“ To your post about what parts of cooking I find challenging, I'm afraid to use the oven and the stove so I rather not cook at all. (Posting anon because, well, it's embarrassing.) “
Hey, no worries! If you’ve never done something before, it’s super normal to be unsure or nervous about it. Especially when there’s an element of danger, like the hot oil and water involved in a stovetop.
So! Here’s a quick walkthrough of questions to answer about your stovetop before you get started. You don't have to reply to me, just for you to get started.
1) Which dials go to the burners? There ought to be dot pictures that indicate which burner each dial turns on. The leftover dial, or buttons, is probably for the oven.
2) What kind of stovetop is it?
Gas powered: When you turn a burner knob all the way around, you may smell natural gas, and hear a 'clicking' noise as the starter activates. Once turned on, there will be a ring of blue flames around the burner you activated. Gas powered stoves usually have the dials on the front of the oven near your stomach, so you don't have to reach over an open flame.
Electric: You'll see either a flat plane with circles that will light up + get hot when turned on, or raised metal coils that will slowly get hot as the stove warms up. Electric stovetop burners can be on the front of the oven near your stomach, or on the back display or 'head' of the stove.
The heat setting on any burner is shown on the dial itself, and the current setting will be referenced by where the arrow next to or above the dial, points to on the dial. The thickening line on the rim or front of the dial, or 'Low, Med, High' shows the available heat settings. Thick line is hottest, 'High' is hottest.
3) Turn on the heat of one of the burners.
For gas, you turn the dial all the way and wait for the clicks to start until you see blue flame, then turn the dial back down to where you want the heat to be set to. Sometimes you have to push the dial in before you can turn it. Gas-powered stoves are hot immediately.
For electric, you just set the temperature to whatever you want. No clicks required. Sometimes you have to push the dial in before you can turn it. Electric stoves heat up slowly, and need time to rise or fall to the temperature you have in mind, when you adjust the dials. It should only take a minute for the proper change.
Some electric griddles (different from a stovetop) have both an 'on' button and a separate temperature dial. This usually isn't on a normal residential stovetop, but you may spot it on older models.
4) Turn off stovetop.
Once you're satisfied that you've turned on the stove properly, and can adjust the heat to your liking just turn it off until the arrow next to the dial is pointing toward 'off' on the dial.
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With those in mind, you can start cooking!
A super easy first try on stovetop is to take some canned soup, and follow the directions on the back of the can for reheating it on a stovetop.
Basically, put soup in a pot, add water if necessary (can will say), place on hot burner, and heat up while stirring. Turn off stove, then enjoy your hot soup!
