As of late majority of my posts have been very recipe intensive - I love to cook and sometimes I get overwhelmed with the inspiration so I pour it all out on my blog and structure my recipes to make them as simple as possible.
My goal in bringing my favourite recipes to my blog is not only as a reference tool for friends and family that have tried my food and would like to replicate my cooking but also I'd like to simplify the way everyone looks at cooking.
More often than not, millennials are bogged down by a lack of money and a lack of time. They see cooking as a hassle, difficult to learn, requiring money and commitment so they opt for fast-food instead. I see you! However, cooking can also be simple, budget friendly, and save you a lot of time - hear me out.
Below you'll find the steps to becoming a better and more confident chef in your kitchen, master some meals and begin saving time and money every time you eat.
Browse Your Home
Take a walk around the home and see what you want to use or are missing before shopping or looking at recipes. Get acquainted with what you have and make a basic staples list of things you eat very often.
This gives you a base as to the things you like and also ingredients that you'd be comfortable using in the kitchen. Do you like pasta? Do you like fish? Do you require mushrooms with every meal? Start there. If you like certain ingredients, you're more motivated to cook them and likewise won't let them go bad either.
Favourite Your Staples
Next, start favouriting recipes containing your regular staple ingredients. If you like mushrooms and have rice, look at recipes containing those (see my own recipe here). Or if you have eggs and a can of tomatoes, check out this recipe for Shakshuka.
If you don't know what to look for and need a little help, these two tools are perfect for starting a recipe library that doesn't require you to write things down on paper all the time like our moms used to:
Supercook - a website recently turned into an app that allows you to search for recipes by ingredients! Add potatoes, milk and butter and it will give you recipes containing all of those things. Check it out for yourself - resourcefulness to the max!
Pocket - a browser extension I use all the time to save recipes for later - even untested ones. When browsing online, you can save any webpage to pocket. All of your recipes are saved in one spot in an app you can access on your phone/Ipad/laptop while cooking. This way when I test a recipe out, it's either deleted if I didn't enjoy it OR favourited so I can try to make it again another time.
Create a Plan
Next, look into your local store flyers. This will help you determine what to buy and make based on a combo of ingredients either on sale OR in your fridge.
If I see a recipe I want to try that I already have 60% of the ingredients for, and the other 30% is on sale at the grocer, then I think prioritizing that recipe over something that isn't on sale is really a no-brainer (unless it's Turkey and tomorrow is Thanksgiving).
Also, the more you plan this way, the less ambiguity you have about what to eat throughout the week and you spend less time going to stores to buy additional random ingredients for this fantastic new recipe that requires truffle oil (I've done this so many countless times, it's the biggest waste of time, gas and money).
Try to aim for planning 3-4 meals to cook in a week using items on sale and items in your cupboards and buy the missing ingredients you need for the recipes in one go. Have enough variety that you don't get bored of the food but also not so much variety that you're letting food go bad because you decided to cheat and buy burritos for dinner.
I like to use a sticky note system with each meal on my tea and coffee cupboard. I use this cupboard every morning and am able to move the stickies around to visually plan my next meals. This keeps cooking in the kitchen flexible and allows for take-out days!
We've all been there - bought fresh meat, procrastinated cooking it in the first day or two because we were busy ordering in or eating out and before you know it the chicken is spoiled. Try to cook your freshest ingredients earlier in the week and using pantry heavy items later - this will help you save ingredients from spoilage (you can always freeze what you don't use too!). Make extras and freeze them for those days when you don't feel like cooking.
Shop Less Not More
Automate! Do all of your shopping online, preferably the evening before you need to go and preferably after dinner. This way, you're not hungry, you can check what you have in the fridge and it's ready to go for you to pick up the following day.
Delivery fees are around $10, pickup is even cheaper at $3-5 and sometimes it's even free! Yes, it may cost a couple extra bucks but at the end of the day, you're saving LOTS of time and saving money by not browsing around and instead pointedly searching for items. How?
Think about it this way: when googling, do you type potato and scroll through all million hits until you find the recipe you're looking for? Or do you type vegan mashed potato recipe? The essence is the same when you're in a store - you see a million things before you get to what you want - by this time you have 5 things in your basket - unnecessarily! By shopping online, you're forced to search for every ingredient individually instead of scrolling through their inventory and buying items just because.
Most major grocers all have services for online shopping you can take advantage of to save time and money right now! There are even stores that allow grocery pick-up outside of subway stations so you're not diverted too much from your commute home. I highly recommend using PC Express grocery pick-up because PC points can easily be converted back into free groceries - or chocolate and whatever other snacks you want this week.
Master Your Kitchen & Keep It Clean
Before cooking, skim the recipe and pull all the ingredients out that you need on the counter - center stage. By starting with the small things like beating the eggs you need or peeling your carrots, you can start the recipe with a clean slate - all ingredients ready to go. You can't miss anything or scroll back and forth between the ingredients (how many spoons did you need?) if you have everything pre-measured and ready to be popped into the pan.
You know that annoying time you spend stirring and staring into the pot and wondering when it will be ready? Well set a timer; turn around and wash some dishes. I try to keep as clean of a kitchen as I can when I cook because I hate seeing a mountain of dirty dishes just as I'm about to sit down and enjoy my food. Not cool. Therefore, try to soak used dishes right away under hot water - when you have time to step aside while your food is in the oven/simmering/boiling, wash some dishes - you're not doing much anyway!
PRO TIP: Always have a towel or washcloth over your shoulder as you cook - it will save you time looking for a towel to dry your hands and you wont loose your ladle in the soup when it slips out of your wet hands! Plus it makes you look like you know what you're doing.
Cook Your Knowledge
Strive to cook with ingredients you know and once in a while grab a new ingredient or try a new recipe you're feeling adventurous about or are just interested in. This way you keep your kitchen staples close but you're widening your culinary skills and adding to your foundation. For example, if your mac and cheese is bomb? You know that pasta and cheese will be on your staples list. If you see some bacon on sale? Boom - mac and cheese with bacon. YUM.
You've mastered a recipe when you feel confident repeating the recipe without looking at the instructions - when you know which ingredients you need, what the steps are and what little things you can do to save time or make it your own. At this stage you can eyeball things and know when adding milk to a recipe is a good idea or a recipe for disaster.
Try not to focus on creating food for Instagram yet. The reason I say this is as you get better, your meals will naturally look better. However, you can't post something and it not taste great - what if your best friend asks you to make some of those crispy Croquettes for her next party? What if your boyfriend dives into the fridge for your scrumptious Galbi BBQ leftovers to find out that they're not so great? Focus on taste over presentation and with time your presentation will improve organically.
Alternatively, if you can't live without your social media, start your culinary journey with support from your followers. You can track your progress, share meals even when you're only cooking for yourself and stay motivated to continue by being held accountable!
Lastly - dive in! Don't be scared to learn new things, taste new things or try new foods. Invite friends, cook for them or cook together, host your family, host a dinner party or even make your Netflix night fancier by adding some comfort food into the mix. Get creative and enjoy exploring.
Just please don't leave the kitchen completely unattended or the stove on when you leave. The kitchen can be fire without actually setting one after all!
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If you found this guide helpful or have any more tips to add to my list, please comment below. Can you relate? Do you do things differently? I'd be happy to hear suggestions so I can also continue on my own culinary journey! Subscribe to Linda's Study and get more curated content like this straight to your inbox.
Cheers and Happy Cooking!
Linda Kamaev