What Do You Cook When You Can't Cook?

My goal for this summer is to start cooking for myself more often.

After a lifetime of living off of fast food and my grandmother's cooking, I'm going to attempt making some of my own meals.

Question is: What is a good thing to cook for a total beginner?

Naturally, I need to stick with things that are simple and save the more advanced dishes for later. Even among all the recipes that are simple, though, it's tough to determine the perfect dish to start with for my first time.

To be fair, I have cooked before some years ago. I once attempted making pancakes, which was doable since there were some pretty easy to follow instructions in the back of the box. It was a huge mess. I got batter everywhere and the pancakes were only 75 percent edible. I might have rushed through the instructions somewhat.

What's interesting is that pancakes aren't the only breakfast food I've cooked before. I've tried my hand at making eggs before too. Twice. I had no instructions on how to make eggs but I did have a plan. Crack the egg over the skillet. Turn the skillet on and wait until something edible was produced. I missed the skillet both times though. The eggs landed either on the ground or on the stove after I opened up the egg shell.

I've been more successful at making bacon and sausage, though. I know how to use an oven and the instructions for bacon and sausage were pretty simple and easy to follow. So not all of my cooking stories end in failure.

I've had some pretty bad cooking fails, as well.

I once made ramen. The ramen turned out alright, but then I added water, gravy, chicken, dressing, rice, cranberry sauce, and milk. I was in a creative mood and I don't want to think about the atrocity I produced as a result.

I'm not letting my bad previous attempts at cooking get the best of me though. This week or next week, I'm going to cook something, I'm going to make something delicious, and I'm going to love it. Or I could be looking at another ramen incident in the making. Time will tell.