Amateur Chef/Cook

I have watched several cooking shows on Hulu and prior to leaving Charter on cable and while I found them to be interesting, I did not have my pots and pans and utensils ready and waiting so I could cook along with them.  I have gotten ideas on what to cook with what, but other than that, I am pretty much cooking on my own.  I used the internet a lot to learn what spices should be used or how to set the oven temp and time, and aside from that, I am pretty much on my own.

I have cooked a variety of loaves of bread including baguettes, doughnuts, cakes, pies, lasagna, spaghetti, soups of all sorts, omelets, quiches, and casseroles.  From my perspective, recipes while providing a framework are not necessarily meant to be followed.  I typically combine whatever I think will go together based on past experience and toss in a couple of extra items for shits and giggles.

I seldom use red meat but when I do it is usually beef that I cook a long time so that it can be shredded.  However, my wife showed me today how I could put the cooked meat in a small hand grinder and after a couple of pulses have shredded beef...  cutting down on my cooking time.

So, my meats are usually turkey burgers, turkey hotdogs, turkey sausage, chicken, and some kind of fish like cod, tuna, orange roughy, or salmon.  I love veges and pretty much always use, bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, green onions, beans (black, white, pinto, lentils), peas, split peas, sweet potatoes, potatoes, spinach, cabbage, garlic, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and zucchini.

My goto spices are pepper, sea salt, basil, oregano, chives, parsley, dill, and paprika.  I also use honey mustard, ketchup, A1, soy sauce, and seasoning sauce.  I use basmati rice and angel hair pasta as fillers.

My equipment is a gas stove top and oven as well as a portable electric grill top for one pot, an instapot, and a multi-purpose air fyer.

The downside to my cooking experience is that I have limited experience on an outside gas grill and when anything is cooked outside then my wife does the cooking.

The reason I got into cooking was that in 2015 when my wife and I retired, she informed me that she was no longer cooking as part of her retirement package...  so, if I wanted anything to eat, I had to do my own cooking.  And, that is how it began...

In the first few years of her retirement, she cooked Thanksgiving and Christmas meals and if anyone was coming to our house for dinner but nothing else...