Cooking is easy, as long as you have common sense and a good tongue you can figure this out. When we got married my wife was 24 and she hasn't spent a single day in the Kitchen, but with common sense and with the help from her mom she figured it out, and the interest and excitement to cook for us the newly wed family made it even more fun. She even got so excited she set up a website to showcase all here cooking accomplishments.
Four rules that have consistently helped me to not screw up the food I cook and also always helped me to get the best out of the recipe I cooked, however simple it may be, are
1 - Be careful with the salt, don't put too much salt, if you put too much salt, know the technique to adjust the saltiness, usually the technique is adding more tomatoes or add ground coconut (this creates a Keralite flavor) or add something to balance it out
2 - Always taste your food before it is completely done or before serving to others, because when you taste you know how it tastes and you can always adjust if it does not taste very good
3 - Use the best ghee (preferably organic ghee from grass fed cows - there is an Organic Valley Grass Fed Cow Butter, that is available in Whole Foods or Sprouts - you can melt this make ghee from it) you can get, this will add nice flavor to whatever food you cook
4 - Always try to get the best, freshest ingredients possible, the best and the fresh ingredients produce the best tasting food, for example try to use fresh ginger and fresh garlic ground in a blender over store bought ginger garlic paste
Youtube is a great place to start, I would start with some basic potato recipes, that you cannot screw up and slowly get to more complicated recipes. My daughter and I try some fusion recipes or some complicated indian recipes following youtube. There are plenty of good videos in youtube, you can just search, watch and pick the one you like and try it.
The good thing with cooking is it is not like math or machining, there is no accuracy to it, you can always adjust the recipes. And be creative, try to do something crazy with your cooking, for example we make Indian style chicken meat loaf and mango avocado salsa, this mango avocado salsa is so easy and you cannot go wrong (except the salt) it will aways impress the guests
Always take risks and try new recipes, that will keep your cooking recipe repository fresh. If it is a too complicated recipe you might screw up the first time, but the second time you will get it correct.
I would start with something that you are familiar with, something Indian that is simple and easy. The baking process, the bread, the cake etc will get complex because you need to be careful with the amount of moisture, baking temperature etc, in those scenarios I will follow the recipe perfectly, follow a veteran like Bobby Flay or Ina Garten. But basic Indian cooking is very easy, you can figure it out.
Having said that Indian cooking is very powerful, if you really start delving into the power of each ingredient, What exactly does Garlic do? What exactly does Onion do? What exactly does Turmeric do? What does Ginger do? What does mustard seed do? It is very powerful, it is amazing so much science has gone into that and our ancestors have formulated such a nice food routine for so many reasons.
Good luck with your cooking adventure.
Also check out my book Puga Sankara's Supply Chain Blog - that is a must read before spending Hundreds & Thousands of $$$ on your MBA or Masters Degree to get the best ROI or before starting your Entrepreneurial journey.