When you are a senior in high school you have a lot more on your mind then watching your nutrient intake and learning basic culinary skills, you’re getting ready to go off to college and are focusing on spending time with your friends and getting good grades to end your high school career right. This leads to you neglecting your nutrient intake and eating whatever foods are the easiest, so you don’t have to think about making anything. This way of eating increases processed food intake and leads to a lack of fruits and vegetables in your diet as many fruits and vegetables need to be prepared before eating (Deforche, Dyck, Deliens, & Bourdeaudhuij, 2015). I want to help you increase your fruit and vegetable intake and set you up with skills to help you lead a healthier life, because the habits you develop in college can be for life.

It’s unfortunate that many schools don’t require home economic classes anymore because they would give you the basic culinary skills to set you up for a healthier life and a better attitude towards cooking (Lavelle, Spence, Hollywood, McGowan, Surgenor, McCloat, Mooney, Caraher, Raats, & Dean, 2016).  I get calls almost weekly from my little brother asking how to cook things like eggs and mac and cheese because he never had to take home economic classes, he never really learned basic culinary skills. I’ve heard from him and his friends how they wish they had someone to teach them about cooking, so I have taken my time to teach them the basics and want to spread this knowledge to others who may need it with this blog.

Safety First

Google (2018)

I will discuss these things in depth in later blogs as this post is just to nail down basic skills to know when it comes to cooking.

The most important thing when beginning to cook is practice food and kitchen safety. You are about to go off to college and will be on your own for your meals, many dorms will have a student kitchen for you to use if you want to make your own meals and it’s important you learn how to safely use it. The first thing you will want to do is wash your hands, any fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) you are using, the surfaces you will be working on, and the utensils. If you are at home I wouldn’t worry about the utensils, but at college you never know who used the kitchen last and what kinds of bacteria they left behind.

Next thing to remember is proper knife use. Always use a cutting board when using a knife and make sure to clean the cutting board after using raw meat on it (personally I cut meat last, so I don’t have to worry about contaminating other ingredients). After grabbing a cutting board, you want to select the right knife for the job because just like how you wouldn’t use a baseball bat in football, you wouldn’t use a steak knife to cut potatoes. It’s best to use a sharp knife, however I don’t expect schools or your parents to keep up on sharpening their knives, you just need to be careful if you find resistance with the knife because dull knives can lead to a more serious injury. Speaking of knife injuries, NEVER try to catch a falling knife, get out of the way, and let it fall. Additional safety measures are, when not using the knife clean it and put the blade under the cutting board so it can’t hurt you and walk with knives like you would scissors. When using the knife to cut, cut downwards and away from your body. Please look at the picture below for an example of proper knife cutting.

The last thing about safety that I want to touch on is stove safety. Never leave a burner unattended and never leave a towel or oven mitt on the stove as these can lead to a fire. When cooking with pans you want their handle to be turned in towards the stove, so you don’t accidentally hit it and knock the pan off and its contents all over you. This shouldn’t have to be said but don’t touch a hot pan without an oven mitt and be careful when grabbing something out of the oven.

I have worked in the kitchen for many years and have seen many injuries, usually it’s because someone wasn’t paying attention, something slipped, or the person was just being dumb (I have a great story there). Kitchen safety is important not only for you, but to keep those you feed safe as well.

Making Meals

Sharp (2019)

The very first thing when cooking is deciding what you want to make. I use various sites to look for recipes I can make, but the one I want to suggest to you is https://www.choosemyplate.gov/myplatekitchen/recipes. This site has much more than recipes, it is designed to show you how to eat and live healthier and what a proper portion size is. When looking at the recipe section you can select your recipe by cost and difficulty, which will come in handy when you start buying your own food in college. Most recipes will also tell you how long they take so you can plan out what you want to make or select recipes that only take 5-15 minutes to make. Cost, time, and difficulty are always things that should be considered when choosing a recipe. If you are worried about cost, choose my plate also has tips on smart shopping, https://www.choosemyplate.gov/ten-tips-smart-shopping.

Once you have your recipe and ingredients then you can begin to cook! I always like to grab everything I will need so I don’t have to move very far from my spot. Typical items you will need may include measuring cups and spoons, bowls, utensils such as a whisk or spatula (most of the time I use a fork or spoon if it’s possible), and any pots and pans or other kitchen equipment such as a blender.  Once you have everything it’s just following the recipe at that point, with cooking you have more creative liberty to change out ingredients for ones you like or think will taste better. I would recommend sticking to the recipe until you feel comfortable changing it. A great recipe to start with is https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2018/01/ben-franklin-breakfast-bowl-one.html. Breakfast bowls are so diverse as you can add anything you want to it and you really can’t mess it up. Just don’t forget to clean up after!

Cooking is all about learning and having fun, so don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t go the way you want. Half the fun of cooking is experimenting!

One Last Thing

This sheet below is a MUST have if you are cooking. It was posted all over my work and I use it in my daily cooking for multiplying recipes or even figuring out how much of an ingredient to buy.

Nystul (2020)

Key words: Fruits and Vegetables, Safety, Cooking, Recipes, Kitchen

References

Agriculture, U. D. (n.d.). Recipes. Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://www.choosemyplate.gov/myplatekitchen/recipes

Agriculture, U. D. (n.d.). 10 Tips: Smart Shopping for Veggies and Fruits. Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://www.choosemyplate.gov/ten-tips-smart-shopping

Deforche, B., Dyck, D. V., Deliens, T., & Bourdeaudhuij, I. D. (2015). Changes in weight, physical activity, sedentary behavior and dietary intake during the transition to higher education: A prospective study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 12(1). doi:10.1186/s12966-015-0173-9

Google. (2018). Knife Safety. [Photograph]. Google. https://www.google.com/search?q=knife+safety&sxsrf=ALeKk00nNW0guwx6P78ezrjMqcKocoGYVw:1607015737605&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqrMCRqLLtAhUkB50JHSaUDEEQ_AUoAXoECA8QAw&biw=1536&bih=754#imgrc=JxkFq8SfgKlnhM

J. (2018). Ben Franklin Breakfast Bowl – One Founding Father’s Alternative to Fast Food [Web log post]. Retrieved 2020, from https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2018/01/ben-franklin-breakfast-bowl-one.html

Lavelle, F., Spence, M., Hollywood, L., Mcgowan, L., Surgenor, D., Mccloat, A., . . . Dean, M. (2016). Learning cooking skills at different ages: A cross-sectional study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 13(1). doi:10.1186/s12966-016-0446-y

Nystul, J. (2020). Common Kitchen Measurements “Cheat Sheet”. [Photograph]. One Good Thing. https://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/kitchen-reference-printables/

Sharp, F. N. (2019). Proper Knife Cutting. [Photograph]. FN Sharp Blog. https://fnsharp.com/blog/kitchen-knife-safety-rules/