1. Recreation, it's fun! Also because it's often a better combination of healthy/tasty/unique than what I could buy pre-made.
2. No, but sometimes I wish I did.
3. There's too much variety here, but maybe I come back to minestrone, tomato/canellini casserole, and pan fried proteins (fish/pork/beef) a lot. I bake a lot of bread.
4. No.
5. Learn to tell whether or not something is cooking the way you want based on the sound it makes as it sizzles in the pan. That simple tip has changed the quality of my cooking forever. Develop recipes around a common set of staples with minor swap outs. Kind of "modular". You get variety without a ton of anxiety. I learned to think this way from Bittman's how to cook everything, though I don't use that book very often anymore, it was a brilliant set of training wheels to break free of recipes.
2. No, but sometimes I wish I did.
3. There's too much variety here, but maybe I come back to minestrone, tomato/canellini casserole, and pan fried proteins (fish/pork/beef) a lot. I bake a lot of bread.
4. No.
5. Learn to tell whether or not something is cooking the way you want based on the sound it makes as it sizzles in the pan. That simple tip has changed the quality of my cooking forever. Develop recipes around a common set of staples with minor swap outs. Kind of "modular". You get variety without a ton of anxiety. I learned to think this way from Bittman's how to cook everything, though I don't use that book very often anymore, it was a brilliant set of training wheels to break free of recipes.