Clueless About Cooking? Try These Three Resources

College is a time of exploration, especially in the kitchen. Sadly, after leaving home and venturing away to college, many students quickly learn they know next to nothing when it comes to home cooking. Throughout their childhood and young-adult years, these students dine on family meals parents and on the rare occasions they ever do cook, it usually a follow-the-directions-on-the-box-kind-of dish.

My own mother would lovingly joke that I had a lot to learn about cooking as I was preparing to leave for college, and I remembering shrugging it off; however, it wasn't until I was alone in my tiny college apartment kitchen that I realized just how right she was. I'm not the type to wallow in ignorance, however, so when I realized I needed to learn about cooking, I set out to educate myself. Over time, I learned all about delicious, easy recipes, secret culinary tricks, and staple meal ingredients until I finally felt confident in my cooking knowledge. Nowadays, learning about cooking is an easy task, given all the plentiful resources that are available for us to call upon when we need them.

If you find yourself coming into college absolutely clueless about the difference between a whisk and a spatula or a sauté and a fry, try using these three helpful resources to get you through the hump.

The college library

Believe it or not, a college library houses more than just old historical text and dusty reference materials. In fact, there is likely a blooming section of your college library dedicated to cookbooks. And why is that? Colleges, historians, and professors view cookbooks not only as useful teaching materials, but also as a way to study the nation's expanding and evolving culinary trends throughout history. Lucky for you, schools also keep current cookbooks on hand as well. So if you ever find yourself needing to learn about a particular cooking style or trick, try your college library first. You may be surprised by all that you are able to find.

Pinterest

Pinterest gets a lot of flak for being too girly. Yet Pinterest is what you make of it, and one thing you can utilize from the website is its thousands of recipes. In fact, one of the largest sections of Pinterest is its food section, which compiles recipes and tips from personal blogs, popular cooking websites, and online discussion forums from all over the web-verse. Sign up for a Pinterest account and give the website a temporary trial. If you like it, awesome; if not, then maybe try one of the other resources listed here.

Allrecipes.com

This might be a website you are already familiar with, but it's still worth mentioning. Allrecipes.com is wonderful because it not only allows users to rate all the recipes and upload personal ones, but it also houses thousands of short tutorial videos you can watch and learn from. Some people learn more by watching someone else do it and then trying it out for themselves, and if you're one of these people, then Allrecipes.com is perfect for you to peruse. Simply go to the website, type in a tutorial you want to see (like how to cut a mango or how to poach an egg) and see what pops up.

College is not just a time for academic learning. It is also a perfect time to learn about all the wonders of great cooking. If you aren't sure where to begin, try these three resources and see where they take you.

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About the Author

Amanda Watson is well versed business blogger with a keen interest in how people earn their mba online. She believes that web entrepreneurship is critical to success in business. She can be reached at watsonamada.48 at gmail dot com.