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[_ducks]

Okay, you. I need your help. I want to cook more, but I'm shamefully inexperienced at it and very tentative. But being on my own means it's okay if whatever I'm making goes horribly wrong so I'm trying to be more adventurous

Comments

[1000_words]

i bake more than i cook, but i've been trying to cook more lately. i make lentils and rice all the time, and it's pretty much my favorite thing ever. maybe you could try looking for recipes for kids? my mom bought a lot of children's cookbooks for me when i was younger, and a lot of them are very heavily illustrated and give lots of tips. there are probably sites online that would have something similar. and, sexist as it is, cookbooks and recipes for men would probably be very basic and light on the assumptions.

like i said, i have been trying to do more cooking, so if i come across anything that is fabulous and easy, i will let you know!

[_ducks]

Thanks for the link! Sounds nice and warming (I am currently huddling under a blanket because it is FREEZING today).

Children's cookbooks are a good idea. And man cookbooks. I will investigate.

[_ducks]

Oh, and: what kind of lentils do you use? Any colour? Dried? Are you supposed to soak them first?

Sorry for the interrogation. I told you I was a novice. :)

[1000_words]

i usually just grab a bag of something from the spanish foods aisle. definitely dried. i don't get the red ones, just the yellowy-brown ones. lentils are awesome because unlike some other beans, they cook super fast, so you don't need to soak them for a couple hours or overnight or any of that other stuff i am way too lazy for. actually, if they get too wet, they can get all rancid, so if you open the bag and they have a smell, it means they were probably kept somewhere too humid and got ruined. i just dump them in a colander, run them through with some water to rinse, dump everything on a towel to check for stones or bad-looking pieces, and then dump it all into the pot still a little wet, because you're adding the water to it in a minute anyway. but yeah, you don't want to let them soak, because they're so small that they can get rotten. i'm a vegetarian, so i should eat more beans and legumes, but it's such a hassle that so many of them involve so much prep work ahead of time. that is why lentils are great! the most time-intensive

[_ducks]

See, this is the exact level of detail I need. Lentils are going on the shopping list!

[1000_words]

i keep coming back here to read comments, because i want to see what other recipes you're getting. you might want to keep a conversion chart bookmarked, because american measurements are sort of nutty. do they sell bisquick there? according to wikipedia, the substitution is 1 cup of bisquick mix = 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1 tablespoon oil or melted butter. it's just like a basic baking mix containing common ingredients, and from there, you can use it to make cookies or pancakes or impossibly easy pies, which is where i'm going with all of this. the website has all these recipes for impossibly easy pies where you just mix all the ingredients together and the crust magically sinks to the bottom without you having to do any work. i can't really explain it, here is just a random recipe. i don't even know if they sell it there, and maybe you would count this as cheating and not really home-cooking because there's a mix involved, but it's a handy thing to keep around. oh, and here is a picture of how

[_ducks]

I don't know if we have Bisquick. According to a quick googling Tesco's sells it, but it doesn't look familiar. I will have a look next time.

Magical sinking piecrust sounds too tempting (and magical) to ignore. It's not cheating to me, you still have to chop stuff!