Polish, as I understand it

A stumbling block for me with a few languages is correct use of -ing words. I'm not au fait with all the terminology, so couldn't confidently say what a gerund thing, verbal noun or adverbial participle is.  I have a loose grasp, but I intend to tighten that and get to grips with -ing words in Polish. Recently, I used a verbal noun where I shouldn't.  So let's look at verbal nouns first , seeing as I was so quick to reach for one. The one I erroneously used was czekanie , the verbal noun of czekać - to wait - formed by taking the stem of czek a ć and adding the suffix -anie .  As far as I can see, a verbal noun is  the gerund form of a verb. Bear in mind that some verbs rarely form the verbal noun, but use a different noun instead So, when do we use these gerund forms / verbal nouns? Some examples: Polecił coś do czytania     -     He recommended something to read (literal:... something for reading) Co tu jest do jedzenia ?     - ...