A while ago, I decided that I needed something to help me teach my daughters to cook.
Over the years, I had been letting them help me cook periodically, but I wanted them to be able to take over cooking so that I would have more time to write blog posts (like this one) and make educational products.
What I wanted was a book with pictures, instructions, tips, and, of course, recipes that I could use.
Basically, I wanted a teaching cookbook.
I was blessed to find just the right book this summer.
The book is called How to Cook Everything The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food–With 1,000 Photos and it’s written by Mark Bittman.
This 400+ page book is LOADED with good stuff.
It begins with helpful cooking info including:
- setting up your pantry,
- tools for cooking,
- information on seasoning,
- pictures and instruction on how to slice, dice, trim, peel, and more,
- tips on how to measure both wet and dry ingredients,
- and techniques for simmering, steaming, stir-frying, braising, and every other kind of cooking method that you can think of.
Next come the recipes – 411 pages of them! There’s everything from American to ethnic, breakfast to dessert, and ordinary to exotic. Each recipe comes with demonstration pictures, tips for making the food, and, my personal favorite, variations for each recipe. There’s also information on meats including safety, doneness, and cuts. You can even learn about natural and organic meats.
Besides the index, there are a number of resources at the back of the book including a list of lessons and measurement conversions.
All in all, we’ve been very satisfied with this teaching cookbook by Mark Bittman.
If you’d like to learn more about this cookbook, you can check it out on Amazon using my paid link below. (I earn a small commission from the sale of products purchased via this link. Please see my disclosure for details.) Happy cooking!
Susen @ Dabbling Momma says
My son at 9 is just starting to want to cook dinner and other meals for himself and our family. I hesitate because of the stove, oven etc even tho I’m close by. I get alot of “I want to do it, I can do it” and I don’t want to discourage or frustrate. This book looks like it might be helpful!!
Susan Brown says
The pictures in it are wonderful! And I love the added tips he gives for each recipe. They are really helpful for beginning cooks.