It’s so easy to get intimidated by cooking. Laundry lists of ingredients, fancy terms that you’ve never seen before in your life, and the fact that you just don’t want to screw it up after putting in all that effort. These are just some of the reasons so many of us put off cooking for ourselves and taking the time to create meals in our own kitchens. If you’ve been dragging your feet wondering if you can pull off cooking that great meal, check out these five reasons why you should put your excuses to bed and get in the kitchen to make something delicious!
1. Cooking is improvisational.
Following a recipe is a good idea, but not mandatory. If you stick with what you know tastes good to you, you’ll have a successful dish. Some people get intimidated, because they feel like they have to be creative in the kitchen or have some sense of what’s going on in how the dish is coming together for it to be a success. Any dish is a success if it tastes good to you, regardless of if you followed a recipe or made something up along the way.
2. Good food doesn’t have to be complicated.
Even when we go out to eat, some of the best food that comes out to our tables is often the least treated. Think steakhouse food: the steak is thrown on the grill with some seasonings: minimal effort. The baked potato side dish is just thrown in the oven then buttered up before it hits your plate: easy. The steamed broccoli is quickly set in a pan over hot water, then seasoned: simple. Some of the best food that we’re willing to pay big bucks for isn’t hard to duplicate at home.
3. You don’t have to know “how to cook” to actually cook.
Just because you don’t spend hours in the kitchen or haven’t gone to culinary school doesn’t mean you can’t cook. We’ve all been taught to boil noodles, grill a steak, and form hamburger patties. All these things your parents taught you growing up or you picked up on while doing your homework from the kitchen table, they all count as cooking techniques. If you can boil water or heat a pan, you can cook.
4. No one will know if you screw something up.
If it becomes inedible, throw it out and start over. Whether you’re cooking for one or for your entire family, only the people there on that particular day will bear witness to the fact that you’ve forgotten an ingredient, added too much seasoning, or had to cut the burned edges off the rice. Next time, you’ll know how to fix the mistake and make the dish even better!
5. You don’t need a ton of fancy equipment.
So many stores want us to believe that we need a lemon zester to zest lemons. You can use a box grater for zesting any citrus fruit as well as grating cheese and other vegetables to add to a dish. Product marketing tends to get the best of us. The truth is, you only need a couple wooden spoons, a good knife or two, a large stock pot, and a skillet and you have just about everything you need to put together a ton of mouth-watering meals. Don’t let the issue of not having a specific tool or kitchen device keep you from cooking for yourself.Cooking doesn’t have to be difficult, fancy, or time-consuming. Once you get into your kitchen, set aside your ideas of what cooking will be like, and put your skills to work, you’ll eventually get comfortable putting together meals and be able to impress not only yourself with your cooking prowess, but your friends and family as well.
Rachael is the blogger behind KitchenCourses.com and is the author of How to Cook For Yourself: A Complete Beginner’s Guide. She writes about her passion for food, eating well while saving money, and inspires people to get familiar with their kitchens and cook for themselves.