Beginners Tip # 2

Beginners Tip # 2

How to cook for yourself. 

I was asked today to write another post about how to properly cook for yourself. My dear friend Candice goes to college and lives by herself in a rather spacious apartment of her own. However she does not have most of the cooking utensils needed to really cook a dinner, so go buy some Candice. 

This post will further talk about necessities in any kitchen, whether you're cooking for yourself or a whole army of people. Also it will talk about how to cut portions out of any of my recipes and make it so that you don't end up having 14 different food containers in your fridge with last weeks chicken and dumplings. I will also list down a few very basic recipes in order to get you started.

The few kitchen necessities I swear by are : 

• 1 small, 1 medium, and 1 large frying pan. 
• 1 small, 1 medium, and 1 large cooking pot. 
• 1 sturdy spatula. 
• 1 sturdy pair of tongs. 
• 1 small, 1 medium, and 1 large kitchen knife. 
• 1 medium - large sized cutting board.
• And of course a dinnerware set and a knife, fork, table spoon and teaspoon. 

With those basic few items, you can pretty much do anything you please. Except fly.. you definitely can't fly. 

With any recipe that you may find online or in a cook book, or even on this blog, you can easily cut it in half and make the recipe be perfect for a single individual. So with that being said, take any recipe you find, anywhere, and just slash all the ingredients in half. A typical recipe that you may be looking at, is normally made to feed 2-4 people. However some are meant to feed more. So if the ingredients do seem a bit excessive, try to cut it down enough for it to feed yourself and also have some left over to bring to work for lunch. 

The following recipes are all very basic and should be just the right amount for you to eat a decent dinner tonight and possibly have some left over for tomorrow when you're absolutely starving and want to eat something other than that leftover pizza you have hiding in the back of your fridge from 3 nights ago. Or even when hunger strikes at 3 a.m. as you're just getting home from the bar... I'm sure you can all relate. 

Pan Fried Ranch Chicken Breast. 

Ingredients : 

• 1 skinless chicken breast. 
• 1/4 cup of bread crumbs.
• 1-2 tablespoons ranch. 
• 1-2 tablespoons butter or corn oil. 

Steps : 

 

1. Cover chicken breast with ranch. On both sides. 

2. Coat the chicken breast with bread crumbs by dipping it into them. On both sides. Evenly. 

3. Heat your butter or oil on a small or medium sized frying pan on medium heat. 

4. When the butter is either melted, or the oil is hot enough (you can throw a drop of water onto the oil and if it fizzes and evaporates, it's hot enough) , put the chicken on the pan and cook on medium heat until golden. 

5. Flip chicken breast over and cook the other side until it is golden in color as well. 

6. Cut into thickest part of breast and check to see if you see any raw pink meat. If you do not, it is ready and can be served. However if you do, keep cooking the breast over medium heat until fully cooked. 

If you notice your chicken breast getting a bit burnt on either side, your problem is probably not enough butter or oil. So it is okay if you add more and then proceed cooking. 

Pan-fried potatoes. 

Ingredients : 

• 2-4 medium sized red potatoes. 
• 2 tablespoons butter. 
• Salt and pepper to taste. 

Steps : 

1. Cut 2 - 4 medium size red potatoes into 8 pieces each. First in half, then cut that half in half as well, and so on, until you have 8 pieces from each potato. 

2. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a medium sized frying pan over medium heat. 

3. Once butter is melted, throw in potatoes and sprinkle with desired amount of salt and pepper. 

4. Cook until all potatoes are golden in color. Make sure to regularly flip potatoes so they cook evenly. 

5. Check to see if the potatoes are cooked through all the way by taking a spoon and trying to break into a piece of the potato  If it goes through and breaks with ease, they are cooked, if you have trouble or it seems a little bit tough, keep cooking and add a little more butter. 

Oven Baked Asparagus. 

Ingredients : 

• 4 - 6 spears of fresh raw asparagus. 
• A little bit of olive oil. 
• 2 - 4 medium sized peeled pieces of garlic. 
• Salt to taste. 
• Optional : dry Italian Seasoning. 

Steps : 

1. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. 

2. Break off the bad parts of the asparagus spears. You can do this by taking each end of the spear in each hand and bending it away from you. Discard the bottom part. 

3. Lay the spears out on a cookie sheet. 

4. Season to taste with salt. Use a garlic press or mince your garlic into small pieces and put on top of asparagus. Drizzle with olive oil. 

5. Optional : sprinkle asparagus with Italian Seasoning. 

6. Put into oven and cook for 10 - 12 minutes. 

7. Enjoy. 

And there you have it, 3 simple recipes that are sure to get you into the cooking spirit. Just watch your eyebrows with that oven. And please don't ever attempt to retrieve something from the oven without wearing an oven mitt or having a thick towel over your hand. You are not Iron Man...

If you do decide to cook for someone else as well, and would like to use one of these recipes, just double the amounts I gave you and you should have enough for more than 1 serving. 

If anyone has any other requests, please feel free to comment and let me know. Bon appetite!