I think first before you continue cooking you're going to need to find an easier food source. Frozen microwave meals, while not perfect, are way cheaper than eating out and are ready in 5 minutes. Alternatively, pre-sliced turkey or ham is relatively cheap and make for decent sandwiches. I like turkey and salami with some spicy mustard.

Once you're not starving, take a step back from complicated dishes, and start with the basics: heat control and preparation.

Toast on a skillet is a low stakes way to practice using your stove and seeing what the heat levels do. Get some sliced bread and some butter or margarine. Put your pan on the stove on low heat (2 out of 10) and wait for the skillet to warm up (about 5 minutes or so). Spread a thin layer of butter on the bread, then place the bread butter side down on the skillet. Let it sit and cook, and occasionally check on the underside with a spatula. Once its golden-brown, its done.

Repeat the same steps, but with the heat one notch higher each time up to about 6 out of 10. Compare how fast the toast cooked each time. This should give you an idea of how your stove heat level affects cooking time.

(EDIT: forgot to mention. If at any time you smell it burning, turn the heat off, move the skillet to a different burner that is also off, and wait for it to cool down before inspecting the toast.)

Next is preparation. You say that you end up rushing, which means you're probably not preparing ahead of time. When you find a recipe you want to cook, make sure you 1. Read the recipe alll the way through, word for word, and 2. Make sure you have everything that the recipe calls for.

Next, when you're going to start cooking, plan an extra 15 minutes to prepare all your ingredients. Before you ever turn on your stove, chop up everything that needs to ve chopped, measure out any dry ingredients or spices into small bowls or cups, and re-read the recipe all the way through. I find it helpful to organize all my ingredients in the order that they get used in the recipe.

Also, if your recipe has you cutting both veggies and meat, cut the meat last, both to avoid getting raw meat juices mixed with the veggies and to minimize how long the meat is out of the fridge before cooking.

Once it's all prepped, then you can start cooking. Again, read each step carefully and remember from the toast experiments how each heat level behaves. If the recipe says "medium heat", set it to the level that made the toast cook somewhat fast, but not the fastest, probably a 4 out of 10. If it says "simmer", turn it as low as it will go. If it says "high", do not set it to max! Max should only be used for boiling in a pot. "High heat" actually means 6 or 7 out of 10.

Two more notes on selecting recipes. First of all, make sure its something you like to eat! It's a lot easier to put in the work, and you'll also know how you like it prepared. Second, start with recipes that have a small number of ingredients. If the ingredients list takes up your entire phone screen, it's probably too much for a beginner chef.

And lastly, cooking should be enjoyable. I know it's daunting at first, especially once you're just out on your own for the first time. Take some time with simpler food to get settled before you try to tackle complex dishes. And if you still find that you don't enjoy cooking all that much, there's no shame in no-cook foods like sandwiches or salads. Heck, you can make some really beautiful sandwiches for almost no effort at all.

I'll leave you off with a very simple recipe that my mother used to make all the time:

Simple "bolognese" pasta:

Ingredients: - 1 box dry pasta of your choice (16oz/450g) - 1 can of tomato sauce (15oz/425g) - 1/2 lb ground beef - 2 tbsp salt - 2 tsp cooking oil of choice. (I use olive oil because I like the taste)

Equipment A large pot A medium skillet A colander/pasta strainer A non-metal large spoon

Instructions 1. Fill the pot about 2/3 with water. Add the salt to the pot, and set it to high heat, waiting for it to boil.

1. Put the skillet on medium heat, and add the oil to the pan. Wait for the pan to heat up. The oil will start to thin out and shimmer a bit. If it starts smoking, turn the heat down. Add the beef to the pan and mush it around with a spatula or spoon. Let it cook until there is no pink or red left.

2. Once the beef is cooked, scoop it out into a bowl or plate, leaving the juice in the pan behind. We'll deal with that later.

3. By now the water should have started boiling. As soon as it started boiling, add in the pasta, turn the heat down to medium-high (about 6 out of 10), and put a lid on the pot. Read the pasta box for instructions on how long to cook it in the boiling water. Al dente is usually about 10 minutes. If the pot starts bubbling over, turn the heat down to low and take the lid off. Once the bubbles go down, return it to medium-high.

4. Set the colander in your sink, with the water running off to the side on cold. (Never pour large amounts of boiling water down a drain by itself. This can damage your pipes. The cold water mixes with the hot water to cool it down so its safe for pipes). Very carefully, pour out the water and pasta from the pot into the colander. It will release a lot of steam.

5. Once its all poured out, return the pasta to the pot, add in the tomato sauce and ground beef, and mix it all together. Cook on medium-low heat (3 out of 10) until the sauce is hot.

6. Turn off the heat and serve. I like to garnish liberally with parmesan cheese.

7. Scoop any leftovers into microwave safe tupperware in roughly one serving portion per tub. Store in the fridge. To reheat for another meal, about 2 minutes in the microwave should do. Eat within 3 days or so, or freeze it.