Many people don’t cook because they are too busy. With long to-do lists, hard jobs, busy kids’ schedules, and maybe not-so-great cooking skills, cooking doesn’t seem to be high on our list of priorities.
The issue is that this can lead to poor health. We eat junk food and takeout and lots of processed ingredients. Plus, younger generations simply aren’t given the skills they need to cook healthy, tasty meals.
If the biggest problem is that you find cooking to be more of a chore than anything else, here are some great suggestions to make it more fun. When you can do that, you’ll do it more, and your health (and the health of your family) will improve.
Go To A Farmers’ Market
Farmers’ markets are such a fun thing to do. You can try fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats, and you can talk to local farmers and business owners. It’s also the safest and freshest way to get your nutrients and improve your health. There’s something about going to the farmers’ market on a Sunday morning to buy ingredients that helps you come up with new ideas in the kitchen. You’ll be excited to use your very fresh ingredients and be inspired to try new things.
Allow Yourself To Make Mistakes
If you’re new to cooking or haven’t used your skills in a while, don’t try to make your first recipe perfect. Instead, use it to try new things and get better. Start with a simple, few-ingredient recipe, like learning how to make ground beef taco soup, and work up to something more complicated.
The more worried you are about making mistakes, the less fun cooking is going to be. Mistakes happen all the time, and in cooking, sometimes those mistakes create really tasty dishes (although, of course, sometimes they don’t!). Relax and enjoy the process, and the results will speak for themselves.
Cook With Friends And Family
Why not start a recipe book club with quarterly potluck dinners where everyone brings a dish from a different part of the same book? You could cook everything together with just one or two friends. Set up an assembly line with stations for your partner and kids so that cooking can be a family activity.
These are just a few of the ways you can make cooking fun with your friends and family. Some people aren’t keen on the fact that a lot of the time, cooking is something they do by themselves. If that’s the reason you don’t like it and it’s not fun for you, add more people and see if it makes a difference (it more than likely will).
Cook To A Theme
If you have to cook every day, figuring out what to make for dinner can be a big challenge. You should have a few different things on your menu, but you could also have pizza Monday, taco Tuesday, and curry Friday, for example. This means that on a given day, you have fewer things to choose from – you know what category you’re cooking. Plus, it won’t get boring because you can still change things, even if they are in the same category. One week, make a traditional mushroom pizza for pizza Monday. The next week, try something new, like a pitta bread pizza. With different ideas, the experience will be different – and fun.