Cooking For Yourself: All The Tips And Tricks You Need To Know
If there’s one thing lockdown has shown us, it’s that it is possible to get creative in the kitchen. With restaurants closed and takeout the only other option, everyone has had to embrace a little bit of home cooking.
But home cooking is a great thing! Everyone can cook, it just takes a little practice. By being more adventurous in the kitchen, you can create dishes that are good for you, suit your personal diet, and enjoy being able to make some of your favorite dishes too.
But the world of home cooking can be strange territory when your usual evening meal is delivered to your door. Fortunately, there are plenty of tips, and resources like therecipebook.com, you can take on board to help you become your own personal chef.
Check out the following tips and tricks to help you learn to cook for yourself.
Equip your kitchen
To be able to cook, you’re going to need some tools. Your list of kitchen essentials should include:
Pots and pans
Knives
Kitchen utensils
Chopping boards
Colander and sieve
Tongs
Mixing bowls
Whisks
You can pick a lot of these items up cheap, especially while you get the hang of using them. You’ll also want to think about stocking up your pantry with supplies like a spice rack, and basic ingredients like flour, salt and sugar.
Investing in some kitchen essentials might set you back a bit at first, but you’ll get a lot of use out of them to make them worth the money.
Learn basic techniques
Now you’ve got the tools, you’ve got no excuse for learning basic cooking techniques. You can learn how to do staple cooking techniques like roasting a chicken, frying an egg and more. Even learning how to peel and chop will make it easier for you to cook great dishes.
You’ll find tutorials for most cooking techniques on YouTube, making it easy for you to practice until you’ve got them perfect.
Buy your ingredients to cook from scratch
When you start making food from scratch, you’ll realize just how much better it tastes than anything you buy ready-made in store. Even making basic sauces will bring you a huge taste difference, and it won’t be full of the additional salt and sugar that soon turns seemingly healthy foods unhealthy.
There are all kinds of basic ingredients that you can use in your home cooking. Tomatoes (canned or fresh), onions, garlic, fresh herbs and creams, yoghurts and stock are ingredients you’ll use frequently, so make sure you add them to your groceries list.
You’ll likely find that many dishes are easier to whip up than you thought. Once you’ve mastered a white sauce (béchamel), and a simple passata - you’ll never go back to store-bought sauces again!
Pay attention to recipes (especially at the beginning)
Have you ever seen the episode of Friends where Rachel puts beef in the trifle? She inadvertently ruined Thanksgiving dessert, leaving people with a nasty taste in their mouths! It’s a lesson in following the recipe closely, and checking that two pages aren’t stuck together!
When you first start cooking, it’s really important to follow the recipe exactly. This can help you avoid disasters. Cooking isn’t simply a matter of throwing ingredients in a bowl and hoping for the best, things need to happen in the right order and for the right amount of time.
Once you get the hang of it, you can bend the rules a little - you might even find your own preferred way of doing things! You can even experiment with fun, new recipes like this japanese eggplant recipe. But for now, take baby steps - there’s a lot that can go wrong with even the simplest of recipes.
Invest in time-saving tools
Cooking for yourself doesn’t have to involve spending hours on end preparing each individual item. There are tools out there to help you make light work of cooking. Food processors are fantastic for chopping, grating and blending quickly, while a rice cooker can help you make perfect rice each time. There are a lot of different kitchen gadgets out there that you’ll come to love for saving you time and effort, helping you create tasty dishes in no time.
Cut a few corners
Believe it or not, there are ways to ‘cheat’ at cooking. Buying canned or frozen ingredients can be a fantastic way of saving time, while also helping you measure out portions, and more importantly, saving on food waste. You can buy big bags of frozen garlic, onions and even herbs to help you save time.
Even if you can’t buy some items pre-prepared, you can prepare them yourself for a later date. Get some freezer bags or containers and prep your fruit, veg and other ingredients to store for when you need them. You can also prep a good recipe for weed cookies and store them for whenever you’re feeling munchy. That way, you don’t have to worry about it and you can just pull one out of storage!
Make switches to suit your diet
Another great thing about cooking for yourself is that you can make foods that are tailored to your diet. Whether you’re a vegetarian, vegan, lactose intolerant or have any other type of food intolerance, you can make ingredient swaps that will make different recipes suitable for you.
Understanding your digestive symptoms and food allergies can help you prepare food better and know exactly what you’re eating. Sometimes eating out can pose a big risk, as accidents can easily happen in the kitchen. Whatever diet you want or need to follow, cooking for yourself lets you take matters into your own hands.
Learn to recreate takeout favorites
There’s no denying that takeout is convenient and pretty damn tasty too! But learning how to recreate takeout favorites at home will make home cooking fun, and will save you money too. Recreating takeout favorites is a fantastic way to impress guests, and makes an ideal at-home date night too.
What’s your favorite takeout? Pizza? Chinese? Mexican? Learn how to recreate your top dishes so that you can enjoy takeout-style treats whenever you want.
Treat yourself to homemade desserts
Many of us learn to bake at an early age, but making Rice Krispie treats and cupcakes is only the beginning. Baking can be therapeutic, and the tasty reward at the end helps! Making different baked goods and desserts is one of the most enjoyable parts of cooking, and in some ways, it can be the easiest.
You can start with simple recipes to help you build up your repertoire. Check out some of Buzzfeed’s 5-ingredient desserts to give you some inspiration.
Batch cook for a healthy week
Cooking for yourself is one of the ways you can learn to eat healthier. You’ll know exactly what’s going into your food, and you’ll find it easier to regulate portions. Batch cooking and food preparation can help you adopt healthier habits, as well as make it easier for you to cook. A bit of effort on the weekend can mean that you’re taking care of for the week, and will be less likely to either eat out or order in.
Master the slow cooker
Have you ever used a slow cooker? A slow cooker is a fantastic appliance for making tasty meals with minimal effort. Simply put the ingredients in the crockpot and leave for the desired amount of time. It’s a great way to make stews, curries, soups and more, with plenty of slow cooker recipes to help you get started. Slow cookers can also be useful if you’re catering for a lot of people, like at Thanksgiving and Christmas - helping to free up your oven for other things.
Use lighter ingredients to cut calories
Sometimes, people associate home cooking with comfort foods like mac and cheese or a big pot of chilli. These foods can often be high in calories, and while they’re ok to have now and then, it helps to have some lighter alternatives from time to time. Switching to lighter ingredients including sweetener or honey instead of sugar, light cream instead of heavy cream, and other similar swaps can make your cooking much healthier. It’s an easy way to recreate some of your favorite meals without having to worry about eating them. There are ways to add flavor without having to load your meals with sugars and salt, and the more you cook for yourself, the more you’ll discover what works.
Create your own recipe book
There’s a lot of fun in cooking for yourself. Some things will turn out great, while others might need a bit of refining. No matter what, you need to stick at it - that’s the only way you’ll learn. As you discover recipes you like, write them down in your own recipe book. It’ll be great for you to have your own collection of recipes, and can be something wonderful to share with friends and family too.
Learning to cook for yourself is a great skill to have. You’ll not only be able to feed yourself well, but whip up tasty meals for family and friends too. With many restrictions still in place and the advice to very much stay home, you’ve got a fantastic opportunity to sharpen your culinary skills and turn your cooking habits around.
What will you make first?
