These are all huge stumbling blocks- especially when it's so easy to just order take-out, which will at least be consistently edible, with the added bonus of not resulting in wasted ingredients.
What ultimately turned it around for me was when my girlfriend and I decided to fully commit to cooking at home, and went and spent $150 on groceries- but instead of buying ingredients, we bought pantry essentials. Flour, sugar, baling powder, baking soda, cornmeal, table and kosher salt, seasonings, potatoes, rice, pasta, and so on. Not to mention an initial stock of perishable basics: onions, garlic, lemons, limes, milk, butter, eggs, and cheese.
While it left a dent in our wallet at the time, it turned out to be a game-changer. We found that it was immensely easier to plan meals, because we already had half the ingredients of any given recipe.
This is a huge societal problem, in my opinion. I'm a pretty privileged dude when it comes down to it, and I was able to absorb the inefficiency of not being able to cook at home while still eating pretty healthy food. Furthermore, I was able to get over the hump of figuring out how to cook on my own, because I had the resources to absorb the inefficiency of learning how to do it.
What about the folks that can't?
And you buy cheap. A jar of spice from McCormick might cost five bucks, but you can get the same amount in a plastic bag at the bodega for a dollar. And really, you don't need two kinds of salt.
If you're one of the fortunate poor, your immigrant parents/grandparents have already taught you how to cook.
It's really quite a foreign idea to me that cooking for yourself is expensive, even though I hear that all the time from people my age and younger. Maybe they all think you need to cook elaborate meals. But when you look at the way immigrants cook, it's really just a small set of cheap ingredients combined a bunch of different ways.
It may be cheap in terms of ingredients but in traditional immigrant households the mother and often grandmother don't have jobs and stay at home all day cooking. They use cheap ingredients but it's a TON of work.
When my wife's mom (who's not from the US) comes to visit, she starts cooking early in the morning and doesn't finish until dinner. It probably takes longer than it would if she had her flow setup since she has to prepare basics that we don't have ready, but still a lot of traditional dishes take a lot of time.
Things are often slow cooked for example because cheap cuts of meat are used and you need to do that to make them edible. Most office workers won't have time to do that.
Buy a slow cooker (aka crock pot) and leave it running while you're at work.
> They use cheap ingredients but it's a TON of work.
Do this type of cooking for your meal bases in a single day.
In my house, mom worked 40 hours but would get a giant pot of red sauce and a giant pot of pasta e fagioli going on Saturday morning - maybe 30-60 minutes of prep, then all day to cook - unattended except for the occasional stir. This would yield enough soup and sauce for a week of dinners for a family of four - just add pasta.
Friends from other backgrounds describe similar techniques with things like refried beans, etc.
I learnt how to cook properly at university (UK). I'd watched my mum a fair amount growing up, and in the final few weeks before I left she showed me things like how to shallow fry chicken, or check it was cooked.
I ate takeaway on the day I arrived, since everyone was too drunk, but on Sunday I paired up with people living on the same floor and cooked with them for the rest of the year.
It cost a fraction of what takeaway food would have cost, and we weren't trying to be super cheap.
No. The vast majority of college students I know don't cook. They either eat in dining halls or get take-out.
Some learn while in college, but lots just buy a meal plan from the school or get takeout a lot (and/or "instant meals") and learn nothing about cooking.
> I'd watched my mum a fair amount growing up, and in the final few weeks before I left she showed me things like how to shallow fry chicken, or check it was cooked.
It seems to me lots of Americans don't get even this level of basics (and, with it, the confidence to actually be willing to try things in the kitchen) growing up, and that that's the problem.
I emigrated six weeks ago, so I have to restart my "pantry essentials". I didn't buy everything in the first week, I will buy things gradually. I bought things like canned tomatoes, mixed herbs, pepper, salt; plus things that are used a lot quicker (rice, butter, noodles, onions, garlic). Last week I fancied Thai food, so I bought some fish sauce, lemongrass etc. It will take a year before I have all the spices and sauces I left behind.
Yes, this.
Always have the essentials stocked for your repertoire.
I grew up Italian-American, so we always had: onions, garlic, lemon, parsley, green peppers, sausage, tomato paste, anchovies, pasta, a few types of beans, grated cheese, olive oil, balsamic, etc.
Add some random meats or fresh vegetables, and you've got like, a hundred different recipes right there.
> Seriously. CLEAN AS YOU COOK. It drives me insane that people don't get this.
So many, many people don't understand this. My mom DRILLED this into my head as a kid. When I'm cooking with a friend who doesn't clean as they cook, I usually just hand them a glass of wine and kick them out of the kitchen.
It's an obvious source of fluster and stress for my friends who don't. They never seem to figure it out either. Even when I do it for them.
Plus. Stop determining what you want to eat first. Look at what you have in your fridge and learn to work with it. Have a few proteins and a few cheeses and kitchen basics and you can improvise many things.