I’m the kind of girl who believes in the traditional view that all girls must learn to cook, sew and housekeep. Well, if you think about it, you’ll be pretty much self-sufficient if you can do all three. Except I’m not particularly a good cook and I can’t sew much. I used to be the kind that would burn down the kitchen if I ever stepped into one, but my college days have trained me well. I can now whip up a few simple dishes. They are definitely not Michelin-star quality, but at least the husband does not complain so that’s good. (I think he’s too kind.)

Lately, I’m sick of cooking the same few dishes so I decided to add two more tofu dishes to my cooking repertoire. Anyway, the main point of this entry is to introduce two cooking sites I’ve found that are really useful. (Haha…who am I kidding? I think I have phantom readers.)

The first one is Noob Cook. As the title of website suggests, the recipes featured here are simple to follow and have relatively few steps as they are meant for beginners. Recipes are mainly local dishes or to suit the local palette.

The other one is actually a YouTube channel. Being a fan of Japanese culture, I would love to cook some Japanese dishes. Ochikeron’s channel features recipes for Japanese dishes. Her videos are rather detailed and seem easy to follow. She doesn’t just give verbal instructions, she actually shows you step by step how to cook a dish. This is really helpful for a beginner like me, who has to measure exactly every sauce or spice. (Ok, I’ve actually levelled up a teeny bit. I only need to measure exactly the first time I cook a dish. After that I just adjust approximately to taste.)

I haven’t really tried any of the recipes in both sites except to check the oven temperature for baked rice/pasta and timing for steamed tofu, but I guess I’ll be relying on both sites a bit more in the future. Need to learn to cook more dishes!