study online

The new year is an excellent time to start something new. Rather than making resolutions that won't last beyond January, why not try something different?  Set yourself up to learn a new skill, something that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Within this article, I will show you three online resources that will help you learn how to cook and become good at it.

learn how to cook well

Cooking has been a necessity of life for hundreds of years. Yet, with the rise of processed food and fast food restaurants, it has become a mostly neglected art. Only in recent years have countless TV cooks polished up its reputation.

Imagine you could not only learn how to cook well, but also cook healthy and tasty meals, bake delicious cakes and fresh bread. You would save money cooking for yourself rather than buying expensive meals, friends and family would love to be your guest, and you would never be short of ideas for yummy gifts or much desired vouchers.

Chef2Chef Online Cooking Class

learn to cook well

This online cooking class will serve any skill level. Whether you have never even cooked tea or whether you've routinely been cooking simple meals and know kitchen tools and routines inside out, you can start here.

There are ten different courses, which contain five lessons each. You can read through as many lessons as you like, but if you have little time, you can manage at least one lesson each day, i.e. one course per week. The articles are pure theory and will work well with recipes that match the respective skill level. Each lesson features two "recipes for success".

You can practice your skills browsing the site's thorough recipe collection. It is neatly categorized into courses, types of foods (e.g. meat, vegetarian, fish), cuisine (e.g. Cuban, German, Thai) or methods (e.g. grilled, steamed, barbecued).

Learn To Cook 101

learn how to cook

This site is best suited for people who have a basic understanding of cooking. If you can already cook simple recipes, i.e. read recipes and pick the right ingredients and tools, this is the right place to start.

Learn to Cook 101 provides instructions on how to equip your kitchen, general articles on cooking, diet, health & fitness, and of course you'll find several recipes. Click through to the articles to strategically look up the information you need to improve your skills.

Passionate About Food

cooking well

As you become more and more skilled and passionate about cooking, head over to this site. You'll find an alphabetically sorted Guide to Cooking Techniques, Kitchen & Cooking Tips that will save you time, information about Herbs & Spices, and lots more.

Once you know the basics of how to cook, you may find the following MakeUseOf articles interesting:

On MakeUseOf we have previously showed you things you can learn online:

Mark presented The Best Online Sources To Play & Learn Chess

Laurence covered Essential Free Tools to Learn Guitar Playing Online

Ryan wrote about Top 5 Sites For Learning Piano Online

Shankar found 30+ Online Resources to Expand your English Vocabulary

Angeline introduced 18 Great Sites to Learn a New Language

Before you pick a skill, make sure you have an idea how to start. About.com has a great article on How to Learn a New Skill.

What did you learn in 2009 and what do you want to learn in 2010?

Image credits: svilen001, nkzs