To expand on your 'cooking analogy' Most people don't need fancy ingredients, and they cost more, and the recipes aren't that great, if you want fancy food go to a fancy restaurant, but understand that it's expensive and you can make a good home made meal just fine.

The issue is most finance advice is more, "don't buy new ingredients just to make a recipe, just make a plan for the number of calories and nutrients you need, and go for it, in fact a lot of investing is 'here's a prescribed diet, just eat the menu from the Cafeteria for 30 years and you'll be in a great spot when you retire.

As for reading recommendations.

You could do the Dave Ramsey books, they attack the psychology of things, but they're more like "Oh you weigh 500 pounds, you have to eat only salads and exercise every second of every day until you're no longer obese and just overweight"

Rich dad Poor Dad is another 'classic' if you want to get into the mindset.

^ Both these books though are, the food's good, but don't ask to meet the chef, and don't ask to examine the kitchen....

I've been reading through, "The Psychology of Money" which is interesting. Millionaire Next Door is pretty reasonable, but it does drag on it's point a little bit (Though I listened to the Audiobook which made it a bit more dry)

If you need a quick little whatever, Richest Man in Babylon is a nice quick little read, but a bit out of date, but has some good fundamentals.