1. Heat oil in pan (until oil is hot; should flow like water)
2. Add vegetables (almost always including onion); cook, while stirring, until soft.
3. Add seasonings (salt, pepper, spices, garlic, etc.)
4. Add in a protein; continue stirring, until everything is cooked through.
5. Optionally, add a liquid and simmer.
This process is the basis for cooking a lot of foods, and it pays to get it down really well. Consider:
- Protein is ground meat; liquid is a can of tomatoes. This is pasta bolognese sauce.
- Lots of vegetables; liquid is soy sauce and optionally a slurry of cold water and cornstarch. This is a basic Chinese stir fry.
- Protein is ground meat; liquid is mixture of beef stock, crushed tomatoes, and a can of beans. This is chili.
- Vegetables are bell peppers and onions; meat is andouille sausage; season heavily with Cajun spices; liquid is chicken stock and long-grain rice. This is jambalaya.
Sure, these aren't real recipes, but once you have the above procedure down, it's just a matter of developing an intuition for taste and some knowledge of how ingredients work (e.g., 2.5 cups liquid per cup rice), and most basic cooking is pretty simple.