I recently got "America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking" for the Nintendo DS. I'm currently using it to help teach my little brother how to cook.
Besides grilled cheese, I don't think he's made anything that hasn't come out of a box. He'll live off of Kraft mac and cheese and ramen noodles if he wants. I think he needs to learn how to cook. He wasn't all for the idea at first, but in my defence I gave him reasons for learning how to cook.
1. One day I will move out of Mom's or he'll move out of Mom's or Mom won't be around or I'll have moved out and Mom isn't around. In any case, there won't be anyone to cook for him.
2. For the hypothetical scenario that Kraft and Maruchan have their factories flooded just like the makers of Eggo waffles did and there is a shortage of mac and cheese and ramen noodles.
But the most important reason of all:
3. Knowing how to cook is one of the ultimate ways to impress chicks.
For this last one, I explained the time my last ex first tried cooking me breakfast one morning. I ended up cooking breakfast in the end because after breaking his third or fourth egg I offered to make it. But I still thought that was sweet of him for trying. "If I think its sweet for him just trying to make breakfast, just imagine how far cooking your potential girlfriend a pot roast will take you!"
We've made two recipes so far. The first was Beef Stroganoff. He learned a lot from that one: mincing, draining the fat after cooking hamburger, making a sauce, putting salt in the water for noodles, substituting ingredients, how you're not supposed to drink the cooking wine, making sure you have pot holders when cooking with a cast iron skillet, and why he of all people should wash their hands before cooking anything. It was delicious! The second recipe was Chicken Piccata. The recipe called for half a lemon and I thought the lemons we had were quite small so I ended up telling him to use a whole one. The sauce was a bit sour. That's when he learned about doctoring up a recipe you screwed up. It turned out pretty decent, but I’m sure it would have been better if I had listened to the recipe and used half a lemon.
Today we're going to try making a Maple Glazed Roast Pork Loin. It'll be a learning experience for me, too, because I get roasts in theory, but haven't had experience with them outside of making Thanksgiving turkey. It took me forever to find butcher's twine for this! Hopefully all will go well. Wish us luck!