cooking woes

I can't figure out why I suck at cooking.

Nine times out of ten, if I try to throw something together it turns out funky-tasting. Even if I follow a recipe, it's never really good. I recently tried a fettuccine alfredo recipe that I found on one of those well-known recipe websites, and it sucked! It had a strange bitter aftertaste, and I followed the recipe exactly.

I can bake like it's nobody's business, but I can not figure out WHY I suck at cooking. I need to find a very simple, beginner's cookbook to cook my way through and gain some confidence.

I mean, I'm not completely clueless. I can boil an egg or make mashed potatoes, and spaghetti is a good standby, but I don't have the slightest idea how to check out the ingredients in my fridge and say, "Hey, these flavors would be awesome together."

One problem I have with the 10 cookbooks that I do own and the eleventy billion recipes on the internet is that they're full of crazy recipes that I wouldn't normally make. Really? Apple Fennel soup? Deviled Crab?? Sounds delicious, but that's a far cry from chicken noodle soup from a can and spaghetti.

And I really want to get away from using pre-made, pre-packaged stuff because we all know it's full of crap. If I'm going to learn how to cook, I'm going to do it the right way.

I need a cookbook full of down-home, standard recipes. Like pot roast. Everybody likes pot roast.

Anyone have any suggestions? Maybe the library has some good cookbooks...