Today’s cooking tip: Guessing does not help to make cooking easy. In fact, guessing doesn’t help your cooking at all and will make your cooking inconsistent. Think about it… people don’t guess at things they’re sure and confident in:
- You don’t guess whether your left foot will follow your right in walking
- You don’t guess how to drive your car today, you’ve practiced
- You don’t guess how successful you’ll be, you plan it and work the plan
If you’re like most people that are frustrated with their cooking, it’s because of the guessing. Guessing helps to put mystery into cooking, causing fear and disappointment.
It may help to take a deeper look at this cooking dilemma. In fact, there are two things that people guess at, things they can’t see and things they can see.
“I’ll believe it when I see it” versus “I’ll see it when I believe it”
If you change the way you think about cooking, you may be able to stop the guessing and make cooking easy. Let me help you by taking a look at some of the things that you may be guessing while you are cooking.
- “Medium Heat” – How do you test to see if the heat is “medium heat”? Do you hover your hand over the burner?
- When meat is done – Do you poke or gash your meat to take a look inside?
- How much of an ingredient to use – Do you tell yourself, “this LOOKS like enough”? Do you often wonder if you should be adding one more pinch?
- What spice and how many spices to use – You can’t SEE flavor, how do you know? (Cooking Tip: Eventually, with some practice, you will be able to attach your palate to the amount that you eye can see to help you to stop guessing.)
- How much to cook for portions – Are you guessing on how much dry rice to cook? What about dry pasta? Do you know how much chicken you should be cooking or are you guessing?
- What your food tastes like – Most people, especially when following a recipe, won’t taste the food that they’ve cooked until it’s on a plate already served at the table. You should be tasting as you cook to help you to take the guessing out of cooking and make it easy.
If you guess at things you can’t see, you can’t quantify your cooking. Cooking is all about being able to quantify. In the next blog post, I’m going to give you some visual tips or clues to help you to stop guessing and reduce stress and frustration while you cook.
“Burn Your Recipes” and Cook Like a Chef at Home with my cooking DVDs!
The Complete cooking DVDcollection for cooking without recipes.
I am not a rich man. A hundred bucks is something I think carefully about (and plan for) before I will spend. But I purchased ALL the web cooking classes and several DVDs besides and it’s been the best money I ever spent. What I now know is worth thousands to me! (Note to Chef Todd – that doesn’t mean I can afford thousands. Just sayin’.)
What I’m trying to get across here is that Chef Todd’s prices are reasonable and affordable, and the value you receive is worth much, much more than the money you pay. Personally, I hope he gets really, really rich because he well deserves it. And more than that, I hope a LOT of people learn to cook the way I’ve learned to cook!
Thank you, Dan for your kind and generous words.
It’s a cooking-cause that more of us are taking on, learning HOW to cook and not just WHAT to cook.
I’m so glad you’ve realized the many benefits of this perspective on food.
I can get some very rude and mean comments on the internet sometimes. Yours made my day to know that I’m really helping many people just like you.
I watched and learned a lot from your lessons when they were up for free on youtube and since you’re speaking of guessing etc, I just want to point out that I’m guessing on what you’re going to present in your free videos.
I have no idea.
I loved it when you had your youtube page up for free. Now I follow you on twitter and on facebook and here on your webcooking classes but the learning has stopped really and all you’re doing is offering people “special deals or a special offer” and the like and how one must pay for this and that. I subscribed to you on youtube because of your enthusiasm and I thought you really wanted folks to learn how to cook from a passion within your heart. I understand that offering free cooking classes makes you no money but it’s a been a number of months and all I see really is you posting videos that you once had free of charge of charge on youtube because you used to claim you wanted people to have more confidence in their kitchens at home in order to prepare more wholesome food for their familes.
I no longer see things this way.
You once asked “Where have all the videos gone?!”
It’s too bad they’ve gone away.
A former faithful youtube subscriber,
Craig Cutler
Craig-
There are hundreds of people who see great value in WebCookingClasses.com. They save money in the grocery store, they don’t waste food, they buy better food, they eat healthier, they save on restaurant bills, they have a great hobby, they entertain more often, all for the cost of their monthly cable bill. Everyone has a different threshold on what they will spend money on. I wonder what you spend on monthly that others would think wasteful.
I’m not sure why you think I no longer have a passion for teaching cooking just because you don’t get it for free. You were one of the lucky ones that watched the beta-test on YouTube. You got something very valuable for your time.
Having spent thousands of hours making videos that improve many people’s lives, I’m always grateful for the kind comments I get. Read a few of the testimonials on my website. That’s only a handful of hundreds.
Evidently, the videos are NOT valuable to you, since they’re only worth nothing.
I’m sorry you don’t like my videos lately. There are many people who ARE guessing at their cooking who say the videos are helpful. (Read the YouTube Comments)
I guess you’ll just have to wait until I post something that you like but someone else hates.
Until then, you can show your support with a membership in WebCookingClasses.com
Chef Todd.