For those times when Ramen Noodles just won't cut it...

I'm a college student. A lot of my friends have told me "you cook such good food" and "you ought to put your recipes online" and such. And then I usually answer "Put my recipes online? But I made up these recipes. There is no real "recipe". I don't measure ingredients or make it the same every time."

When I came to college, I had some basic cooking experience. I knew how to make spaghetti, fruit salad and bake muffins and biscuits. But i'd never done real "meal" cooking. Course, it didn't even take a whole quarter before I got tired of having spaghetti and boboli pizzas for every meal. And then I decided to venture into attempting cooking.

Cookbooks are a great start, but they usually assume you know how to do all kinds of cooking tasks, from the basics like boiling water to more complex like browning meat. So, along with a basic cookbook (mine was "how to cook everything" I also picked up a copy of "the idiot's guide to cooking". If you've never done much cooking before, I would highly suggest picking up an "idiot's guide" type book on cooking. It doesn't just cover recipes, but also more basic stuff, like how to select produce and what kinds of kitchen equipment you might need. So if you're cooking on your own for the first time, it can prove to be an invaluable reference.

Course, just reading that book wasn't everything. I learned a lot of my cooking skills through trial and error, and just coming across situations I never had to deal with when Mom was always at home to clean out the fridge. This web-page is all about passing on that "common sense" cooking I discovered, and why "real cooks" don't need recipes I mean, it may seem like common sense that water will boil faster if you cover the pan, but it's not something a beginning cook might realize.
 

1. "When in doubt throw it out"
2. Only use incidents you like
3. Make up your own recipes or variations.
4. Water boils faster with a lid.