How to cook almost anything

Complete with more than 60 recipes for beginner cooks, in addition to hundreds of paragraphs and sentences, as well as photos and drawings, You Suck at Cooking is an absurdly practical guide to sucking slightly less at making food.

Here’s an insightful quote from the introduction: ‘Humans have been eating food for almost as long as they’ve been alive. Over the past several years, due to the established link between eating food and not dying, food has continued to increase in popularity.’

So, if we need to eat it so much to stay alive, why haven’t you bothered to learn how to cook food? Scrap that. We’re not here to blame and shame you into doing something. Instead, this book is full of is simple recipes with a special blend of ridicule and condescension lovingly crafted to spur you on.

Learn the essentials, like: how not to hurt yourself, stuff you might need and a breakdown of important ingredients. From here, you’ll discover how to overcome mental blocks, like: failing miserably, cleaning, the expectations of others and the speed of time. Then it’s time to get on with the actual cooking bit.

From the pages of You Suck at Cooking, here are three methods for cooking virtually anything.

HOW TO COOK ALMOST ANYTHING

Let’s take a quick look at an easy way to cook most things that allows you to enjoy the natural flavor of the food. While there are instructions for every recipe in this book, you can use these methods to take your newfound knowledge outside the confines of these pages. But always, always, credit me regardless.

COOK ANYTHING METHOD #1: Roasting

Preheat your oven to 180° or 200°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper and put the thing you want to cook on it. Drizzle on some olive oil, then sprinkle on some salt and pepper.

Put it in the oven for 10 to 20 minutes, then check it. Do you want to brown it for Maillard goodness, or is it good when it’s just cooked through? When it seems finished, take it out of the oven and let it cool down a little bit. Decide if it needs more salt or pepper, and consider adding a squeeze of lemon. Enjoy.

COOK ANYTHING METHOD #2: Pan-Frying

Season the thing you want to cook with salt and pepper on all sides. Consider adding an herb or spice that you think will work, or don’t. Put some oil in a skillet with the heat on medium until the oil starts to shimmer like the sun’s rays bursting dramatically through a cumulonimbus cloud in the desert during a Sunday afternoon adventure.

Add the thing you want to cook to the pan and cook it for several minutes. Flip it around occasionally while acting like you know what you’re doing. Decide if you want to brown it or get it out sooner. Taste it and see if it needs more salt or pepper. Consider adding a squeeze of lemon. Enjoy.

Types of pan-frying include searing and sautéing. You’re welcome.

COOK ANYTHING METHOD #3: Mooching

Go over to a friend’s house and see what food they have lying around. Make remarks such as “Boy I bet that would be tasty if somebody cooked that thing,” or “I’d hate to have to end our friendship on account of you not cooking that thing that would be tasty if you cooked it and therefore made us better friends.” Continue making remarks as needed until you are enjoying a delicious meal. Transcend any negative scowl energy directed toward you.