You learn a lot of new things about food, cooking and improvisation when you’re a single guy living on your own. Some of these revelations, like the fact that vanilla ice cream, cinnamon and beer make a reasonably satisfactory main meal, can save you from starving in the event that you’ve neglected to go shopping. Again. You learn how to prepare a few staple, almost impressive dishes without setting fire to your apartment or sending dinner guests home via the emergency department. Sadly, you also come to understand just how badly one can screw up even the most seemingly idiot-proof of tasks in the kitchen. Don’t believe me? Let’s have a look at 5 things I’ve established as a result of my single guy cooking escapades.

1. Instructions are important and should be followed.

They say that rules are meant to be broken; cooking instructions aren’t.

How did it go from this... Source: alphabetstreet.com.au

You know those tubs of cookie dough that they sell as part of fundraising campaigns? Yeah, the ones that, in order for you to have batch after batch of fresh cookies, only require you to be competent enough to scoop out the dough and place it onto a baking tray. I stuffed them up. I didn’t adhere to the instructions (or heed the advice of others) when it was suggested that “a small ball of dough” would produce a white choc macadamia cookie of adequate proportions. I scooped out a small ball of dough; it looked tiny, so I substituted small for lime-sized and left them to bake. What I removed from the oven was more mutated slice than batch of delectable cookies. Instead of having something that would make Nigella proud, I was holding an abomination that would get Stephen King’s tick of approval.