This section will provide a little guidance to help if you have not had much experience of preparing and cooking meals before.
Important - Basic Food Safety
Always keep cooked meat and raw meat separate. Make sure any preparation areas and surfaces that have had raw meat on are cleaned thoroughly afterwards. Store raw meat on the lowest shelf in the fridge to avoid meat juices contaminating other food.
NEVER refreeze frozen items once they have thawed out.
NEVER leave cooked rice out, ALWAYS refrigerate it otherwise it can give you a very bad stomach.
All dried peas, beans etc must be soaked for at least 12 hours, preferably overnight.
Refrigerate all left over food as soon as it cools down.
Always try and cover left over food with cling film or foil when putting in the fridge.
Remember to check instructions as to how long things last after opening. Always check and follow the "Use By" dates on food. Note: food that has a "Best Before" date is generally ok to eat after that date has passed.
Most vegetables take about 8-10 minutes to cook. If your prefer them slightly crunchy (known as "al dente") then reduce the cooking time slightly. Potatoes take longer - about 15 to 20 minutes depending on the amount you are cooking.
Half fill a saucepan with water and bring it to the boil (you should see large bubbles in the water); then add your vegetables. The water will immediately stop boiling so you will need to turn up the heat or put a pan lid on to bring it back to boiling point.
Once the water has started boing again, turn the heat down so that it is just simmering (you will now see small bubbles round the edge of the saucepan). Now add about half to 1 teaspoon of salt (according to taste) and cover the pan.
Try the vegetables after around 6 minutes of simmering to see whether the vegetables are ready by taking a small piece and tasting it.
Use 100g of pasta per person
Half fill a saucepan with water and bring it to the boil. Then add the pasta. If you are using spaghetti, lower it gradually into the boiling water until the strands have softened and it is completely covered. Take a spoon and make sure that the pasta isn't clumped together in the pan, then reduce the heat so that the water simmers.
The pasta should take around 10 minutes to cook. Try it after about 8 minutes - ideally you should serve it "al dente".
Use a cup or mug to measure the rice - one average-sized mug will feed one rice lover, or two non rice lovers. It is important that you use the same mug when measuring out the rice and the water.
Place the rice into a fairly large pan (if cooking for more than one) and wash it with plain warm water; this removes some of the starch which would otherwise make your rice ‘sticky’. The water will become cloudy so pour this off - you may want to use a fine sieve to stop your rice disappearing down the plughole :-)
Put the rice back in the pan, and add one and a half cups of water for every cup of Long-grain rice or 1 cup of water to 1 cup of Basmati rice. Add salt to taste, about 1 and a half teaspoons should be sufficient.
Bring the rice mixture to a boil with the lid off, turn down the heat and put the lid half on. When the rice has lost most of the water, it will resemble little volcanic eruptions. At this point stir, put the lid on and turn it down to the lowest setting. Leave it cooking undisturbed for 10 minutes then test it by tasting it.
If the rice is cooked, turn the heat off, put the lid back on and leave it to stand for 5 minutes, when it will be ready for serving.
If the rice is not quite cooked, add about 4 tablespoons of boiling or hot water from the kettle and cook for another 5 minutes, test it again and then follow the process above.
This is a tricky thing to make from scratch without meat juices. A good make of gravy granules will do fine instead. It will help the taste if you add the water from any vegetables you have cooked (apart from potatoes) to make up whatever amount of water the instructions ask you to use.
To make gravy with meat juices:
Remove the meat from the roasting tin, there should be meat juices and fat left in it (Chicken usually produces lots of fat, other joints not so much). Use a spoon to remove most of the fat taking care to still leave a little of it and all the juices in the tin. Then add ½ pint (275ml) of water and bring it to the boil. Crumble a stock cube into the liquid (use beef ones for lamb and beef, chicken ones for pork and chicken). Use a wooden spoon to stir making sure you dislodge as much of the baked on meat juices as possible - it all adds to the taste. This will start to resemble gravy...
Pour this liquid into a small pan. Mix 1 teaspoon of cornflour in a cup with a small amount of cold water and make it into a paste. Add this to the gravy mix and use a fork or small whisk to stir continuously for about 1 minute. The lower the heat and cook for a further 1 minute, giving it a final stir with your fork or whisk, when it should be ready for serving - hopefully lump free!
There is a further recipe for gravy here. This is for the times that your food is ‘dry’ and you don’t have any meat juices to call on. This can also be used as a sauce that can be used to cook your chosen meat in.
WARNING: Fresh chillies are great for spicing up dishes, but handle them carefully - especially Scotch Bonnets. Rubbing your eyes afterwards is definitely not to be recommended!!!
The hotest part of the chilli is the pips and flesh inside so if you want to reduce the heat, remove these before adding the chilli peppers to your dishes.