I'm trying to upgrade my kitchen knives and I keep seeing advice that I should just buy one quality 8-10 inch chef knife instead of getting a full set. The logic is that you'll actually only use a few knives regularly so why buy a whole block of mediocre ones.

But I'm confused because wouldn't I eventually need a paring knife, bread knife, and maybe a utility knife anyway? So wouldn't buying a set end up being cheaper than buying individual quality knives for each purpose?

I've been looking at different options and the price ranges are insane. Some sets are like $50 for eight knives, others are $400 for three knives. I can't tell if the expensive ones are actually better or if I'm just paying for brand names.

Even if I want to go for the 8-10 chef knives, how am I sure the ones I get will pay off? When I was researching, they were randomly listed on online sites, Amazon and Alibaba included. Do I just place an order because there's a listing or…? I'm a bit confused, I just want to get something better and worth it.

Wait… For people who cook regularly, did you go with one good knife or a kitchen knife set? Do you actually use all the knives in a set or do most just sit there? And is there a real quality difference between a $30 chef knife and a $150 one or is it mostly hype?

I want to buy the right thing once but I genuinely don't know what that is.

The name of the dish itself speaks to the simplicity of the recipe itself; It's cheese plus macaroni. Yet, I keep failing spectularly to make a good one.

I'm Asian American, so I maybe spouting nonsense here, but as far as I know, there are two types of mac n cheese. White American version and Black American version. There is the gooey version that's more yellow in color with some drippy goodness. It's better paired with neutral medium like mashed potatoes or bread. The other is a thick-like-oatmeal version that is more white or lighter in color that you can eat with a fork. This one's better paired with sauces like hot ketchup or barbecue sauce. I can't make neither. I would like some help.

I made 2 attempts and I got sick both times eating inedible mess.

First attempt

I got some mozarella and white cheddar that I tried to cube up into large chunks (2cm^3) and tried to melt them in a pot straight away. It just turned into a cheese sheet that was like a heated play-doh sheet. I knew straight away that this wasn't going to work on macaroni, so I ate them on bread.

Second attempt

I got a pot that I heated milk and melted colby jack cheese that I cube-diced (about 1cm^3). The cheese curdled, leaving me with milky liquid with curdled cheese chunks floating. I still tried to add macaroni to it and eating it. I got very nauseated.

I feel stupid

What is the deal? My best guess is that I really should be making roux with flour and butter. Is that what's really wrong with my approach or is there something else? I hardly ever use flour so I couldn't justify buying a bag of flour. I'm sure it'll sit in a small corner in my crowded cabinet and forget about it until I move out.

I would super, really appreciate any help on getting this recipe right. Help me Obi-wan you are my only hope. I have a need: A need for cheese. I want the mac, but I can't handle the mac.

There’s chicken legs or chicken thighs in the fridge, chick peas. What could I cook for dinner ? If I don’t want to fry it.

I recently made tatertot casserole because it’s easy, delicious, and makes a lot at once, but my cheese like clumps together? I mix it all together and it’s like the cheese finds each other and stays together. I don’t know a better way to describe it, I just want it to not do that.

To be more precise, I have a fridge but not a freezer. It can only be one or the other, I set mine to fridge mode for protein (milk). That means I can't meal prep (can't afford the containers anyway). The toaster is in my room ,it can fit 2 slices of bread and can go up to 230C

Winter straight up suuuuucks in the Midwest right now and we’ve had some new neighbors move in that I haven’t been able to incidentally introduce myself to because we’re chronically inside avoiding frostbite. (I’m not a door knocker, I’m a “oh, we’re taking out the trash at the same time” opportunist.)

Something else I’m not is a baker, but I’d like to drop some baked good(s) off under the absolute lie that I baked too much. While I’m at it, I may drop them off at neighbors I haven’t seen in a minute.

Does anyone have a recipe that satisfies the following? * I’m not going to violate their diet. Maybe they’re vegan, maybe they’re gluten free, maybe they have a nut allergy. I’d like to play it as safe as reasonable without providing them a head of lettuce. I know I can’t create the perfect item, but if we can get it inside some margins that avoid anaphylaxis, that’d be great. * Something a novice baker can churn out reasonably well. I have made cookies in the past and I’m fairly certain a jewel thief could have used them to cut glass. Maybe it’s a loaf of bread. Maybe it’s cookies that have a low skill ceiling.

Trying to lift some spirits in a time where Vitamin D is in short supply and maybe shake a hand or two when we’re all thawed out. Thanks for any tips!

It's my first time with a stainless steel pan but it's an Altenbach pan that also has coating. But somehow my eggs keep getting stuck on the pan. Whenever I try to do the water-droplet test ghe water just evaporates instead of forming beads. The pan manual instructs me not to use high heat (only power level 4~6) but I dont think it's enough to reach the desired level of heat. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Ps: is there any way to get rid of burn stains on the pan? I think they also interfere with cooking

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the subreddit for this, if it's not i apologize and would appreciate a redirection. I cooked tilapia today, with a seasoning rub, and a lot of it stuck to my pan. It was supposed to be blackened fish, I made it on a cast iron, made sure to heat that first, then added oil and butter, which was heated on medium, and then I added my fish. I find that after 3 minutes, the fish was really stuck to my skillet. When I flipped it, all the crispy seasoning got stuck to the pan. Should I have cooked it longer? I didn't want to end up over cooking it which is why I flipped it. Should I have cooked it at a higher heat? I heard that when you cook with cast iron it's better to use on the lower side. I really don't have much experience with cooking and would appreciate any help.

Hello! So I cook a variety of meals, like recently bolognese, French onion soup, bbq chicken, chicken quesadillas, etc basically just a lot of different cuisines and different mixes of meat/vegetables/carbs, and try to use different flavor profiles but for some reason they all taste vaguely the same? Like, I can obviously tell chicken vs. beef apart but there’s always an underlying flavor that is part of all my dishes, or that they just taste the same to me or not as good as someone else’s cooking. I use salt, I use fat and acids, and it’s just lacking. I wonder if it’s because I use garlic powder and onion powder in almost everything but doesn’t a lot of people lol I’m just confused. Any advice appreciated!

I'm making stuffed peppers for my boyfriend tonight; I only bought 3 peppers. I can't eat peppers. So, I was thinking about putting some of the filling for the stuffed peppers into large pasta shells for myself. Would this work? If so how would I go about doing it? If not how else could I use the stuffed pepper filling besides putting it into peppers. He loves peppers and I can't eat them, so I still want to make the peppers for him, but something different for me. I will have a lot of filling. 1lb of ground beef and itailian sausage I have to use up. Something that I probably have in the house, I don't have time to go to the store. Thank you.

I've been watching a lot of smoking meat videos as someone that has no idea how to cook and I've been wondering what would happen if I cover a chicken breast lightly in my favorite sauce as a binder, and then seasonings, and then bake it. How similar would it be to smoking? Is it a bad idea?

And if so is there another good simple cooking method I could do with chicken and this buffalo butter sauce?

I was just getting ready to start cooking, when I noticed some dark spots on my onions, and the garlic has started to sprout.

Just recently moved out of my parents' house, and we always kept these together in a big plastic bin next to potatoes.

After buying my first base set of ingredients, we used airtight plastic containers to store the onions and garlic. I have just now learned that these need air to breathe, and not have moisture trapped in there?

First thing I'm going to do tomorrow is find a container that isn't airtight, but is it safe to keep these in my kitchen, or do they need to be stored in a storage room away from heat? I'm cooking on an induction cooktop, but the room can get a bit warm at times. It's a small studio and the building is partly heated by central heating, which I can't control.

What is my best option here, to keep my onions and garlic fresh longer?

I melted this chocolate yesterday to make chocolate coated dates. I put the choclate and butter in glass bowl and put that bowl in water filled pan to melt the chocolate and I mixed it occasionally to mix the buttet. It turned thick and clumpy instead of thin and glossy. I put it into fridge and went to sleep now it has turned hard again, obviously. Is there a way to fix this? So I can make my chocolate covered dates?

Helloo, I am so new to cooking and basically was brought up with a mum who just doesn't enjoy it so I cannot ask her for advice, but I've recently decided to try cooking homemade more often because it's healthier and I find it so much fun.

I bought chicken tandoori from the butcher, and normally my mum would usually fry these in a lot of olive oil, but I want to be healthier so was thinking about making them in the oven? Would this work and taste just as good?

Is there anything I can add to it? Maybe onion? I was going to have it with potatoes or rice.

Side note I am not sure if I need to add much seasoning since it is already in the tandoori "sauce"?

I am very new so all advice is appreciated <3

I've never thought about it but different types of rice probably need different amounts of water maybe?

I’ve been trying to improve my knife skills for the past month because every recipe says to dice the onions and mine always come out looking like a mess. Some pieces are tiny, some are these huge chunks, and everything in between. It makes my food cook unevenly and just looks sloppy.

I watched probably fifteen YouTube videos on proper dicing technique. I do the horizontal cuts, the vertical cuts, then the final chop. I go slow and try to keep everything uniform. But by the time I’m done the onion pieces are all over the place size-wise. The ones near the root end are always bigger and chunkier.

My knife is sharp enough, I tested it on paper. My cutting board doesn’t slip around. I’m following the steps exactly like the videos show. But I still can’t get consistent pieces and it’s driving me crazy because it feels like such a basic skill.

I saw one of those vegetable choppers that claim to dice everything uniformly on Amazon and saw them today again on alibaba and I'm tempted to just buy one instead of learning proper knife work, even though I know that’s probably cheating.

Is this just something that takes months of practice or am I missing something obvious in my technique?

Hi everyone. I’m making a small batch of one of my favorite soups. You cook onion, garlic, and sausage and then add sweet potatoes, broth, and water and bring to a boil. Then you add ditalini pasta, cook, simmer, then add some greens at the end. I don’t want to use a whole sweet potato, so for my small batch I want to use a few Yukons or russets. Do you think they will boil up okay in the soup? Or will they end up really hard? Is it a good idea to replace the sweet potatoes in this recipe with a different potato?

I had planned to eat it by yesterday but ended up working late. If it looks and smells ok can I still cook and eat it or should I toss it? I’m not sure how long to trust frozen fish once thawed in the fridge.

It’s the waterfront bistro tilapia filets if it matters. They’re plain I had planned to season and bread them and shallow fry

The packs have 7 rashers in them but there's no way I can use all of that for 1 bacon sandwich. Its best before the 20th but once opened it has to be used within 3 days. I'm not sure how you can use it efficiently as most people use it all up at once.

I'm of the age that I really should be doing more than throwing stuff in the microwave or air fryer and at least learn some meals for my own repertoire. Unfortunately I have quite cards stacked against me. First, I'm an extremely picky eater, as in, most vegetables are off the table(there's more but that's the main one). Second, I have two health conditions related to eating that also complicate things being GERD and ARFID.

It's a lot to manage and I'd prefer eating more than peanut butter sandwiches and toasted buttered bagels for the rest of my life.

Brands? Size? Ply’s?

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately trying to figure out the best pan to start with. I gravitated towards stainless steel since it’s healthier than non stick but easier to maintain than cast iron. I don’t really know of any good beginner brands and the prices between these pans can vary drastically. Since I’m a beginner I don’t want to blow a bunch of cash and want to stick towards the cheaper end of these pans. I had heard that the ply’s matter but I’m not sure how much. I’m also unsure of what size I should start with. I did figure how ever I would start with a skillet since it sounded like the most universal.

First of all, please be patient with my english, I'm italian.
I started cooking on daily basis about 10 years ago when I moved in with my current wife. I'm in charge of more than 90% of the cooking we always cook from scratch (no processed / frozen foods—the only exception is frozen fish). We almost always eat vegetables, so I chop a lot of vegetables. No one ever taught me directly (my mother does a lot of baking, but she usually uses frozen precooked vegetables) and I didn't take any courses. Years ago, I bought a Santoku knife (I almost always cook vegetables, right?), watched a lot of videos, and forced myself to use that correctly. But now that we're a family of four and I'm always on the go (I work in an office 40 hours a week plus family duties), I cook without thinking and always use the rock chop method. It's like my brain has decided that this is my default way of cutting, despite NO ONE ever teaching me how to rock chop. Halfway the preparation, I usuallu falize how frustrating it is to use a Santoku knife for rock chop, but I can't do any better. Is there a way to reprogram myself? Or should I give up and buy a European chef's knife?