Are you a creative cook?

Hello?

I am the greatest chef in the history of the world.

My prunes and ice cubes are to die for.

Ish. Within certain parameters.

It's not hard to braise some chicken thighs with onion/garlic and add various things to make a good dish.

And, if you know the basic ratios, you can get quite creative with meat loaf.

Sheet pan dinner is very easy...throw meat, vegs, ioil, seasonings on a sheet pan and bake. If you cut the meat small enough, it should all get done about the same time. If you want bigger pieces of meat, then start it first, then add the veg.

I have no fear of cooking anything within the traditional meat groups. With chicken and turkey, it's valuable to know that the legs and thighs are fattier, thus more amenable to long cooking, whereas breast meat is very lean and can dry out quickly. No one wants to eat sawdust. With pork, it's usually easy to see the fattier cuts visually - again, they will take very long cooking. But a pork tenderloin is very lean, and can also dry out easily. It's usually cooked quickly and served with some sort of sauce to disguise its leanness. Beef is trickier. Some lean cuts look visually as though they are fatty and vice-versa. So you really need to study beef cuts and their fat content. Lean cuts, like a top sirloin steak, must be cooked very quickly. grilling or searing, to avoid them drying out. Top round and bottom round are also quite lean. They should be cooked rare and slice thin. Often the cuts used for slow cooking (like pot roasts) are fattier, but also filled with connective tissue that dissolves and adds flavor in the process. (Brisket and so forth). In theory the fat would melt out during prep and be discarded, but as we all know, there's lots of flavor in the fat, so people tend to use those drained out fats in gravies and other sauces to pour over the meat.

The truly creative cook will look to exotic cuts (the heart and liver from a cow), duck, lamb, goat, and will explore the huge variety of fish available. Generally, if you want a piece of fish to hold together, you need to cook it fairly fast. There are many more types of fish than there are of meats, so this is the great unknown for most home cooks. Asians eat a wider variety of vegetables than most Americans, and their cooking methods usually involve quickly stir-frying the vegetables, usually cut into similar sizes so that cooking time will be uniform. The goal is to keep some crispness and fresh color in vegetables, not to overcook them to a state of mush. A similar thing can be accomplished with a saute-steam method, where the vegetables are quickly sauteed in a little oil or butter, and then some liquid is added and a tight lid put on the pot. Again, the secret is not to overcook the vegetables, so you can't leave and do a crossword puzzle when cooking them.