10 Tips for Learning to Cook from Scratch

Two years ago I could go for days without setting foot in my kitchen. Work had taken over my life, and I didn’t even make coffee for myself. I had lots of nice things—four sizes of pots, skillets, a stock pot, a wok, baking sheets, pie plates, a slow cooker, a rice cooker, a bread maker, a KitchenAid mixer—but they were just crowding my kitchen.

While fantasizing about a balanced life, I read the book Apartment Therapy by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan. To get the most out of your living space, it advises cooking at least one meal a week at home. So one evening I invited a friend over for dinner, thinking: How hard can it be to make pork chops? My friend, who was raised in Italy and can make gnocchi from scratch, said the pork chop was fine even though it tasted like shoe leather. I was mortified and vowed to change.

So I was lucky—when it became necessary to cut back on my expenses, I was already cooking a few basic dinners a week. Now I take lunch to work, do takeout even less and watch my ingredient costs. Right now a lot of people are considering cooking to save money, and I’m pretty sure many are in the same boat as I was: starting from scratch skills-wise and cursed with a rarefied palate from so much eating out. Here are ten tips I learned along the way…