A lot of good cooking is in technique. What’s something that you discovered or was told that really changed something meaningful for you? For me, I had struggled a lot to make omelettes. They always wound up becoming scrambled eggs because I sucked at flipping them over to cook on the other side (I like my eggs cooked pretty well so this was important to me.) Finally, watching someone else make an omelette, I noticed they didn’t flip it. They put a lid on the pan, turned the heat down, and let the top cook that way. I tried it myself and now I make almost perfect omelettes every time. Have you had anything like this happen to you? If so, what was it?
Buy a proper instant read meat thermometer and learn about carryover heat. Seriously, just cooking meat to where it needs to be and no more makes such a difference when cooking.
Along with that, learning when things need to be cooked to higher temps for structural reasons.
Finally, learning how to get good browning or crust formation. Its all prep and heat control but damn a steak with a good crust is life changing.
I’ve taken up bringing an instant read with me when I expect I may have to cook at someone’s house. Nothing worse than trying to make a prime rib at someone’s house, a getting handed one of those analog dial thermometers that doesn’t even have numbers on it, just “rare, medium, well done”.
Same. Its so nice for consistency. I also keep a basic knife sharpener in my cooking bag.