Wednesday, July 16, 2014

What are the really basic cooking skills?

This is not a new post, but I'd never seen it before, and the comments are interesting (and I don't think there are any really rude ones). What should everybody (that is, not every cook, just every normal person) know how to do in a kitchen?

I agree with the one comment that everybody, no matter what their circumstances or food style, should know how to make three different main meals more or less from scratch, something simple but decent enough that they could also feed a friend or two. It's a reasonable-enough don't-leave-home-without-it goal, and it's one that they could probably learn from just one issue of a family or food magazine. If you have and use tools like a slow cooker, this can be even easier. Our Treehouse classic: open lid, put in sauerkraut, put in meat, put on lid, plug in, turn on.  Cook.

What's your personal survival list?  What do kids need to learn so that they don't end up like this poor guy on the Possum 911 line?  (Fast-forward to 13:27.)


2 comments:

Brenda@CoffeeTeaBooks said...

They had a good list. I've told my kids they should have two or three meals they do really well and use those for company so they are not stressed.

My simplest meal? Put a roast in the Crock-pot, pour on two cans of Cream of Mushroom Soup (no added water), put on lid and let it cook all day.

Serve with mashed potatoes. :)

The Apprentice said...

I'd argue that their list isn't really for "everyone". As someone with a lot of university student friends who do the bare minimum of cooking to get by, a lot of those are way too fancy (roasting a chicken, cleaning a fish, resting a steak) for someone who is cooking for one and doesn't have the money for steaks. The three basic meals idea is a lot better for someone like that, and I do agree they should throw some baking skills in there! On the other hand though, if you do have all the skills on that list, it means that you're prepared to deal with any bargains that come your way (for example, I frequently buy whole chickens when they go on sale, they're a great deal if you know how to handle them).