Reddit mentions of The New Best Recipe

America's Test Kitchen cookbooks are great about this. They have recipes with explanations for why you cook certain parts to get the desired effects, and how you might alter cooking methods to get different textures or whatever. Often, they give sidenotes about how to get basic elements cooked perfectly. Highly recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated-Magazine/dp/0936184744

I adore this cookbook (or any in that series, really). I know, you are asking: why buy a book when you can get recipes online for free? I will tell you: because these recipes will teach you how to cook and they are pretty much failproof.

The book is just a collection of recipes from Cook's Illustrated Magazine and basically it tackles standard recipes rather than funky new ones like many cooking magazines. They don't just grab any ol' recipe for meatloaf, lentil soup, fried chicken or whatever. They meticulously test each recipe and optimize the cooking strategy to make it perfect. Every recipe is accompanied by an article describing exactly why each ingredient is there and how each technique achieves the desired outcome. It is really quite scientific (I love that).

They also have tips/recipes for really basic things, like how best to chop onions or boil pasta which can be helpful if you don't have much experience.

My favorite "techniques and basics of everything" cookbook is The New Best Recipes by Cook's Illustrated. But the one I use the most in my own kitchen has to be The Betty Crocker Cookie Book

An alarm clock to get her used to waking up at 2am? ;-)
I'm not a professional baker, but did work as one for several months 20 years ago. Enough to let me know that although I enjoyed baking, I didn't enjoy doing it as a profession. So these suggestions are from a home baker, not a pro.
I would suggest a cookbook or subscription to Cook's Illustrated or America's Test Kitchen.
I bought The New Best Recipe Cookbook ten years ago for myself and have gifted a copy to several friends since. It goes through not only a recipe, but what changing different ingredients will do to the final product. The chocolate chip cookie recipe was quite informative with illustrations showing not only what different sugars would do, but different fats, flours, and the effect of chilling the dough had on the final product.
There is also Baking Illustrated which is just about baking. It's probably going to be hard to find, but if you stumble across it, it's worth it. Some folks complain that it's just the baking chapters from the best recipe cookbook with a few extra recipes, but if your kid is really focused on baking, this may be a better fit for now and then the best recipe cookbook later when she feels like branching out into thing to go with the baked goods.
I do not own the Cooks Illustrated Baking Book but I have several of their other cookbooks and friends who have this one think highly of it. It's been described as a combination recipe book and class in baking. Like the New Best Recipe Cookbook, it includes not just recipes, but paragraphs about what is going on in the recipe and what changes to the recipe will do.
You may also want to look at getting a large vermin resistant container to store flour. I use a Vittles Vault pet food container to store my flour. It allows me to buy 25 lbs of flour for $8 instead of 5 lbs for $4 and not run out in the middle of a baking session.

a proper cast iron setup

a great cookbook

a set of unique spices or ingredients in the style of his favorite cuisine?
italian, french, mexican, indian, spanish, chinese...

You might want to buy Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything. Its a book about cooking techniques that I think is precisely the book you are looking for.

Also honorable mention for The Food Lab and The New Best Recipe books as well, those are more recipe based, but they have great info on techniques and ingredients. Both get into the science behind cooking and explain why they picked a specific recipe which helped me learn how to cook without recipes and be able to know when certain things are done(I now judge if something I am baking is done more by smell than time now) and how to save emulsions when to add salt and acids etc. The author of the food lab is also pretty active on the Serious Eats subreddit and will answer questions about his recipes.

Salt Fat Acid and Heat is also pretty good as well, I have not read this one personally though as the first part is waaaaaayyy too much personal narrative from the author for me and I turned off the audiobook after listening to her life story for 10 minutes, so get the print book so you can skip right to the cooking parts.

Buy a (very) basic cookbook and have at it. One of those "how to cook pretty much everything in one or two simple ways" collections. I'm a big fan of "The New Best Recipe" which would be pricey new but can be had for cheap secondhand. "The Betty Crocker Cookbook" is another one that gets a lot of love too.

Read it the important bits. There's stuff in there about types of pans, about the difference between cumin and cardamom and cinnamon and cayenne, about how to hold a knife without cutting your fingers off and how to boil water without setting the stove on fire.

When you have read the important stuff and have begun to get a feel for what you need to do, select a simple recipe and make it. Start small. A pasta sauce maybe, a casserole.

Here's a piece of advice, too: Take notes. Write in the margins or get a notebook but keep track of whether you substituted oil for butter or if you needed less cooking time. It can save you some tears in the future, help you replicate happy accidents.

Lately, I've very much been enjoying Kenji's The Food Lab. I think it's worth the (ebook) price just for the chapter on fried foods.

I also keep coming back to The Flavor Bible, which has lists of how to combine ingredients for different cuisines.

If you want a valuable collection of recipes and have $50 to spend, get Cook's Illustrated's The New Best Recipe. It's supplanted The Joy of Cooking on my shelf.

This cookbook is great. It's from America's Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated. All the dishes in the book have gone through something like 30-50 trials/iterations in the course of finding the single "best" version of the recipe - very appealing to my scientist side.

The New Best Recipe by Cook's Illustrated

http://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464479000&sr=1-1&keywords=cook%27s+illustrated+best+recipe

Once you master a set of basic skills, as well as understanding how things "should" be, everything becomes way more fun and easy. How to dice an onion or anything. How to keep a clean work area. What "brown" actually looks like. How thick is "thickened", and what the hell is a roux.

Also, being a total Geek, The New Best Recipes cookbook has been a major help. It tells you both why you're doing it, as well as how to cook basic items, and then take that skill to other recipes.

I really like this book. It goes through a lot of variations on how to cook different dishes, and it explains why one might be better than another (this method is faster, this one is cheaper, this one is easier, etc). It also breaks down a lot of the basics of food prep, picking the best meat/produce, etc. It includes recipes, but it goes through the scientific process that they use to come up with the recipes, allowing you to adjust them to suit your needs.

The New Best Recipe by Cook's Illustrated Magazine

They test each recipe many times until they get it perfect.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-All-New/dp/0936184744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280507588&sr=1-1

This is my favorite cook book for basic/general recipes!

Cooks Illustrated cookbook, this is one of my favorite books.

The New Best Recipe is by far the most useful book I use in the kitchen. It's big, over 1000 pages, but the recipes are simple, everyday food, meaning you will pull this book out everyday.

It's done by the people who put out Cook's Illustrated magazine and everything I have made from the book has been flawless.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0936184744/

The New Best Recipe is one I don't see recommended as often, but explains the process they went through to get the recipe they ended up with. Everything I've made from it has been delicious, and it explains things very clearly.

I highly recommend "The New Best Recipe". It applies a laboratory method to cooking and, backed by America's Test Kitchen, they almost always vet their recipes thoroughly. It's also fun to read when you're not cooking, so that's a major plus.

But to get the best grip on everything, try "Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking".

These two tomes will have you a pro about the kitchen in no time.

There is a cookbook called The New Best Recipe that has lots of amazing recipes. Also, they tell you all the different versions of each recipe they tried and why their certain recipe works best.

Any of the America's Test Kitchen cookbooks are fantastic for people learning how to cook. My boyfriend, like you, was a sandwich-pasta-burrito guy before these cookbooks. Now he can turn out a mean baked ziti and a pan of brownies :)

They've tested recipes extensively to find the easiest ways to create the most delicious, flavorful, fail-free versions of favorite foods. For each recipe, they describe the most common pitfalls of a recipe and how they avoid them, provide helpful illustrations, and make suggestions for the best cookware and ingredients to purchase (if you don't already have them). They most often do not recommend the most expensive option ;)

I recommend the Skillet cookbook and the New Best Recipe for starters.

This book is fabulous! In it they tell you a couple of methods they tried while making a recipe and why they decided a method worked best. This is the goto book I would purchase for anyone beginning to cook or looking to improve their cooking. Feel free to msg me if you want further details about the book. https://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744

I highly recommend any cookbook from America's Test Kitchen. They also have a segment on NPR & PBS.

The New Best Recipe from Cook's Illustrated is positively fantastic. It's my bible for how to cook everything. The biggest thing to me is each recipe has an in-depth explanation for how they came up with the recipe, how they tested it, what works, and why.

I'd get him this one. America's Test Kitchen makes the best cookbook I have ever used.

I'd recommend the Cook's Illustrated "Best Recipe" book. A few nice features:

• the philosophy of CI strikes me as very reddit-friendly
  
  
• each recipe is prefaced by an article explaining the many dozens of ways they tried to perfect this recipe, typically explaining why steps that seem odd (e.g. combine wet ingredients, then dry, then mix all together? Add lemon to the sauce, then wait?) are actually essential
  
  
• the recipes are all fantastic

My favorite cookbook is The New Best Recipe, a compilation of over 1,000 recipes from America's Test Kitchen. I love it because they give in-depth descriptions of all the different things they tried in order to perfect every recipe, and so not only do you get a great recipe but you can learn all about why it is great. Most recipes have one or two additional variations included. They cover different products and techniques, and all sorts of information that is useful for both new and competent cooks. It is so interesting that I sometimes read it just for fun.

The chapters cover everything from appetizers to different types of main courses, but also includes lots of chapters on baked goods -- breads, cookies, cakes, pies, crisps, puddings, and more. I would highly recommend it to anyone, and everything I've made from it so far has been delicious!

Alton Brown's cookbooks are quite good, so I'll add my voice to those recommending them.

If you don't need color glossy photos, "The New Best Recipe" from the folks at Cook's Illustrated magazine has great recipes and thorough instructions.

When you someday move beyond the basics, I'd also throw in a plug for Michael Ruhlman's "Ratio" and Jacques Pepin's "Complete Techniques". Ruhlman's book breaks some recipes (like doughs, batters, and custards) down to their basic components and will help you understand how to modify or even improvise with some kinds of recipes, and Pepin's book has great illustrations that can help get you through some of the techniques mentioned by not described by cookbooks. Pepin's Techniques might even prove useful to you now as a reference, depending on what other cookbooks you're working with.

Cook's Illustrated: New Best Recipe

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0936184744/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The people who wrote this book not only give very detailed instructions, but they also tell you what they have tried and what didn't work. That way, you not only have better knowledge of the recipe, but it helps you learn how to better improvise.

Also, the recipes are amazing. A+++++++, would buy again and again.

I bought their book. Definitely worth the $10 price used many times over. It's a great reference along with Bittman's How to Cook Anything. I've perused a few issues of the magazines while at friend's houses and don't think that I would get more value if I had subscribed.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503484874&sr=8-1&keywords=best+recipe+cooks+illustrated

These goals are cool! You are going to get a lot of advice on the losing weight stuff, but cooking is my jam. Its hard to get over the hump from making recipes to just cooking what's in the fridge. So in the meantime, you will do well to try a variety of things that from cookbooks that you think sound good.

My favorite cookbook right now is: http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744. It is full of all the staples you will need, and each recipe comes with a long explanation which gives insight about why they cooked it the way they did. It is huge, but very accessible.

I also occasionally bust out my 1953 Better Home and Gardens cookbook, but that is pretty rare and only when I just need to feel like a housewife.

Cooking for yourself will help your other goals - cooking is its own craft project, and knowing exactly what you are putting into your body will help you understand what needs to change in order to lose weight.

I recommend Cook's Country's Best New Recipe that will give you the how, the why, and how they figured out the how and the why.

Ooh ooh

Get the whole damned Cook's Illustrated book series (Start with The Best Recipe) and get "On Food and Cooking"

Read both, cover to cover, especially that second one. Now cook!

This one is great to learn how to cook new dishes

Cook's Illustrated: The New Best Recipe

Gives an in-depth explanation of how they came to each recipe before it's given. I learned so much from this book.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744

I don't have a subscription either but it's also in my favorite cookbook:

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated-Magazine/dp/0936184744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421716625&sr=8-1&keywords=best+recipe

Pan Seared, Oven Roasted, Thick Cut Pork Chops

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
4 bone in rib chops 1/1/12 inch thick
1/2/ teaspoon pepper
1 tbsp oil

dissolve the brown sugar and salt in 6 cups cold water in a gallon size zipper lock plastic bag. Add the pork chops and seal the bag, pressing out as much air as possible. Refrigerate until fully seasoned about 1 hour. Remove the chops from the brine, rinse, and pat thoroughly dry with paper towels. Season the chops with the pepper.

Adjust an oven rack to the lower middle position, place a shallow roasting pan or rimmed baking sheet on the rack, and heat the oven to 450 degrees. When the oven reaches 450 degrees, heat the oil in a heavy bottomed 12 inch skillet over high heat until shimmering. Lay the chops in the skillet and cook until well browned and a nice crust has formed on the surface, about 3 minutes. Turn the chops over with tongs and cook until well browned and a nice crust has formed on the second side, 2 to 3 minutes longer.

Using the tongs, transfer the chops to the preheated pan in the oven. Roast until an instant read thermometer inserted into the center of a chop registers 125 to 127 degrees 8 to 10 minutes turning the chops over once halfway through the cooking time. Transfer the chops to a platter, tent loosely with foil and let rest for 5 minutes. Check the internal temperature; it should register 145 degrees. Serve immediately.

Sweet and Sour Pan Sauce and Bacon

5 ounces bacon
2 shallots
1 garlic clove
4 plum tomatoes
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup dry Marsala
4 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper

Pour off the fat in the skillet used to brown the chops. Place the skillet over medium high heat and cook the bacon until crisp about 6 minutes. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined plate; pour off all but 1 tbsp of the bacon fat. Reduce the heat to low, add the shallots and sugar, and cook until the shallots are softened, about 1 minute. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Increase the heat to medium high, stir in the tomatoes and vinegar, and scrape the pan bottom with a wooden spoon to loosen the browned bits. Add the Marsala and simmer until reduced by half about 5 minutes. Whisk in the butter, one piece at a time, until melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744/

with a family like that, I'd probably just say fuck it -- lock your doors, turn off the lights, and leave a couple pizzas with a few bags of coal out on your front porch. lol

for what it's worth, Cooks Illustrated "New Best Recipes" is pretty much the most reliable cookbook I've ever owned and can be had used pretty cheap -- http://www.amazon.com/Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated-Magazine/dp/0936184744. the recipes in there have never failed me, and they take the time to actually teach you why you're doing things certain ways.

I'm surprised so far no one has mentioned Larousse which is generally my go-to along with The New Best Recipe for more generalized fare.

I generally don't cook from cookbooks, but I do use them for inspiration or fundamentals.

Okay. Welcome to the wonderful world of chemistry and fire that results in yummy! Hopefully this is going to be a nice, little primer for the absolute essentials for a working kitchen.

The equipment you absolutely must have:

A 10" skillet. Thick-bottomed (the thin ones just warp and get unusable)

An 8" skillet. Sometimes you've gotta cook two things at once.

A quart pot, with lid. A second one is a smart idea, but it can wait.

A spatula.

A wooden spoon.

A liquid measuring cup. I'd get a 2-cup one first, and a 4-cup one later.

Measuring cups. Don't try to get away with measuring liquids with your dry cups. It always ends in tears.

Measuring spoons.

The New Best Recipe. It's like The Joy of Cooking, except more comprehensive, based on the chemical science of food, and half the price. Also, the recipes are frickin' DYNAMITE.

A quality 8" chef's knife. This is a great first knife, and will last you many happy years. I know the 6" one is cheaper. Trust me--you'll be glad for the bigger knife in the long run.

TWO cutting boards of a reasonable size. Mark one as being for raw meat only.

A pair of tongs.

A vegetable peeler

Your basic cooking staples that go into making more or less everything:

Salt.

Pepper

Garlic powder. NOT Garlic salt.

Chili powder

Oil. Olive Oil tastes better, but Canola is more forgiving to learn on.

A cheap-ass bottle of Cabernet. Some of your food's chemical compounds are alcohol-soluble, but not water-soluble. A little cheap booze will liberate them.

Onions

Canned tomatoes. I go with diced. No salt added is a plus.

Flour. All purpose is good.

Sugar

Eggs

Rice

Milk

Boneless/Skinless chicken. Breasts or thighs, your choice.

Chicken stock. The granulated or powdered stuff keeps well and is easier to work with than the cubes.

So, I'll get to a starter recipe in a minute, but before I do, I want to talk about a couple of kitchen axioms before we get there. Follow these guidelines across the board and you'll have an easy time of things.

Read the whole recipe before you start cooking. Always! Every time! Seriously! You'll fuck it up otherwise!

When you're cooking on the stove, if you think you're at the right temperature, decrease the heat. The most basic screw-up is cooking your food at too high a heat.

Never, ever, ever cut raw meat on the same cutting board as anything else. You'll make yourself and others sick.

Do your prep work before you start to actually cook. That means cut your veggies, measure your spices and liquids, and so forth.

Keep your knife razor-sharp. Most kitchen injuries come as a result of dull knives. If it feels like you have to work to cut something, your knife needs to be steeled (don't worry about it for now) or sharpened.

Clean your gear as soon as you're done eating.

The chef's knife NEVER goes in the dishwasher. Dish detergent will screw up your blade.

And now, a recipe to get you started: Parmesan Chicken Risotto.

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast, thawed and patted dry with paper towels.

2 Tablespoons of oil

3/4 Cup of rice

1 cup of chicken broth

1/4 cup of cooking wine

1/2 cup of SHREDDED Parmesan. The grated stuff doesn't work quite right.

1 onion, diced fine.

2 teaspoons of garlic powder.

A carrot, peeled and chopped fine.

1 teaspoon of dried thyme. You can skip this if you really have to, but it's better with.

Salt & pepper, to taste.

Step 1: Put a tablespoon of oil in a quart pot and turn your stovetop to medium-high (a 7, at most). When the oil looks kind of shimmery, but isn't smoking, put the chicken breast in. Let it sit and cook for about 6 minutes. Flip it over with a pair of tongs, and give it another 6 minutes. Take it out and set it aside for now.

Step 2: Turn the heat down to medium-low (like, 3 or 4) and take the pot off of the heat. Let the pot cool down some, then add the other tablespoon of rice. Once it's warmed up, add in your onions and garlic powder, and stir to combine well. Once the sizzling sound has died down, put the pot back on your burner and cook for 8 minutes. If the onion starts to brown at all, take it off the heat and let it cool down. You're looking for translucent white onions with no browning at all. (BTW: This is called sweating, and it's a fundamental cooking technique. Learn it and practice it, because it's the key to almost any dish you cook with onions, celery, peppers, garlic, and a wide variety of other vegetables.)

Step 3: Add in the thyme, carrot, and the rice, and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. Scrape up the brown stuff on the bottom of the pan that's leftover from the chicken. It's tasty. Cook the rice for about 3 minutes, stirring very frequently, but not all the time.

Step 4: Add the brother and wine, and stir to make sure that no rice is sticking to the bottom of the pan. Lid the pot, bring to a slow boil over slightly higher heat (4, or 5 at the most), and set a timer for 10 minutes. Stir it three times during the 10 minutes.

Step 5: Put the chicken breast on top of the cooking rice, put the lid back on, and set the timer for 15 minutes. Stir it four times during this period. Move the chicken around as needed.

Step 6: Take the pot off the heat, remove the chicken, and stir the Parmesan into the rice. Take two forks and shred the chicken, then put that into the rice. Let it sit for a couple of minutes for the cheese to melt and everything to come down from scaldingly-hot to pleasantly warm.

Step 7: Eat.

I started out with The New Best Recipe. Cooks Illustrated is a pretty good magazine in general.

This. Before you start, though, find a reliable cookbook (I like Cook's Illustrated's New Best Recipe for this, as well as Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen, generally). Nothing worse than spending your time and money on making a crappy recipe.

If you want just one:

The New Best Recipe:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-Cooks-Illustrated/dp/0936184744

Will teach all manner of things.

Skip the Flavor Bible until (maybe) later. Ruhlman's 20 is good for beginners (and everyone).

Unless you're looking to learn BAKING... I'd say just cook little bits of things as you'd like and taste 'em. "What do two thin slices of baked red pepper taste like?" "What's a pork chop taste like plain at 165 degrees?" Start with very few ingredients and get to know them and what they DO. Eat raw garlic, seared garlic, and roasted garlic. Same with onion. Same with ginger.

For books go with the sciency ones. People who explain the why and the how.

Boiling the potatoes whole is the only way to make mashed potatoes. It traps in all the flavor and prevents the potatoes from getting all water logged. I read in The New Best Recipe cookbook (which I totally recommend cause they have experimented with foods and found the absolutely best way to cook most standard dishes), I've never peeled a raw potato since!