meabh-mcinness

[meabh-mcinness]

Learning to Cook Like a Witch: The Absolute Beginning

So, you're looking to dip your toes into kitchen witchery, but you have zero experience cooking. Or, maybe you have experience that's not so great or that wasn't informative. Or, maybe you just don't know where to start, because no one ever taught you how to cook.

Great! Cooking can be intimidating to even approach when you're not used to it. I'm lucky in that I grew up cooking with my family and had the chance to take several cooking-based classes in high school. Not everyone has that sort of opportunity, so I'd like to pass on my experience to others!

(Note that you definitely don't need to be the best cook in the world to be a kitchen witch. No one's perfect! But it's okay to want to improve your skills, too.)

If you want to learn to cook, the first step is to familiarize yourself with the basic terms, measurements, and tools you'll be working with. Start with the following:

Learn the names and uses of the tools in your kitchen (for example, spatulas for spreading frosting vs. spatulas for flipping burgers)

Measurement conversions (how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, how many tablespoons in a cup, etc.)

Familiarize yourself with commonly used measurement phrases such as "dash" and "pinch," and learn exactly what they mean by that

Abbreviations for measurements (teaspoon = tsp = t, tablespoon = tbsp = T, etc.)

Various cooking terminology and the difference between terms, such as the difference between mixing, creaming, folding, and emulsifying

Read recipes and look up words you're not familiar with

Knife safety! Learn how to hold a knife properly and cut things without risking your fingers, and also learn how to keep your knives sharp. Remember, a sharp knife is a safe knife!

Once you've got knife safety down, learn how to cut an onion - dice, chop, and slice your way to delicious victory!

Learn fire, oven, and stovetop safety!

Familiarize yourself with what's in your spice cabinet; taste things if you've never had them, and look up common recipe usages for them

Learn about the Maillard reaction (this is what turns meat brown!)

Familiarize yourself with common substitutions, such as for cornstarch, buttermilk, and shortening/lard

Start with simple recipes; many chefs say you should start with omelets, white sauce, and homemade stock, and I tend to agree. Learning just these three things teaches a number of techniques that translate to a hundred other recipes!

Eat more food! Try new flavors, experiment with dishes from restaurants, ask questions about what's in what you're eating. Sample dishes and spice combinations from other cultures. Smell things before you eat them. Think about the flavors and how they're working together.

Watch videos from cooks on YouTube, or watch cooking tv shows! Honestly, Alton Brown's Good Eats was a foundational influence for me as a child, and I cut my teeth on Food Network. YouTube-wise, try Basics with Babish!

Pick a recipe you think looks good or that you've had before and just make it! Simple as that, just follow the recipe. Get the ingredients, follow the steps, eat the food!

Not everything you make is going to be good. And that's fine! Learn what went wrong and why. Figure out what tastes good and what doesn't. Let other people try your food and give you honest feedback. If you think your taste buds are biased or not "good enough," having someone else tell you "this needs more salt" or "this is really balanced" or "this would go nicely over rice instead of potatoes" is powerful.

Remember that you're learning. Look things up. Fuck up a recipe. Burn something. Realize you're missing an ingredient and figure out a substitute last minute. Leave something out, put something else in. Taste, taste, taste. Taste everything. Every time you put something in or complete a step, taste it. So long as it's not going to be a health hazard (such as with raw meat), taste it.

Take your time with it. Cooking is a skill that's earned over time via trial and error. Know that you're not alone in your worry and struggle. Millions of home cooks have stood where you stand, spoon in hand and apron tied tight. Practice, practice, practice.

Once you understand cooking by itself, you can more easily incorporate magic and weave spells into your meals, which I'll cover in another post, since this one is already quite long.

Happy cooking! 🍳🌿

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[meabh-mcinness]

Optimus: How did none of you hear what I just said? Ironhide: I've been zoned out for the past two and a half hours. Jazz: I got distracted about halfway through Prowl: Ignoring you was a conscious decision

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while i love jinumi and their Doomed Romance i do love the cute lil moments of zoey n mystery. zoeystery. if u will

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Biggest adult life trick I've learned is to lay that platonic praise kink on thick

Yesterday I told my friend "I'm proud of you for reaching out". Today I got told sb is proud of me for stretching and taking care of my body. I absolutely cheered them on for getting pants on and leaving the house

Utterly underrated, telling sb they did a good job. I literally feel the positive reinforcement strengthening some neural pathways like. Telling sb what they did was good makes it so much more likely to value yourself for taking that same action.

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Man I haven't done animation in a while

So have this uhh eepy truck 👍

[Better quality + longer version ig]

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cvs dissociative episode

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trying to break into the furry scene what do you guys think of my newest ocs

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Making friends at the yarn show 🐑🐈

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dreams

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One of my favourite customer interactions

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Local goat discovers joy of painting

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conehead mantis elita one and bumblebee²

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starscream and his airplane kids...

i do kind of change my mind after edd mentioned that they could be minibots but they're young... starscream seeing himself in them, from himself being younger and naive once.

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Scavenger’s tail is a hill I’m ready to die on.

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Love those scientists Starscream and Jetfire hope nothing bad happens when they arrive on earth

Little drawings before sleep.

[meabh-mcinness]

he’s allergic to doing things without them being over the top. perfect.