New to Cooking
Dave Jackson
If you are a person like me, you know that cooking your own food is better for you, less expensive, and healthier, and yet we don't do it. I'm in my fifties and venturing into the kitchen to start cooking. If you want to learn along with me, come along for the ride as I talk techniques, recipes, strategies to create great food without losing my mind.
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Top 10 New to Cooking Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best New to Cooking episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to New to Cooking for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite New to Cooking episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Getting and Storing Spices
New to Cooking
05/30/20 • 12 min
You don't want to be in the middle of cooking something and go, "Oh man, I need a ____." I've been there done that. Its frustrating so today I found some "Kitchen Starter Kits" that can help you out without breaking bank.
Home Hero Kitchen Utensil Set
BEST VALUE FOR MONEY AROUND - this fully comprehensive high quality utensil set is available at an incredibly low price.
This has all the measuring cups, peeler, spatual, spoons, and more.
Digital Scale
If the recipe calls for 1.5 lbs of something, this comes in handy
Silicone Grilling Gloves
I LOVE MINE. I feel so much safer. Unlike oven mits, these help me grip the pots and pans I'm holding and yet, I'm safe from being burned.
Ninja Food Chopper Express Chop
I love mine. It chops things soooo fast.
What About Spices?
Spices can get expensive. It seems frustrating as you pay $5 for a jar the size of your palm that you end up using once. I visited the Dollar General / Family Dollar stores and picked up some of the spices in the recipes I was creating (more on that in the next episode).
Storing Spices
In many cases the spice jars all look the same, and are the same size. This means looking in your cabinet its hard to take inventory of what you have (so you don't buy a spice that you already have).
If you've got counter space, there are spice racks, and some rotate.
In my case I have a very short short and very narrow (9" x 9"). So some of these great lazy Susan (spinning shelves) don't fit,
The cabinet caddy can help you easily pull out shelves of spices (or food) and put them back. Again, it makes it easy to take inventory.
I like the idea of these Spice Grippers that you stick the back of your kitchen cabinet door and then hang the spice there. These are also inexpensive. I am a little worried about the jars falling out. I'm going to order these and give them a test.
Sponsor:
Plan to eat is a great recipe organizer, meal planner, and shopping list creator. Right now you can try plan to eat for 30 days free - you don't even enter a credit card - and if you decide to subscribe its only $5 a month or $39 a year. Plan to eat makes meal planning a breeze. Check it out at newtocookingshow.com/plantoeat
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Alexa in the Kitchen
New to Cooking
07/18/20 • 7 min
I have an Amazon Alexa in almost every room of my house. I find her quite helpful. Now in the kitchen she can be even more helpful in conversions, but also if you have an Amazon show (I just purchased the Amazon Show 8) you can watch cooking shows and pause and resume with your voice (and not the the screen all icky).
Amazon gives a full year free to the Food network. I checked it out and its cool because:
- You can see what people are doing
- Cool search feature
- No commericals
- You can watch what someone is doing so if they mince some garlic and you are "You did what to what?" now you can see. It's like free cooking classes.
This is where an Amazon show can come in handy. I just purchased an Amazon show 8. It's on sale for $89.
Finding and Organizing Recipes
The one thing I thought was missing was (unless I missed it) an easy way to get a recipe of what I just watched. I searched for the "Delicious Miss Brown" and the name of the recipe and google did the rest. I then imported all of that information into my plan to eat app which then makes my shopping list along with my meal plan.
I found this very cool, and a HUGE time saver.
NOT Chipotle
New to Cooking
06/27/20 • 9 min
This week I played with the "not so" Instant Pot and found that if you want hard boiled eggs that are, well, HARD you need to cook them on high for 10 minutes.
I cut up some carrots and put them in for 10 but they were not "mushy." These are probably 2-3 inche pieces (not like the slices you get normally). Also I left the skin on (but washed them carrot) and I love the texture and this will give you more fiber.
SPONSOR: Plan to Eat
A great app to create, organize and use recipes. You can drag a recipe on to the calendar which then adds it to your shopping list. I love it.
Here is my recipe for "not chipotle" https://www.plantoeat.com/recipes/24547340/
Garden Pasta
New to Cooking
06/20/20 • 13 min
This is not Italian Spaghetti, although it has tomatoes in it. Its got some zip and leaves me wanting more. Here is the recipe.
Mentioned In This Episode
Roysili Spice Rack Magnetic Spice Rack Durable Magnetic Shelves For Refrigerator Easy To Use 2 Pack (White) Lifetime Guarantee
Plan To Eat - A Great app that helps you organize your recipes, plan your trips to the store, and save you a ton of time.
Full Show Description at newtocookingshow.com/5
Turkey Meatloaves and the "New to Cooking" Attitude
New to Cooking
06/13/20 • 15 min
Today I'm talking about making Turkey Meatloaf (or in my case meatloaves) see https://www.plantoeat.com/recipes/6904286/
Organize your recipes using the Plan to Eat website and app.
What I needed to create this
What I Learned
That a digital meat thermometer is good to have to make sure your meat is done.
I also have to press the "On/Start" button after dialing in the temperature on my oven. (Yep... that's true). I also continue to say the best tool so far is my Silicone Grilling Gloves
Sponsor: Plan to Eat
By providing tools that streamline the meal planning process the Plan to Eat app and website equips households to eat better food, eat together, save money at the grocery store, and have a less stressful cooking experience in the kitchen.
Check it out for free at www.newtocookingshow.com/plantoeat
The New Cooks Mentality
I haven't really created anything (I've been at this a whole two weeks) that has had me go WOW - I need to make another pot of that NOW.
Don't get discouraged if this is you as well. Just trying things in my instant pot I found a bit frustrating. You might be like Goldilocks and the three bears. The first time you cook something, it's not done. The second time you cook you burn it. The third time is just right.
This makes you truly appreciate good food - but have faith. You can do this and continue to save money, save time, and be healthier.
How Cool is the Instant Pot? (or is it Instapot ?)
New to Cooking
06/07/20 • 21 min
After looking for some recipes I notice that many of them were made for an instant podcast ( some people pronounce this "instapot." ) and when I saw they come equipped with wifi and can be controlled by your phone AND your Google or Amazon Speaker - I WAS IN.
Today I share my first experience along with my first recipe, and we learn how to Saute.
Sponsor: Plan to Eat makes finding, organizing, and using recipes a breeze. I could share my BBQ chicken recipe on Plan to Eat with my friends. see www.newcookingshow.com/plantoeat
Thanks for listening. Tell a friend
Beef Veggie "Stuff"
New to Cooking
11/22/20 • 7 min
With it getting cold here in Ohio, I wanted to make some stew type of beef vegetable. I purchased some McCormick Heart Beef Stew Seasoning Mix and a lb of Beef Stew meat (pre-cut), and a bag of frozen vegetables. The cost was right around $10.
As I live alone I use a smaller crock pot, but in looking at Amazon, it appears crock pot (the company) doesn't make that model. However, you can get it at Walmart for $10. The closest I found on Amazon is the KOOC Small Slow Cooker, 2-Quart, Free Liners Included for Easy Clean-up, Upgraded Crock Pot, which is more expensive (but it does come with free liners).
How I Messed This Up
On the back of the seasoning mix my eyes were drawn to the "slow cooker directions" where it said to mix the seasoning with water but didn't say how much. This lead me to guess and I dumped in around 3 cups of water.
Later I would look at the seasoning package again and saw where they list the ingredients at the top and mention 1 and 1/3 cup. Ooops. So I will cook this for a few hours with the lid on, and then a few with the lid off to let some of the excess water evaporate. If it taste as good as it smells I'm in for a few good meals.
Easy To Make - Not a Lot of Mess
Originally I mixes the seasoning and water in a different dish. If I do this again I will mix this up in the crock pot. While the directions say to put the beef and vegetables in the crock pot and pour over the meat and vegetable, I could save dirtying a dish and then just stir the ingredients in the slow cooker.
Cheap Food
At $10 for all the ingredients and the likelihood of getting three meals out of this, that is $3ish for a meal. Cheaper than a value meal at a fast food join.
Colgin Liquid Smoke Makes Things Tasty
New to Cooking
11/11/20 • 8 min
With it getting cold where I live, I can keep grilling outside. I had known about Luquid smoke but had never used it. I've used it twice and I have a sneaking suspicion I will be putting it on everything. I put it on some chicken thighs and it gave a bit of that "off the grill taste" but for me the one that I can wait to try again was when I put two frozen Talapia Fillets from Walmat on my George Forman grill.
This created a taste I had never had before, and I will be adding this to my frequently used list. It's a quick dinner, and I loved the flavor. You can get a two pack and try them both.
Make Your Sure Indoor Smokeless Grill is Smokeless
I saw the reviews on YouTube and other place on the Power XL Smokeless Grill. It looks good. Sounds fun, but the price was up there. What did I do, I started bouncing around amazon and went for the Amazon Recommends purchase of a Hamilton beach for half the price. The problem is its not a smokeless grill. With this in mind, if the goal is to by an indoor grill that is smokless, make sure it says so in the description. The Hamilton Beach is a nice grill, but just because it has a hood does not mean the smoke/steam magically disappear.
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Power XL Smokeless Grill Review
New to Cooking
01/12/21 • 6 min
As I live in Ohio, grill outside in the winter isn't much of an option for me. However, I want to batch cook lots of chicken (in this case) for the week. So I needed a decent sized grill, and I heard about the Power XL Smokeless Grill.
IS IT SMOKELESS?
Yes. You dumb two cups of water in a drawer under the grill and turn on a fan and somehow that deters any smoke. I did end up with some steam, but that dissipates and goes away quickly.
I WANTED BIG AND I GOT BIG
The unit is 21 x 15.4 x 8.1 inches. For me, I had the shelf under my microwave open and it fits their nicely. Just realize this takes up some real estate.
EASE OF USE AND CLEANING
The unit goes up to 450 degrees and gets there pretty quick. I do have to grill my chicken a bit longer than my formal grill but the format cooks from both sides. This is still quicker as I would take me three grills on a format to fit all of my chicken thighs.
The Power XL Grill is actually non stick and after using it four times everything snaps apart easily, washes quickly, and is pretty "no hassle." I use a brush to first get any leftover chicken off the grill and then use a sponge. It's pretty straight forward.
While it's not a cheap item, I have no buyer's remorse as it seems to do exactly what it advertises, and I don't have to put on a winter coat to grill outside. Does it taste like the outside grill? No, but the chicken coming off this thing is still pretty yummy. Part of that is I'm using liquid smoke.
Souper Cubes: Great When You Cook For One
New to Cooking
03/10/21 • 4 min
I just got done watching Shark Tank and there was this cool resource that looks like a giant ice cube tray for four giant cubes. The difference is the tray is made out of silicone. You can freeze your soup, chilli, pasta, etc and then push the item out of the cube.
For me (living alone) I often make pasta or soup, and then end up eating the same thing all week. Not any more. Now I can cook up a giant batch and FREEZE the rest. Then when I want a quick meal, I pop out a cube, and microwave a great meal in a few minutes.
I ordered mine from Amazon. (aff link)
New Recipe Episode Coming
I'm going to try Bruschetta Pasta
Instructions
Cook pasta according to instruction.
Drain water.
Toss pasta and all ingredients in a large bowl.
Ingredients
1/2 box spaghetti
1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped basil
1.5 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
1 green onion
Serving Size
2-3
Prep Time
20 minutes
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FAQ
How many episodes does New to Cooking have?
New to Cooking currently has 17 episodes available.
What topics does New to Cooking cover?
The podcast is about How To, Podcasts, Education, Arts and Food.
What is the most popular episode on New to Cooking?
The episode title 'Getting and Storing Spices' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on New to Cooking?
The average episode length on New to Cooking is 10 minutes.
How often are episodes of New to Cooking released?
Episodes of New to Cooking are typically released every 10 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of New to Cooking?
The first episode of New to Cooking was released on May 23, 2020.
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