (I haven't and I don't think I would try potato, and from experience carrot works very badly unless you've mostly steamed it first- part burnt and part raw, yuck), and when combined with small pieces of meat, you can make a stir fry. For onions, ideally you want them to become sort of yellow and translucent (maybe a little bit brown- think caramel coloured- depending on how you like them cooked).
Now, meat. Food safety comes in again here. Most raw vegetables won't make you sick. Most raw meat will make you sick. Fortunately for beginning cooks out there, the microwave is a lifesaver if you undercook your meat (I did this more often than I care to admit to)- it'll probably leave it a bit tougher than you'd like, but better tough meat than food poisoning.
I stress the importance of experimentation. Ultimately, cooking becomes about intuition- be careful to start with, and use some common sense (I'm talking about really basic stuff- if meat's red inside, it's raw; if you see smoke, get it off the heat). I would recommend watching your cooking very closely when you first start out, and relax as you become more comfortable (this took me a good six months). Never leave cooking completely unattended (unless it's in something like a slowcooker/ crockpot)- last year when I lived in halls (residential college/ student residences) there were a few fires and some kitchens were completely destroyed because people forgot they were cooking and went shopping or to university, and the repair bills came in at over ten thousand pounds apiece.
The easiest way to cook most meat is frying. Again, use a little oil (with oil, I recommend ideally oils rich in monounsaturated fat, like olive oil, or, failing that, polyunsaturated fat). The fattier a meat is, the less oil you need to use with it (but you need oil or at least cooking spray with all of them- at least with regular pans, I personally don't use non-stick so can't comment on that). Fatty meats include oily fish and lamb. With a lot of cuts of meat, the less you turn it, the more tender it'll be, but especially when you're starting out it's better to turn something over a lot and check on progress, rather than have it stick to the bottom, charcoal on one side, potentially be raw on the other, and risk fire (no, I haven't set anything on fire, but I've had some close calls).
Some very general rules of thumb: Mince (I believe Americans call that ground meat?) is cooked when it goes from being pink to brown- I find that to be the most foolproof thing to cook. With a hunk of meat, the thicker it is the longer it'll need to cook. You can have a reasonable idea of how well it's cooked through by looking at the side of the meat- if red meat has turned from red or pink to brown halfway up, that side is cooked and it should be turned over (and the side that's been on the pan should be brown- how dark depends on how you like your meat. Black's generally to be avoided unless you like charcoal). Chicken (and I presume turkey, I've never cooked it) should go from pink to white on the side, and should be golden brown on the surface that's been on the pan. For fish, it depends on the fish. A fish that's translucent should go white when cooked (with a little browning like chicken), something like salmon should go a paler pink (again, with a little browning). For safety's sake, cut the thickest part of the meat in half before you go to eat it, and if it's still close to the original colour of the raw meat, microwave it for a few minutes (as a general rule, do this unless it's the colour of the cooked meat all the way through, although as you get more confident a lot of red meat- beef and lamb- can be a little bit pink in the middle if you like it like that).
This is not meant to be condescending- I'm not looking down on anyone here. I was there nearly two years ago- I never bothered to learn to cook, and then I moved from out of home, in Australia, to the UK, where obviously my mum's cooking wasn't going to help me. With neither the money nor the inclination to eat out all the time. Aargh! Now what? This thread is aimed at me two years ago- so if you find it too simplistic, apologies.
The most important thing is food safety. Read packets carefully, and with meat, be strict about the storage instructions (well, I find repackaging meat ok, but keep the use by dates in mind, including the ones for freezing). With vegetables, you can go on more of your senses- most stuff lasts a little while after the use by date, but if in doubt, chuck it out. Secondly, remember cross-contamination- in other words, don't let raw meat juices near food you may eat raw (or not as well cooked as the meat). The principle here is, if you're handling raw meat, do what you need to do then thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water before touching anything else. Also, if you're chopping up raw meat and (say) vegetables, either use separate chopping boards, or, at the very least, chop up the vegetables first, clear them to one side, and then chop up the meat. You shouldn't chop anything up after the meat until the board has been cleaned. Also watch out for spills of meat juice in the fridge as well.
The simple thing first- vegetables. The low calorie way to cook most vegetables is to either boil or steam. For most vegetables, steaming is preferable as it keeps more of the nutrients and flavour in it. You can get specialist equipment (steamers and pan inserts) for steaming, but there's a simpler way. Get a microwave safe container, put a tablespoon of water in the bottom, put your veggies in (cut up first- in whatever size pieces you like), cover the container, and microwave them (you can even use a microwave safe bowl if you don't have a microwave safe container that can handle boiling water). Unfortunately, this technique requires a little experimentation, as different vegetables require different amounts of time in the microwave (my stock standard combination is carrots most, zucchini/ courgette middle, capsicum/ pepper/ bell pepper least), and different microwaves will respond in different ways. You want the vegetables to be a little softer than they were, but not mushy (except things like leaves in spinach, where I find there's a fine line between a little bit wilted- which is what you want- and mushy). There's also nothing wrong with eating most vegetables raw. (This steaming approach also works for fruit- steamed apple is gorgeous, particularly in Greek yoghurt with some berries and a little bit of honey
)The vegetable I would recommend boiling is potato. Put water in a saucepan, bring it to the boil, add the potatoes, and wait for between 10 minutes for very small baby potatoes to 35 minutes for very large ones. The end result should be you should be able to put a piece of cutlery (knife, fork) into the potato relatively easily without it disintegrating. If the skin's coming off while it's boiling (and you didn't do anything to cause that to happen) then it's done. (note- edited to add: As Holly points out below, for nutritional purposes, potatoes count as a starch, like pasta, bread, or rice, rather than a vegetable. So don't count it towards your vegetable intake for the day, but rather as a serving of starch)
The final option I'll present here (higher calorie) is sauteeing. Sauteeing is like frying- put a little bit of fat (cooking spray, oil) in the bottom of the pan, add chopped up vegetables, and brown them. The less cooking spray/ oil the better, but my feeling is that learning how to cook is a better long term weight loss strategy than just about anything (and will also help reduce other hidden nasties you're taking in from processed food), so if you need to experiment with a bit more, then take the fat that day, try a bit less next time. The less oil you use (to a point, I'm talking about the difference between a couple of tablespoons and a couple of teaspoons, not half the bottle), the more likely it is you'll burn your food. I find this is the best option for onions, although you can sautee most vegetables (I haven't and I don't think I would try potato, and from experience carrot works very badly unless you've mostly steamed it first- part burnt and part raw, yuck), and when combined with small pieces of meat, you can make a stir fry. For onions, ideally you want them to become sort of yellow and translucent (maybe a little bit brown- think caramel coloured- depending on how you like them cooked).
Now, meat. Food safety comes in again here. Most raw vegetables won't make you sick. Most raw meat will make you sick. Fortunately for beginning cooks out there, the microwave is a lifesaver if you undercook your meat (I did this more often than I care to admit to)- it'll probably leave it a bit tougher than you'd like, but better tough meat than food poisoning.
I stress the importance of experimentation. Ultimately, cooking becomes about intuition- be careful to start with, and use some common sense (I'm talking about really basic stuff- if meat's red inside, it's raw; if you see smoke, get it off the heat). I would recommend watching your cooking very closely when you first start out, and relax as you become more comfortable (this took me a good six months). Never leave cooking completely unattended (unless it's in something like a slowcooker/ crockpot)- last year when I lived in halls (residential college/ student residences) there were a few fires and some kitchens were completely destroyed because people forgot they were cooking and went shopping or to university, and the repair bills came in at over ten thousand pounds apiece.
The easiest way to cook most meat is frying. Again, use a little oil (with oil, I recommend ideally oils rich in monounsaturated fat, like olive oil, or, failing that, polyunsaturated fat). The fattier a meat is, the less oil you need to use with it (but you need oil or at least cooking spray with all of them- at least with regular pans, I personally don't use non-stick so can't comment on that). Fatty meats include oily fish and lamb. With a lot of cuts of meat, the less you turn it, the more tender it'll be, but especially when you're starting out it's better to turn something over a lot and check on progress, rather than have it stick to the bottom, charcoal on one side, potentially be raw on the other, and risk fire (no, I haven't set anything on fire, but I've had some close calls).
Some very general rules of thumb: Mince (I believe Americans call that ground meat?) is cooked when it goes from being pink to brown- I find that to be the most foolproof thing to cook. With a hunk of meat, the thicker it is the longer it'll need to cook. You can have a reasonable idea of how well it's cooked through by looking at the side of the meat- if red meat has turned from red or pink to brown halfway up, that side is cooked and it should be turned over (and the side that's been on the pan should be brown- how dark depends on how you like your meat. Black's generally to be avoided unless you like charcoal). Chicken (and I presume turkey, I've never cooked it) should go from pink to white on the side, and should be golden brown on the surface that's been on the pan. For fish, it depends on the fish. A fish that's translucent should go white when cooked (with a little browning like chicken), something like salmon should go a paler pink (again, with a little browning). For safety's sake, cut the thickest part of the meat in half before you go to eat it, and if it's still close to the original colour of the raw meat, microwave it for a few minutes (as a general rule, do this unless it's the colour of the cooked meat all the way through, although as you get more confident a lot of red meat- beef and lamb- can be a little bit pink in the middle if you like it like that).
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