June 19, 2020
I have learned the best place to start in the kitchen is with a plan: plan your meals, plan your grocery shopping, plan to grow as a cook, and plan to share your food with others. I enjoy cooking, and I love baking even more; however, not everyone enjoys cooking. Whether you enjoy cooking or not, to be a good keeper of your home, and to maintain life, food is necessary. Every keeper of their home should have some meals they can make without recipes, and should be willing to learn some more, especially if your family likes to change it up a bit. In order to improve your skill in the kitchen, create a plan and stick to it.
Plan your meals and shopping. When you plan ahead for what you will make, it takes the stress out of the question, “What are we having for dinner?” I would start with at least 14 meals that you enjoy and are relatively easy to make. This gives you a two week rotation, and you can always change it up when you want to. Cookbooks, recipe apps, and meal planning apps can make this even easier. There are apps or websites that allow you to type in ingredients and they give you recipes you can prepare with those ingredients. There are some meal planning apps that allow you to pick out the recipes you will use that week and it automatically generates a shopping list of what you will need to make all of those recipes. Some of them even link to an app, like Walmart, for you to place your grocery order ahead of time! Some of our quick and easy meals include quesadillas, spaghetti, and pot roast. I would suggest checking multiple stores for sales and coupons before you shop. With most stores offering some type of grocery pick up right now, it makes it even easier to shop multiple stores in one day (without even getting the kids out of the car)! If you do go into the store, beware of certain “sales tricks'' like end caps. If something is on sale and promoted by placement on an end cap, make sure you still go down the aisle to check for similar items. A name brand on sale may still be more expensive than the store brand. Sometimes the store brand is also on sale, but the name brand gets the end cap. You can always go back, or, chances are, the sale item is also in the aisle. If you don’t use grocery pick up, but still need to bring your kids to the store, try to write your list in the order that you travel in the store. This will help you save time gathering items. I use an “old fashioned” calendar to plan, but I still like to order groceries for pick up rather than bring my kids shopping with me. You do whatever form of planning works best for you!
Plan to grow as a cook. Whether you are just beginning your own home or have been at it for years, I would advise you to learn new recipes regularly! If you are just starting out, I recommend getting a good cookbook that has basic recipes that are easy to follow. Each week try to make at least one new recipe and practice the others you already know. We love all kinds of food in our house, and we can be pretty adventurous. We like to try everything from Latin American to French to Italian to Asian Cuisine. Even if you aren’t quite as brave or confident in your cooking, there is always room to learn and grow. For those just learning to cook, I’ve found that the Big Red Betty Crocker Cookbook is a wonderful place to start. It has very basic recipes as well as several pages that demonstrate technique and include pictures. This cookbook has your basic, everyday-type meals. My pancakes, waffles, muffins, breads, cupcakes and cakes are usually made with recipes that at least started from this book. I have also made several of the chicken, beef and pork meals. This book also gives a whole page to different cuts of meat as well as roasting guides that I regularly use as a reference. This is the place to start! The more recipes I try, the more options I have for my meal planning. As much as I love books, I must admit the internet is a wonderful thing. You can type, “What to make with chicken,” and have hundreds of recipes at your fingertips. I have found that downloading a few apps on my phone has been worth the time so I can save the recipes I really like and that worked well. Not only are recipes easy to find on the internet, but there are often comments as well. These comments help you see how recipes worked out for other people or how they changed it. I like to try the original recipe the first time out, unless all of the comments mention a similar change or complaint. Then I like to try out some of the changes that others made. Some of the suggestions have made me more willing to take risks in my cooking.
We love to share our food. Even if you are just starting out as a cook, share something you know you can make well. Sometimes we have a sitdown meal, and sometimes just a buffet of snacks and drinks. One of my favorite ways to share something new I’m working on is to bring it to a party or “dish to pass” type gathering. This gives you multiple taste testers (and you can always pick up chips or something on your way if it doesn’t turn out)! When we invite guests over there is usually some type of food on the table. I have learned that sitting around the table with a meal is a good way to get to know people and share the gospel with them. People open up and share their life when you share food. Jesus often taught people around the table. The food doesn’t matter as much as the opportunity to talk to people about how God has been working in your life and theirs. Jesus shared with his disciples over a meal. We are also called to make disciples, and the dinner table is a great place to start!