Cooking food is more than what fills our stomachs and gives us the energy to work and play all day. It may be healthy cooking or deliciously, rich dishes, cooking our favorite foods or new recipes bring us new experiences and taste sensations. Unfortunately the frozen food aisle has turned into our best friend or even worse…the neighboring fast food drive-thru. Time is of an essence and but there is no need to short change yourself by settling for less than great food.
If you find yourself at a loss as to what to cook then consider first what type of cuisine you are in the mood for. There are free recipes for cooking food anywhere you look. Soup cans, magazines and the internet boast a virtual smorgasbord of dining delights by offering up recipes. Take a moment, think about what you are craving and then find a recipe. Make sure the ingredients can be purchased locally.
The second step in cooking food is reading through the recipe and making sure you have the correct cooking utensils. Yes, it is possible to improvise on some utensils but a fork does not take the place of a knife. By reading through the recipe, you can see exactly what tools you will need for the job at hand. This is also the step where ingredients are checked off. There is nothing worse than being in the middle of cooking and realize you have forgotten a key ingredient. As with utensils, some ingredients can be substituted but there are some that are fundamentally important and cannot be switched out.
Cooking food requires patience. Far too often a budding chef tries to take a shortcut in cooking only to find out that there is no room for speeding things up. If a recipe calls for baking twenty minutes at three hundred degrees, it does not bake faster by turning the oven up as high as it will go. Instead of a delicious baked dish you will wind up with a kitchen filled with smoke.
Ingredients and your kitchen is the blank canvas waiting for your culinary masterpiece. It may be nothing more than a pressed Cuban sandwich but the point is that you made it. If you have patience, the right cooking utensils, the proper ingredients and a cooking source, the world is yours for the eating. Eat, drink and be happy that you have created something yourself.
