eating out too much! help!

[JBL]

Check out local thrift stores for cookbooks. There are usually several at the goodwills around me. Cookbooks, especially ones designed for the beginner, are very helpful. Cooking is basically just a small number of easy to learn skills. Learn about 5 skills and you can cook most anything you want. Like Disney Steve pointed out, you can cook once and portion off and freeze to save time later.

[FrugalFish]

I was going to suggest trying Simple & Delicious (they changed the name not too long ago and I think that's what it's called now)- it's a sister publication of Taste of Home that Lynda mentioned above. The recipes in there are generally very quick and simple to prepare.

IMO, one of the biggest mistakes that people who don't cook much make is thinking that every dinner has to be a grand affair- meat, starch, vegetable, bread and butter on the side, dessert... That tends to seem overwhelming and put people off. Meals can be very simple- it isn't uncommon for us to have something very simple like a bowl of homemade soup and a slice of bread. Leftovers are also a pretty big starting point for additional meals here. Tonight we're having a roast with mashed potatoes and some frozen veggies; it will make several days worth of food and some leftovers may go into the freezer for use in something later. I think it's hard to save money on food if you won't eat leftovers. My brother won't eat leftovers- I wonder how much food they throw away...

[fruitbowlk]

There are cookbooks out there that has very easy meals to make. if you can read you can cook a nice cheap meal out of these cookbooks. Hamburger help, tuner helper, chicken helper all cheap and easy to make. crock pots help a lot of people also. All you do is throw in some chicken breast, broccoli, cheese soup and you have a meal. Cook on low all or half the day and it done.

[momof1in150]

Kraft Foods - Great Recipes and Food Ideas has a lot of quick and easy recipes. Great for a newbie home cook.

[Caoineag]

I personally am a big fan of allrecipes.com simply because I can do ingredient searches or browse through recipe collections. But for a beginning cook its handy because people review the recipes and give you suggestions on how to do the recipe if its not clear enough.

Believe me, some recipes are flawed to begin with and that doesn't help beginner cooks at all.

If its any consolation my husband couldn't cook mac and cheese either and now we cook alot of things from scratch.

[disneysteve]

Believe me, some recipes are flawed to begin with and that doesn't help beginner cooks at all.

This is true. One thing to keep in mind - baking is more of a science and it is important to follow recipes pretty closely. Cooking is more of an art. I use cooking recipes more as a suggestion of how to put things together in an interesting way, not as a strict list of measurements and ingredients that must be followed exactly. I very rarely actually follow a recipe exactly when I cook. I'll reduce the fat content, skip the salt, substitute ingredients that we like for ones we don't like, etc.

[pearlieq]

If it's any consolation, I'm a pretty good cook and I still eat out way too much!

I think the trick for you might be to lower your expectations, initially. Let's just start with getting you to eat at home, even if you're not cooking from scratch.

There's a bunch of pre-made frozen family size meals. Stouffers makes them, Lean Cuisine has some, there's tons. They cost between $5 - $10 each and will give you at least 4 hearty helpings. Go to the store and pick 2 or 3 that look good to you. At dinner time that night, when the urge to get fast food strikes, pop it into the microwave. Voila! Dinner, and probably lunch for another day, done for just a few dollars and a few seconds of work.

Once you get used to that, you can try venturing into the semi-homemade territory where you start with store bought ingredients and do a bit of the work yourself. There's a good cookbook called A Man, A Can, A Plan that has wonderful, step-by-step instructions for making simple meals starting with store bought ingredients.

Once you're comfortable there, you can branch off into cooking on your own. But start slow. Ease into it. You'll do fine!

Link to book: Amazon.com: A Man, a Can, a Plan: 50 Tasty Meals You Can Nuke in No Time: David Joachim,The Editors of Men's Health: Books

[disneysteve]

If it's any consolation, I'm a pretty good cook and I still eat out way too much!

Actually, I think the fact that my wife and I are good cooks raises our costs when we eat out. Since we cook well at home, we don't want to eat crap when we go out. We want something at least as good or better than what we can do ourselves at home. So we don't go to fast food places or casual chain restaurants like Chili's and Applebee's. We go to nice restaurants where dinner for 2 might be $50 or more.

[M-squared]

Actually, I think the fact that my wife and I are good cooks raises our costs when we eat out. Since we cook well at home, we don't want to eat crap when we go out. We want something at least as good or better than what we can do ourselves at home. So we don't go to fast food places or casual chain restaurants like Chili's and Applebee's. We go to nice restaurants where dinner for 2 might be $50 or more.

Um, yep. but then, having two small kids pretty much guarantees that we only rarely go out to eat. Like this past weekend, we had a free babysitter so we decided to go to the fancy "anniversary place" $105 and the best meal that I've had since the last time we went there 18 months ago later...

Seriously though, a good thing to do would be to make sure that you have the basics stocked in your pantry. Make a shopping list with dinner for the week in mind. If you have a pound of ground beef and a package of hamburger buns, you are set to make burgers in about 15 minutes. It couldn't be easier to shape hamburger patties and slap them in a pan. Put a slice of cheese on top and you are golden. If you buy a head of lettuce and some fresh veggies in season once a week, you can have a side salad with any meal.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Once you start you get into a routine. At least that's what happened to us. We have a set of maybe 20 meals we make pretty regularly. From there I just pick and choose for the week.

DH refuses to eat frozen food so once a month cooking is out. He doesn't even like once a week cooking. So DAILY I have to cook or he does.

But we make a meal and usually since it's just 2 of us, we end up having leftovers.

[cschin4]

Nobody is born knowing how to cook. You teach yourself through trial and error just like you learn everything else in life.
I like simple cooking. I don't make fancy sauces or use strange or unusual spices unless I am a mood to experiment. Go the library or get on line and get some free recipies. Stick to foods that you already know that you like. And, don't get hung up on trying to make things from scratch.
My lasagna recipie came of the Prego label. Simple and easy. Many foods have recipes on the labels as well.
If you like pasta, you can boil the noodle and toss with sauce. To jazz it up, I brown some ground hamburger with onion and green pepper and put on the sauce. Makes the meal tasty and feels more substantial. Or, I buy frozen meatballs and heat the sauce in a pan with the frozen meatballs. And, I buy a loaf of frozen garlic bread and bake. Just follow the instructions, it isn't difficult. And, you will burn and ruin some dinners along the way. I have tossed a few meals myself and just ordered out.
Another tasty simple meal. I get a thawed turkey breast at the meat section (not frozen). I place in a baking dish with salt, pepper and toss in an onion. Then, I take the celery leaves off of my celery stalk and lay on the turkey. Add some water and some chicken bouillon. Bake for about 40 min. You can use a meat thermometer to help you get more comfortable with cooking times. There is a tendency to want to overcook meat and it gets tough. To complete the turkey dinner I make instant mashed potatoes, stove top stuffing, and buy a can of gravy until you learn to make gravy yourself.

[disneysteve]

DH refuses to eat frozen food

I just don't get folks like this, though to be fair, I find that many people don't know how to properly reheat stuff. Some thing can be microwaved. Others are best reheated in the oven. Certain things are best warmed in a pot or pan on the stovetop and still others freshen up best if you steam them. Do it the wrong way and you can turn a perfectly good meal into unattractive mush or dried out garbage.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Uh, he was raised by a mother who did not EVER make leftovers. He is used to be spoiled. His mom worked full time and cooked every night. I hate the fact she is a great cook.

[disneysteve]

Uh, he was raised by a mother who did not EVER make leftovers. He is used to be spoiled. His mom worked full time and cooked every night. I hate the fact she is a great cook.

Does he consider anything not served as soon as it is made to be a leftover, or just things that were served once and the extra was put in the fridge or freezer to be eaten later? For example, can you make a pot of soup and freeze it in single serve containers? Or would he consider those "leftovers"?

[Snave]

When my wife and I were first married, we tried to make one new meal a week. We would look on the internet or in her magazines such as Good Houskeeping, etc... and try to find something we thought we could make. After a few months, we had 8-10 dishes that we had tried. Couple that with the old standby of pasta, pizza night, etc... and we now have plenty of ideas for the week. That would be my advice. Don't try to do everything at once. Go to some of the sites that people have mentioned and pick out a few recipes you both might like. Then, just start to incorporate them. Another good idea is to ask friends/co-workers what some of their favorite dinner recipes are. You can probbaly get some good ideas from them as well.