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[Foamybeard]

Alright. My last two experiences cooking have recently ended... disastrously. First time I ended up making !!Chicken Eggs!!, and the second time I made XPastaX. Needless to say... they werne't verry good. Anyway, I guess I'm asking if someone can help me with me by giving a few suggestions or so.

[Supercharazad]

What level of skill exactly do you have? Do you know how baking works? Can you boil an egg? Can you make toast?

[Foamybeard]

Ah. I'm a dabbling cook. I can boil an egg, make toast, and the simple things, however, I have ADHD and...various other issues, and end up basically going "Oh! Shiny!" And getting sidetracked.

[Tellemurius]

can you be comfortable with cooking that requires long cooking?

[shadenight123]

I think he answered that with ADHD.
That said...cooking does require to keep your eyes on what you're doing.
Eggs are the quickest thing to do...and if you can't keep up concentration for that short of a time span...
Another suggestion is merely taking meat, placing it on a pan with some butter already melting on it, letting it sizzle, turn the meat on the other side, put some salt and eat said 'butter' meat.
That's the second easiest thing on the top of my mind that you can make.
You can use oil instead of butter but...
butter is better.
You can't say But to Butter!
(Horrendous puns of doom! Feel my power!)

[Tellemurius]

i dunno, i have ADD but i usually do something to occupy my time, long cooking time means i can goof off for a bit before focusing on it again.

[Neonivek]

Let me see

Boringly the best way to start cooking is by following recipes to the letter and finding out ways to test if the food is done.

If you are boiling pasta for example the easiest way to tell if it is done is simply to taste it. You arn't supposed to let the water overboil so pay attention to it.

Actually come to think of it... what happened to make your meals bad? What was wrong with the pasta and eggs?

[Mephansteras]

I'd recommend a slow cooker/crock pot. These are long-cooking dishes that require very little attention and as long are you follow the recipe closely are pretty hard to screw up, although you do need to be around just in case something goes wrong. Also, a good slow cooker dish usually has quite a few servings can give you days of leftovers.

[Foamybeard]

The eggs got burned, and the pasta was too soggy... :/

[comham]

Risotto is a good starting point, if you can stand 15 minutes of stirring.

If not, try a pilaf. Fry some bacon in a saucepan till browned, add some frozen peas, a cup of basmati rice, a teaspoon of stock powder and 1.5 cups of water, bring to the boil, put a tightly fitting lid on and turn the heat down to low. Wait 15 minutes, remove from heat. Check to see if the rice is slightly sticking to the bottom (that's how you know it's done), then replace the lid and let it rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Also, the following two links pretty much taught me how to cook

http://www.youtube.com/user/foodwishes?feature=watch
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/

[Il Palazzo]

Too geeky to cook?
Try one of these books:

"Cooking for Geeks"  by Jeff Potter
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/08/cooking-for-geeks.html

"The Science of Good Cooking" by Guy Crosby
http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2013/02/the-science-of-good-cooking/

Both explain cooking as if it were a science class(like, Mad Chemistry 101).

[Neonivek]

The eggs got burned, and the pasta was too soggy... :/

In eggs case it is just experience. In Pasta's case you should have checked on it sooner.

Insanely in my family I am the only one who likes Pasta slightly overcooked while my younger sister likes them undercooked (as in still hard in the center)

[Mullet Master]

Here's what I see the levels of cooking to be :

Level 1 in cooking is preparing microwavable dinners. Seriously. If you can't do this and have something edible every time, keep trying and don't do anything else.

Level 2 in cooking is preparing meals from a box. Start with pasta mixes (macaroni, etc) and move up to meals which require raw meat addition.

Level 3 cooking is most mundane baking and crockpot use.  Baking is very easy, provided you have the right equipment and follow recipes.

Level 4 which requires a good sense of timing. This is where the majority of your meat cooking lies.
Believe it or not, boiling an egg into something appetizing is fairly challenging. Seriously, if you aren't doing steps 1&2 consistently - don't bother trying to make a T-Bone or the perfect omelette.
There's obviously more out there.

If I was an absolute novice again, I would start the learning process with the potato. They are very cheap, you can practice almost all cooking skills with them, and they aren't very messy overall. It's also vry difficult to make one completely inedible.

Start by learning to bake it, multiple ways. The microwave, then in the oven.
Expand into making mashed potatoes from scratch (a lot of work)
Then learn to make home fries (fried sliced potatoes). Once you can make home fries pretty well you are on your way to learning to pan fry most meats.

[Mlamlah]

If you are having a hard time cooking meat evenly there is a rather decent strategy of covering a frying pan with a lid as you cook. As long as you bear the presence of mind to check it regularly and keep the moisture at high levels this is a pretty good way to ensure that meat is cooked evenly and also seal in flavor. Go ahead and pile the butter and spices into such a strategy and you can be confident the end result will be flavorful.
This also works nicely for sunny-side up eggs, long as you add a few drops of water.

That said, don't do this until you've mastered the "read instructions on side of box" way of doing things.

 

[Blargityblarg]

I'm 'good at cooking', but I think most of my expertise stems from, when I was starting of, always being hungry enough that I hovered over the pot constantly, so I could see exactly how things were changing. I recommend suppressing your urges to letsgoridebikes while cooking a particular dish (specifically one that takes attention e.g. Risotto) enough times that you get a feel for how long each stage takes and what they look like.