My last post before leaving for Summer Break concerns the basics of how to feed yourself: meal planning and preparation. Cooking can be immensely rewarding, and at a minimum cooking for yourself will save you money, support healthy nutrition, and minimize your reliance on highly processed foods. Hot Pockets are fine once in a while, but it's no replacement for whole foods that you prepare yourself. Even if you're heading off to college and plan to live on campus with a meal plan, knowing a few go-to dishes will put you miles ahead when you decide to cook dinner for your date, bring something to a department potluck, or just break the monotony of dining hall pizza.
Food writer Michael Pollan has an excellent list of Food Rules that you would do well to internalize. It all boils down to this: Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.
Meal Planning and Prep
The Beginners Guide to Meal Planning
The Best Way to Use a Weekend for Meal Planning Success
10 Best Tips for Meal Planning for One
5 Things Expert Meal Planners Do Before Going to the Grocery Store
Cooking Basics
12 Cooking Basics Everyone Should Know
Gordon Ramsey: How To Master 5 Basic Cooking Skills -- knife skills! Stay out of the ER!
How To Cook For Beginners - The Essentials
https://watch.tastemade.com/adulting
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/cooking-for-yourself
What to cook?
Tools and techniques are great, but you still need to know what to cook. Leanne Brown's free 'Good & Cheap' cookbook is a great place to start. The recipes are delicious, the techniques are basic, and it's oriented around eating well on the cheap. Great for starting out!
Leanne Brown's Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4 a Day
Want to take your cooking to the next level? Check out Stephane's 'French Cooking Academy' on YouTube. It's the complete Auguste Escoffier method of French cooking, from soup to nuts, and you can learn it all for free. Here is his Online Cooking Course for Beginners.
Food is the world on a plate: history, culture, language, travel... it's literally endless. If you just want to learn how to make tasty food for yourself and your friends, it's all that too. Dig in!