Any and all advice

[Shauni10]

Hey everyone! I just picked my start date and is will be July 24th. I am very excited to do this but also nervous. I am a terrible cook (literally can burn pasta haha). So any and all advice or recipes or anything that will help me get through this would be great! Maybe some easy recipes or easy go tos when I mess up a recipe? Thank you!!! 

[ShannonM816]

Hi, @Shauni10. Don't stress too much about the cooking -- I know it can be overwhelming at first, but cooking is just a skill like any other skill that you can learn. You may never be someone who loves to cook (or you might find you do, it happens), you may never be the kind of inspired chef who makes up recipes on the fly (but that's okay, you don't need to), but you can for sure be a competent cook who is capable of preparing tasty, healthy foods. Take your time when you're in the kitchen, read through recipes completely before you get started, and get all your ingredients lined up (even measured out, if you've got enough space for it) before you start, be sure you have everything you need so you don't get halfway through and then realize you forgot something important. 

If you'll eat canned tuna or salmon, they're nice to keep on hand because you can make tuna or salmon salad easily, or just eat them straight out of the can if you're really hungry. When you buy salmon, if the thought of dealing with the skin and bones grosses you out, look for some that is boneless and skinless -- it'll typically be in the same kind of flatter can that tuna usually comes in, whereas the taller cans of salmon will typically have the bones and skin (at least in my experience, always read the labels carefully to know what exactly you're getting). 

Eggs are typically easy to cook. Scrambled is by far the easiest, but if you like hard boiled eggs, doing a bunch of those at once to keep in the fridge gives you an easy protein source when you don't want to cook. 

I like to keep frozen chicken and burger patties in the freezer -- the ones I buy have instructions for how to cook them from frozen, so they're easy to do if I've messed up dinner or just don't feel like making anything complicated. They're not the most exciting meals around, but either of those, paired with steamed frozen vegetables, served with some mayo or guacamole for fat will do the job.

 

 

[Shauni10]

3 hours ago, ShannonM816 said:

Hi, @Shauni10. Don't stress too much about the cooking -- I know it can be overwhelming at first, but cooking is just a skill like any other skill that you can learn. You may never be someone who loves to cook (or you might find you do, it happens), you may never be the kind of inspired chef who makes up recipes on the fly (but that's okay, you don't need to), but you can for sure be a competent cook who is capable of preparing tasty, healthy foods. Take your time when you're in the kitchen, read through recipes completely before you get started, and get all your ingredients lined up (even measured out, if you've got enough space for it) before you start, be sure you have everything you need so you don't get halfway through and then realize you forgot something important. 

If you'll eat canned tuna or salmon, they're nice to keep on hand because you can make tuna or salmon salad easily, or just eat them straight out of the can if you're really hungry. When you buy salmon, if the thought of dealing with the skin and bones grosses you out, look for some that is boneless and skinless -- it'll typically be in the same kind of flatter can that tuna usually comes in, whereas the taller cans of salmon will typically have the bones and skin (at least in my experience, always read the labels carefully to know what exactly you're getting). 

Eggs are typically easy to cook. Scrambled is by far the easiest, but if you like hard boiled eggs, doing a bunch of those at once to keep in the fridge gives you an easy protein source when you don't want to cook. 

I like to keep frozen chicken and burger patties in the freezer -- the ones I buy have instructions for how to cook them from frozen, so they're easy to do if I've messed up dinner or just don't feel like making anything complicated. They're not the most exciting meals around, but either of those, paired with steamed frozen vegetables, served with some mayo or guacamole for fat will do the job.

 

 

That is all really great advice! I appreciate it  Wish me luck!!