Hello, strangely enough, I'm also a 19 (well 20 in 2 months) student with autism and dyspraxia, and at the moment I'm unable to cook myself meals but it's something I would like to learn. What would you say is a good starting step?
Hey!
Pasta. Definitely pasta. Pasta is your friend.
The easiest recipe I know is tuna pasta mayonnaise. It takes about ten minutes and is very difficult to mess up.
Recipe is under the cut.
Ingredients:
A tin of tuna
Pasta (any shape, but I would advise against long, thin ones like spaghetti or tagliatelle)
Mayonnaise
White wine vinegar
A tin of sweetcorn (optional, but that’s how I get veggies in)
Salt and pepper
Method:
Check to see if your pan has a good handle. You want to be able to hold it onehanded when it’s full of water. If you can’t, you’ll need to make sure that your sink is clear and clean, or at the very least that your draining board is.
Fill the kettle and stick it on.
Fill the pan with as much pasta as you need (remember that pasta doubles in size when cooked - I always forget and end up with way too much, though I would advise going for too much, rather than too little because nothing is worse than spending time cooking, only to not have enough food). Pasta is the only ingredient you need to alter for how many people you’re cooking for. One tin of tuna can be good for one person, or it can stretch to four.
Once the kettle has boiled, cover the pasta in the boiling water, making sure it’s all submerged by a couple of centimetres.
Turn on the hob and start cooking the pasta (this usually takes about seven minutes or so, but the side of the packet should tell you exactly).
While the pasta is cooking, you can mostly leave it alone, so long as you don’t leave the room, just keep an eye on it in case the water boils over the top of the pan. If it starts to look as if it might boil over, just turn down the gas a little.
While it’s cooking, use the tin opener to open the tuna just a little bit. A quater of the way around the tin at most.
Move the tin over to the sink and tip it so that the brine escapes through the opening. Shake it a little until the brine mostly stops (a few drops when you shake it is okay) and then open it completely.
Do the same with the sweetcorn.
Once you think the pasta is done, try a piece with the wooden spoon, though be careful. I totally burned my face the other day because I didn’t wait until it had cooled, and there was a load of boiling water hiding underneath the pasta piece.
If it tastes done, turn off the hob. If not, leave it for another couple of minutes and then try again.
Once the hob is off, take the pan over to the sink and empty the contents into the collinder (this is why you needed the sink clear - if it’s not, do this on the draining board instead, or hold both the pan and collinder in each hand and do it over the sink, rather than in it).
Tip the pasta back into the empty pan.
Tip in the tuna and sweetcorn before mixing with the spoon.
Throw in some mayonnaise. How much you put in is up to taste, but a tablespoon is a good starting point. You can always add more. Mix it again.
Add a little bit of vinegar. Again, this is up to taste, but I would advise being careful, unless, like me, you think vinegar is the greatest thing and you drown your chips in the stuff. Go wild, if that’s the case. Then, mix it in.
Add a little salt and pepper, mix it up, and you’re done. Stick it in a bowl and enjoy.
The only reason why I don’t eat this all the time is that tuna is expensive, but it is definitely the easiest recipe I know.
I’m sorry if the instructions have way too much detail, but this is the amount I would have wanted, had these instructions been written down for me. Lack of detail in recipes was the worst thing when I was first learning to cook.
I hope this helps! I would also suggest looking up Sorted Food. A lot of their recipes are quite complicated, but there are quite a lot of simple ones and every recipe has a video, showing you exactly what to do, which is the greatest thing!
P.S. If you wanted me to answer privately and not publicly, just give me a shout and I’ll redo this. But if anyone does want me to answer things privately in the future, write it in the post, or I’ll assume otherwise.
