This may sound like trolling but may I suggest not learning to cook?

When I started eating like this, I could just about cook some meat and boil some vegetables. My meals were painfully simple and dull. I lost a load of weight and felt great.

Then I learned to cook fabulous combinations of food, learnt to make things taste gorgeous to the point that I'm having a little trouble keeping portions in line.

I remember reading a famous low carb cook book writer say she gains ten pounds every time she writes a cook book from trying the recipes, even though all the food was low carb.

I'm trying to move back to a simpler regime and then keep the real indulgence for a lovely meal out cooked by someone else. I still enjoy food but it's just not as much of a hassle, and it frees up time. I'm not totally successful with the strategy but only because I know how to make things taste better!

Beef tallow and animal lard from grass-fed pigs and cows can make anyone's food taste like it was whipped up by a gourmet chef. Our great grandparents used to cook exclusively with saturated fats and they remain the most versatile/easy fats to use in cooking. Price is no object ($3.99/lb for tallow and less for lard). You could probably cook for half the price compared to olive oil or coconut oil.

Scramble eggs in the bacony lard or the tallow. Fry your sweet potatoes in tallow. These two go great together.

Preferred method of cooking for most of your dishes would be stir fry. Invest in a wok. You can cook foods fast and constantly add variety by changing veggie combos, herb and spice combos as well as fruit-based sauces using blends of lemon, lime and orange juice. With stir frying you preserve amino acid structure and vitamin content in your foods.

Instead of using Omega 6 fat peanut oil, stir fry with beef tallow or lard. Saturated fat actually can burn at a higher temp than peanut oil without charring or starting a fire. You really can't stir fry with olive oil because it burns too fast, can overheat and start a fire in your kitchen.

The foundation of stir fry is meat + plant food. Vary the meat base and alternate the fruit/vegetable ensemble.

Stir fry pork w/ mixed veggies herbs and spices. You can even weave in blueberries, raspberries, strawberries or blackberries!!!

Stir fry chicken w/ mixed veggies herbs and spices etc.

Stir fry beef w/ mixed veggies etc.

Stir fry shrimp, scallops or clams w/ mixed veggies etc.

For breakfast I like pecans dipped in local honey or (a hacker recently recommended and it sounds delicious) is pecans and dates.

I agree with the above. Investing in quality tools is a must. My food processor is one of my absolute favorite big ticket items. Also, give yourself permission to make mistakes and just have fun. If you burn something or flub an ingredient just laugh and fix it next time. It's a learning process, and, like anything, it gets better with practice. Don't be afraid to try out new recipes. Many things that we usually buy prepared are not as hard to make as you'd think. And there's nothing wrong with keeping it simple either. If you enjoy those foods then make those your staples while you occasionally play around with something new. You don't have to go out and buy all sorts of new equipment or spices immediately. Just pick it up as the need arises. Above all, make it a relaxed and fun experience and eat things you enjoy.

Good knife and stones and learn to keep it SHARP. Sharpening with wheatstones is paleo:). Try some japanese knife with well sharpened edge.And you will see what you previously considered sharp, was dull. And good large endgrain cutting board. I bought Aritsugu A type knife and use it everyday, its actually the best kithchen purchase i have made

take a cooking class and check the blogs and most importantly practice and experiment.

Definitely there are good suggestions above, especially a slow-cooker as you can do some amazing braising in those, but I would also like to chime in. First - your attitude is awesome - you're ready to dig in and cook! Baby steps is exactly it when you're learning, less chance of getting frustrated and fed up. Cooking is such a fun activity and hopefully will never be a chore. Good questions to ask yourself: What kind of food do I like to eat when I go out? If I'm flipping through a magazine or a cookbook what pages do I seem to dog ear or spend time on? What catches my eye when I'm at the grocery? All of these can be recreated at your home. In regards to your kitchen, if this helps at all, I have a complete setup but have cut back on about 75% of what I use. The majority of the time I use: an always sharp chef 9" knife and paring knife, mandoline, 12" fry pan, 9" fry pan, 1 roasting pan, 1 roasting rack, 1 pot that works for hardboiling, poaching, steaming, 1 pot for braising. The ice cream maker doesn't count :)

With summer in full force it's an easier time to prepare dishes as many things can be eaten raw or very simply. You also don't need 1000 ingredients to make something tasty - summertime deliciousness at it's finest! Spinach, sliced fresh strawberries, mint, lemon zest, a good squeeze of lemon juice with whatever your choice of oil is and you just made a wicked salad. Add chicken? Even better. Change to mixed berries? Something different and just as good. Mixed colour steamed baby potatoes and sweet potatoes tossed with Paleo mayo, and finely chopped herbs, a little lemon juice, crunchy veg. Yum. Don't use potato but cubed chicken and you have chicken salad. Burgers built and wrapped with a big fat lettuce or kale leaf - add a fried egg and prepare to swoon. Frittatas - change the veg and meat out and they'll never get boring. Note: I really like to cook :)

For publications, anything by Cooks Illustrated. You'll get great recipes, lessons, plenty of "how do I do it" pictures, and product and ingredient/food reviews of what their test kitchens have chosen as favorites. They also have a show on PBS that is a good watch and a website. Hands down an amazing source of inspiration and help for beginners and advanced cooks.

And finally, what my gramma always said, less is more when seasoning - you can always add but taking away is much more difficult so taste as you go. Good luck and you'll do great!

I have found that buying cookbooks is a waste of money since most recipes are online. (plus it makes me feel green saving trees). Check out theses paleo recipe sites Everyday Paleo, Primal Palate, and my site is the Cave Womans Kitchen. Let me know if you have any questions about specific ingredients. I've been gluten-free for almost 4yrs, and paleo for for almost a year. I have always loved cooking, but the past couple of years has been adjusting my cooking into healthier paleo meals. Good luck and have fun in the kitchen!

I agree with the above suggestions about using online recipe resources AND investing in quality tools. There are any number of delicious spice mixes available to enhance your meals. If you live in a town with a Penzey's spice shop, go there immediately and experiment with their various ethnic blends. Once you get a feel for it, you'll have a source for high quality spices. They make all the difference between a so-so meal and one that will give you pleasure (and therefore nourish you more deeply)

Have fun!

My husband and I started out using our (outdoor) grill for lunch and dinner. Breakfast was eggs and bacon on the stovetop. Lunch was - throw some chicken and asparagus on the grill. When done cooking, drizzle a little EVOO and there you go! Dinner was- throw some hamburger patties or steak on the grill, throw some peppers on there too. Throw some broccoli in aluminum foil and grill that up too. Easy. I swear we did that the first 2 months before we got a little bored and started exploring recipes to make IN the kitchen. :)

I spent a week last month working on cooking steaks outside over a fire. THat is one of the nice things about this way of eating, no guilt about food. No guilt about how much I eat or how many times I have it. So I resolved to make ribeyes and perfect their cooking over my fire pit out back. Basically I am saying that you need to practice.

Cookbooks and recipes are good for ideas, but they really tend to lack in the fundamentals as far as what what you are doing does to the food. You add ingredients to something with little knowledge as to what it does or how it does it. You add heat in various ways and forms with no inkling as to why. If you are a robot, then that is fine, but if you don't understand the things you are using and the tools you are using and what they do as building blocks of the final product then you won't ever be a good cook.

So practice. Start small. Start with few ingredients and few utensils and few operations. Get good at something like eggs. SOme of what you learn in making perfect over-medium eggs or a good omelette does innately translate into other things like the all important Bacon. Just practice and build. Get a pet to eat the leftovers. Get an animal to feed leftovers to until it is time for it to become a meal.

And watch Good Eats reruns until you can't stand Alton Brown anymore. Good stuff and he really covers the fundamentals of cooking like no other. Not too much "paleo" but he is not adverse to fats and so on.

Although I agree that quality tools are better for preparing meals, I feel that it could be a barrier to someone wanting to learn more basic skills.

If you have a food processor, it can do a lot if things that can be done by hand a lot quicker & a lot more efficiently. However, kitchen gadgets aren't necessary to being able to cook.

I'd agree about herbs & spices, quality ingedients and using animal/saturated fats for more flavour (oven chips/French fries in veg oil? Yacky, yack, yack!)

I have quite a few cookbooks and find them useful for ideas, but a lot of recipes I've found online are better especially when it comes to paleo. Blogs are a great source!

I used to use jarred sauces etc. because I was never shown how to cook when younger, but tbh, I find that I enjoy cooking & creating Nubian dishes more and I find it pretty easy to do after doing it day in day out.

Go for it. You'll be surprised at how you do! Saying all this... My OH makes much nicer coleslaw than I do, lol!

www.everydaypaleo.com

The definition of food porn.

There are only three steps required to be a good cook.

1. Use quality ingredients
2. RTFM. Follow the recipe to a tee.
3. Practice

I love watching Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals.

Oh that barrel smoker...now there's a useful gadget. My apple smoked sockeye is better than anything I've bought. Brisket is still a big challenge - the flavor is good but it's coming up dry and a little underdone and I have to finish it in the oven. Next up will be some chicken thighs.

There's very little seasoning. Capping the smoking meat with bacon is a nice enhancement, and also improves the bacon (which is salvaged to cook later). I smoke in big batches, freeze, then thaw and reheat as needed.

The downside is all the smoke, which is not savory. It's best to do this far away from other people.

I happen to be a very good cook and have always enjoyed it, but guess what? I don't bother with all the "trimmings" like I used to since my real goal with food now is to satisfy my families nutritional needs not their emotional needs through food. You shouldn't be so disappointed if something is not cooked to perfection as long as you are not destroying the nutrient profile. That should be the bottom line.

Except maybe for kids. Kids are a bit different. Mine asks for carrot flowers, tomato roses and melon balls and all these little sculptures when I can manage it.

I noticed my family's taste buds have changed anyway. We have gotten away from all those cream sauces, dips, ecc and now enjoy good old plain (and I mean plain so you can actually taste them) veggies and meat.

You know, before my daughter reached 4 yrs of age, salt was spicy, hot-pepper death. Still now she will not eat anything elaborate. I'm trying to keep it that way and we are catching up with her simplicity. Maybe this way of thinking can relax you a bit in the kitchen and (by starting with quality base ingredients) you will soon realize you are doing great by doing less!!

The best way to learn to cook is to start cooking, and do it every day. Cooking is like exercise - the more you do it the better you get at it. Check out my blog for inspiration: Three Squares at www.rikishore.com

It helped me to look at pictures of bento boxes in books and online, because the presentation is half of the battle. Seriously. Even though the ingredients are not the same, bento boxes are little and cute, and present your food in a large variety of fun ways. Just get ideas from them. Then try them out on your own. It really makes the food taste much better!

And I don't mean making animal shapes with your food necessarily, but just the cute and organized way of placing your food.

http://justbento.com/

http://happylittlebento.blogspot.com/

http://willowsbentobox.blogspot.com/

I know this is an old post, but it's been revived and even if the OP isn't still reading, it's a question for a reason. A lot of people have given some great tips, so I'll just +1 them and add on: do not blindly follow a recipe! You need to sniff it, taste it, and know what you and/or your family likes. I can't tell you how many times I have made something great from a blog and the comments include things like "I hate this recipe, it's not salty enough!" (Add salt to your taste; salt is one of the most subjective things in cooking!) or "My family hates garlic, this as too garlicky!" (Then... why'd you put it in there? Reduce the amount or sub a different seasoning that would pair well!) You don't need the recipe to be Paleo-friendly to make a Paleo-friendly dish! For me, it's all about the combinations of flavors. Chicken with avocado, jalapeno, and cilantro is going to be a totally different dish than chicken with tomatoes, garlic, and basil. Those are some basic examples, but when you see a recipe, just think about the flavors that are in it, not necessarily all the ingredients, and use that to inspire you.