Go to a second hand (book) shop and get a 70s or earlier generic “housewives” cookbook.
And good luck 
You’ll be amazed at some of the stuff in there.
My mom just gave me her recipe box and collection of about 200 cookbooks … she can’t cook anymore because of the alzheimers and she knows we love to cook … so I just scored several generations of classic amish and farm cooking from my childhood. I forsee some good hearty cooking in the near future!
Can I be adopted? I’ll help take care of your mom.
made me smile…
I don’t like The Joy Of Cooking very much for reasons I can’t put my finger on. I greatly prefer the Better Homes and Garden, Fannie Farmer, and Pilsbury Complete cookbooks that I grew up with.
I like The New Best Recipe. It’s from the editors of Cook’s Illustrated and gives an explanation of why the recipes are the way they are. Though they do tend to be on the complicated side.
Church fundraiser cookbooks from your locale will give you the ingredients and proportions that you need, but sometimes they are light on instruction (because the submitters of the recipes assume knowledge of basics by the readers). Supplement with Fannie Farmer and Betty Crocker, but you should probably watch the first 2 or 3 seasons of Good Eats (Alton Brown). Actually seeing someone perform the task will be immensely helpful. He also gives you a lot of the science behind the recipes, so judging from your post, I think you will enjoy him.
I have a reprint of one of the Betty Crocker books from the 50s. It’s written in a style that first time cooks can understand, and has lots of illustrations and step-by-step instructions.
If you want some Southern old style cooking, get a Betty Feezor cook book or Charleston Receipts (the reprint of the original, not the new one).
I don’t know if this is still in print, but I have an excellent starter cookbook.
‘Let’s Start to Cook’ - never fail recipes for beginners by the editors of Farm Journal
by Nell B. Nichols copyright 1966
I am a complete lazy idiot when it comes to cooking, but whenever I try, I use this cookbook and have good results.
I’ve been teaching myself to cook lately, and a lot of great recommendations in this thread.
One I loved from my mom, when my younger sister complimented BrassyMother, years ago by saying: “You need to write your recipes down, Mom! They’re so good!”
BrassyMother: “Oh thank you 
But honey? Everything I’ve ever made is on the back of a box somewhere.”
She is a good cook, though she did almost kill us a few times. (What? She was like 22 y.o. when I was a kid and she was guessing at everything.)
Start with those recipes. I’ve made a few and they are good and simple. Usually too salty, but you’ll learn to get some different spices to change it.
Marinate and bake chicken. Ground beef/turkey is easy and easily frozen to reuse.
Once in a while try a recipe that is more complicated too.
I have to tell you that basic cooking does require some spices or it tastes very dull.
LOL I am going to be scanning in and cleaning up the recipes, and adding in the tiny little scribbled notes, and eventually trying to put them online somewhere. Well, except for the cookbooks, those are just run of the mill, except for some victorian ones that she found in a box bought at an antiques auction =)
mrAru and I really really want for his job to change him over to full time telecommute, and the price on greatgrandfathers house to drop to $200K so we can move back there [and sell the farm in connecticut] and I would have a library that would house the books comfortably … sigh
Better start buying those lottery tickets!
That would be How to Cook Everything. It also covers how to shop for ingredients and how to tell when food is done.
This is EXACTLY what I do only I use cooks.com. I’ll have to search the others.
It becomes pretty obvious what the main ingredients are when you look at 20 recipes. I usually copy 2 or 3 of them on to a sheet of paper and make notes. After that I retype it, stick a photo on it and then put it in a sheet protector. School binder’s make the best cook books because they open flat and sheet protectors let you spill stuff on them all day long.
Which edition of The Joy do you have/have you encountered? Some are better than others, and unfortunately the one I have (late 90s or very early '00s, I don’t recall exactly) is much less useful than editions that came before and after. It’s too restaurant-y and removed a lot of the domestic skills topics like canning.
The Fanny Farmer cookbook is full of basic recipes and it’s a cheap paperback. So I recommend it.
Another vote for How to Cook Everything. It’s recipes are basic but not dumbed down, and it teaches you the basic principles behind the recipes so that you learn how to be a real chef, not just a person who can follow recipes.
I thought I was the only weird one who cooked from a recipe, but didn’t. I don’t know about 20 versions, but I will definitely do 5-10, check out the techniques used, the basic flavors involved, and then just rely on my senses in the kitchen, unless it’s baking. Then I’m a total slave to the recipe. I can’t bake by instinct 