Avail yourself of the prepared sauces in the international food aisle. There are good stir fry sauces, pad thai sauces and other asian seasonings that only required some chopped vegetables (zucchini, onion, bell pepper, celery, broccoli, carrot, mushrooms or what ever you like) and meat (beef, chicken or pork work equally well). Serve over rice or with asian noodles, and you have a healthy, balanced stir fry meal with leftovers for a couple of days.
I took it to mean: fill half the can of soup with milk.
Yes, that’s what I meant. I always figure if I know how to cook it, I don’t have to be precise in giving directions! 
I am amazed and gratified at the response to my post.
I made it very much as a throwaway exasperation sort of thing.
I might try some of the cooking suggestions but even the simplest can fall foul of my efforts.
To quickly answer a couple of questions, yes I am a Brit and my B.P. is ok (had a full medical very recently) as I tend to excercise a lot.
I suspect that some of the posts in this thread will be very useful not just to me but to many men (And it always seems to be men) in my situation.
Once again thanks to all.
I’d suggest upgrading your restaurants, since you don’t seem interested in cooking. I used to occasionally go to expensive restaurants and just get a nice appetizer in the lounge. It was really good food for not a ton of money. Not every day, just when the same-old won’t do.
Out of curiosity - what tends to go wrong? Things get blackened and burnt? Meat is still raw in the middle? Just doesn’t taste “right” to you, like it’s just not very tasty? (Pssst … if it’s the last one, I’d bet you’re either not adding salt or not adding flavors like garlic/onions/spices. Or, not enough.)
I’m actually a pretty good cook, but I long for take-away food. In L.A. I had my choice. Cuban, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Mexican, Indian, burgers, dogs… Now I live near the Canadian border. It’s 20 miles to town, and the fast-food offerings are rather limited. I go to Seattle three days a week, but I tend to take short lunches.
A caveat with homemade soups and stews versus storebought. You can make them taste more like the storebought version if you add a tiny amount of vegemite for the hydrolized yeast flavor that is a background note.
When I’ve attempted cooking an English breakfast most of the stuff turns out burnt AND soggy with only one item hot and everything else cold.
The burnt AND soggy seems to be a constant theme on the occassions I attempt cooking.
Tried making fried onion sandwiches yesterday with that result.
I can’t cook French Fries no matter how hard I try.
Um… have you considered using a recipe book? And following the instructions therein? Have you considered cooking things that aren’t deep fried, or if you must deep fry, use the proper equipment, like a thermometer to tell you whether the oil is hot enough and a pan that’s deep enough? Incorrectly fried food (oil too hot, oil too cold, too much batter too little batter, batter too thin, batter too thick) is extraordinarily disgusting.
And did you know that many cooks consider eggs one of the hardest foods to cook properly?
Basically your post reads: I tried to cook something hard without any information, knowledge or experience! Not only am I shocked that I failed, I now believe I can never cook anything EVVVAAAARRRRR.
Here’s a thought: Go to the store. Buy a package of tortellini from the fridge case, and a jar of sauce. Boil one (according to the instructions) and pour the other on top. OMG you just cooked!
If you’re pan-frying foods, or cooking them in some kind of oil, sogginess is usually a result of the oil not being hot enough before you add the food to the oil. Then, since the pan wasn’t hot enough to begin with, you have to over-cook the outside in order to get the inside sufficiently cooked.
Keeping things warm in a multi-course meal: preheat oven to 200, and as foods are finished cooking, cover them in foil and pop them into a warm oven. Obviously, you want to make sure they’re on an oven-safe plate, and be careful when you take them out of the oven.
As far as French fries are concerned, I’ve never really mastered that, either, but don’t have any real desire to. Frozen ones that I spray with cooking spray (non-stick spray like Pam) and then season before baking are fine. Cooking things like that on the stove-top in oil always makes more mess than it’s worth, imho.
The number of people catered for makes the least difference. I guess maybe you’re saying that it’s too much effort for only one diner, which may be true, but needn’t be.
There are easy ways to cook that don’t require much preparation, and/or don’t require the cook to stand there over the hot stove. Paella, for example (or a reasonable approximation thereof), consists of:
Chop up some vegetables, fry them a bit
Add some chorizo or similar
Add some rice
Add some stock
Put the lid on
Leave alone for twenty minutes, then eat.
OK, it takes a bit of practice the first time or two, but it’s not difficult to learn a handful of recipes that require just a few minutes of concentrated effort, then cook themselves while you get changed out of work clothes, or whatever.
Awhile back, someone suggested something on a cooking thread that I thought was really great advice for someone just starting out.
For most any meal you need
- A meat
- A sauce
- A starch
The ways you combine them can be infinite and produce any number of meals. Say you have 1) chicken 2) curry 3) rice. Now you have an Indian dish! What if you have 1) Hamburger 2) Pasta sauce 3) Noodles. Now you have an Italian dish! What if you subbed out the pasta sauce with a meat based gravy? Now you have Stroganoff!
And that’s it. It really can be that simple to start off with. Add in some vegetables and now you’re really kicking it up a notch.
That’s pretty much what I’m saying. The effort involved is nearly the same for one, two, three, or ten people. (I exaggerate, but you know what I mean.) Even for just two people, I’m getting twice the utility for the same amount of effort. It’s worth it then to get plates and pots dirty.
Two very simple things if you can boil water. I find these tasty:
Rice with canned tuna fish stirred in, then buttered on the plate. Bring water to boil, add rice (& a bit of butter & salt), reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes. Quicker, if less tasty, with boil-in-bag or quick rice.
Spaghetti with canned/bottled sauce (the sauce can be heated in the microwave). Bring water to boil, add spaghetti (& a bit of salt), adjust to keep boiling for 5-8 minutes.
Try turning the burner down, Not everything needs the heat turned up to 11.
There are tons of ‘Cooking for One’ (or ‘Two’) recipe books out there, but more useful are the ‘Cooking With Three’ (or Four, or Five) ‘Ingredients’ that are often found in the bargain books section of a big bookstore. Or cookbooks aimed at harried mothers. When all else fails, read the recipes on the bags or boxes of noodles, rice, or whatever. I met that rare bachelor who was a very good cook who learned that way. And if it calls for some little thing you don’t have, like 1/4 tsp. of marjoram, or 1/4 cup diced celery, you can improvise, or just leave it out.
This is really easy. I usually make sauce, so it’s warm, but you can nuke some jarred sauce. Or, drain the tortellini (or ravioli), put it back in the pan, put some jarred sauce in the pan, and warm it up.
Fried onion sandwiches? 
All right, I’ve no idea what a fried onion sandwich is, but just in general, there are a few basic things to remember:
1.) As other people have said, deep frying is hard. In my opinion, health aside, it’s best to be avoided. I recommend going for either pan-frying or sauteeing instead, if you want that fat flavor.
2.) Again, as other people have suggested, turn down the heat on the burner. Also, when you are cooking on the stove, keep your attention on the stove. Have something ready to stir as needed if you’re cooking quickly. If you stop paying attention, it’s super-easy to make things burn.
3.) Simplify. A full English breakfast is going to be challenging if you’re only one person trying to work on one stove in one kitchen.
4.) Fuck the oven. I know it hasn’t come up, but it was the thing that terrified me the most about real cooking. . .and I’ve found that it’s really not a big deal. I mean, sure, the oven’s awesome for baking, and for fancy casseroles featured in Julia Child cookbooks, and for things involving dutch ovens. . .but, really, I think it’s kind of crap for simple bachelor-or-bachelorette cooking. A Foreman gril is great for small bits of meat. My house has recently gotten one of these, which has made decent roasts attainable (as long as you use a meat thermometer, which isn’t any harder to use than an actual thermometer).
5.) Marinade. Seriously, nothing sucks more than a chunk of flavorless protein. Fortunately, marinades are super easy. My default is citrus juice (lemon/orange, really), honey, rosemary, olive oil, salt, pepper. No need to really measure; just toss it all in, mix it, and let the meat marinade for a while. It’s super-easy, and makes you feel like you made something that’s actually food.
6.) Sandwiches for leftover meat. Keep decent bread and cheese on hand, as well as whatever kind of spread you like. Easy, quick meal. No additional cooking required. It’s a win-win!