Cooking Experiments: YouTube vs. Recipe Books – Which One Wins?

Was imagining the eggs exploding. Never knew that could happen. I have ended up burning quite a few vessels after forgetting that I have kept something to cook. Thats the downfall of working from home and multi tasking. The thing I hate about online recipes specially on Facebook is that they start by saying that you need just two items to cook the dish and end up giving a list of 10 ingredients!!! I learnt to cook properly only when my kids started school. Prior to that I was in the hostel, then with my inlaws and when I moved out from there my mom lived with me for a few years.

@DaddyEvil I have been experimenting over the years but since I live alone there is no one to criticize my food. there are times when I have not liked what I cook but nothing so bad that I had to throw everything out.

@mayka123 My daughter, Pretty, has ruined several of my expensive pans. She puts something on the stove and then goes to her bedroom to play online, usually some game she likes, and ruins the pans... I finally bought some cheap pans for her to use. I learned to cook from my mom when I was young. After my dad passed away and most of my siblings had gotten married and moved out, mom would still cook huge amounts of food, like everybody still lived at home. If my younger brother, mom and I wanted something different, we'd have to eat all the food mom already had cooked before she'd cook too much of something else. Mom would sit in the kitchen and tell me what to do as I cooked something. After a couple of weeks, I took over cooking for the three of us and mom read a book in the kitchen while I cooked, in case I had a question. I started experimenting with the foods I cooked after I moved into my own apartment. I'd add onions to something that mom never told me I could add onions to just to see if I liked that better. Usually, I did enjoy it. I add onions and garlic to almost everything I cook now.

Too bad you did not learn. I feel everyone should know the basics at least so that if no one is there to cook they can manage on their own. During the pandemic I saw many of my colleagues struggling when their maids could not come to work and they had to manage cooking on their own.

@Shivram59 Atleast the cook got a job.

@mayka123 During college days I and some of my friends were living in a rental room. All of us did not know how to cook. So we hired a man who was a wonderful cook.

@mayka123 I have boiled water out of the pot several times! It's a good thing pots don't melt!

@kareng Pots dont melt but sometimes if an empty pot is on the fire for too long it can change shape and will not be a pot anymore.

I do this regularly. I work from home so very often, I get caught up in online meetings or phone calls. Most often, I end up burning the tea.

I too have some recipe books lying in the cupboard and have not referred to them for a long time.

When I first started cooking it was mainly through recipe books because at that time we did not have internet and I did not have anyone at home to guide me. Later if I liked any dish cooked by my colleagues at work I would ask them for the recipe and that is how my journey started.

@mayka123 I mean, back when I was learning, I certainly relied more on recipes. Nowadays I like to think I am well enough versed I simply don't need them anymore.

@porwest I still feel I need to learn a lot of dishes. Just now I want to learn how to make different kinds of salads. Am experimenting with these now.

Did you try any dishes?

@mayka123 yes, for trying new dishes, not jsut for reading

Thats good. I have not messed up dishes for a long time but have ended up burning my dishes because I keep something to cook on the gas which working and completely forget to go to the kitchen to check up.