How do you get excited about cooking?

[hamchan]

Wait, what? Eating is a necessity, but cooking isn't neither is watching TV. Technically showering isn't a necessity either. My mom was a greenhouse manager and used to employ a guy who didn't "believe in showers." He hadn't bathed in decades.

I agree that making food at home need not be time consuming though.

[bzbee]

Cooking is a necessity, kind of like cleaning your house, taking care of your belongings. You don't hire a person to do it, unless you are really rich and like to waste your money, so cooking is the same thing, you don't pay someone to do it, unless you are really don't care about your money.

[jaynorth]

I just love cooking.Its my hobby you you can say. I always do experiments while cooking. My favourite cuisine is Chinese so I just love to make Chinese dishes for myself and for my family also. They all just love dishes made by me.
So my suggestion to you is that try to learn those food which is your favourite because when you want to eat your favourite dish you can cook by yourself at home and believe me it will be far better than restaurant.

[ua_guy]

I don't love cooking but I do it more, and more often. How? Instead of learning to love to cook, I learned to really dislike restaurants and other store-bought food. Fact is, you don't get a lot for your money. Often, people who don't care about you or your health are preparing the food you buy at a restaurant or in a package, and they're taking your money. Especially lower quality foods. It's all preservatives, fillers, stuff designed to make you think it's food, but it's really not. And it comes at the expense of your health and pocketbook. Cooking my own food is often a better option, given the choice. But you have to form a habit when faced with the choice to just buy something/ eat out, or cook at home. That's tough to do and comes with practice. I've literally had moments where I've sat down with a sandwich that I made for myself and told myself "at least I'm not putting absolute crap in my body, or spending another $10."

Cooking is also a great skill to have. Even if you're not a chef or a "foodie" or tuning into cooking shows all the time or whatever, being able to put together a solid meal for yourself and other people without referencing cookbooks or being "afraid" of how it turns out, is a real skill. It's both admirable and useful, and that was an impetus behind learning how to cook in my own home and for myself. It doesn't have to be complicated stuff, either. Keeping it simple doesn't mean you have to make everything with prepared/packaged ingredients. So get to cooking

To start out, be hungry when you cook for yourself. Make things you like. Do it in ways that are enjoyable. If you have a pretty yard or patio and like spending time outside, then grill. If it's cold and rainy, and will be home all day, make something in a crock pot. The house will fill with wonderful smells all day. INVITE PEOPLE OVER. Make it fun. If you drink, it's not wrong to pour a glass of wine or catch a pre-meal buzz from a cocktail poured at home. Make it fun, make occasions out of it, make friends with it. Just don't become an alcoholic. lol

In fact, that was one of the ways I learned how to make new stuff. Invite a friend over to cook new meals. Each brings half the ingredients, both share doing dishes and clean up, equally. If what you make sucks, at least you can laugh about it. If what you make is good, write it down for when it sounds appealing next time.

So that's it. I do it because I take more pride in the skill itself more than I like the idea of cooking. I like the events that can center around cooking more than cooking itself. I like the company that cooking can provide, more than the cooking. It's also liberating from the expense of eating at actual restaurants, and it's liberating from a health standpoint if all you eat is fast food.

[figuringmoneyout]

It took me a while to like it. I didn't really until I started challenging myself to make restaurant style meals. I found that once I worked up to being able to make the kinds of foods I would normally order at restaurants I enjoyed it a lot more than when I was a newbie making basic (boring) dishes.

[autoxer]

Check out www.budgetbytes.com, for recipes that are written with your budget in mind. They are very simple and easy to follow.

Do you know what I hate more than food prep... paying someone else to do it.

[FrugalSensei]

Sometimes I like cooking and sometimes I just don't feel like it. I always hated doing the dishes. Something I do that saves me money and helps to limit my days of preparing food and washing dishes is to use a slow-cooker a lot. I'll make soups, stews and a roast here and there. I'll even make casseroles or a bunch of enchiladas at once then freeze them in meal portions. Resealable freezer bags work great, even for soup. I cook like I have a big family so that I can stash portions away for when I'm lazy and just want to push buttons on a microwave. I do this 1-3 times a month which guarantees that I'll have a variety to choose from in my freezer when I just don't want to cook but don't want to spend money on eating out either.

[samsam]

I cook for my dears. And my mother conveyed me a lot when I was a child

[Joe Moore]

The problem with restaurant food is that in most cases you are the one who compromise especially if you have special diets like yourself (vegetarian). Initially, I hated cooking but I realized that I would learn cooking if I want to eat what I like. Start small with frying eggs, past and so on. You will see that it is not that hard and you will improve fast. Think a few ways of making cooking enjoyable. For example, watch something on your laptop while cooking or cook a recipe from a youtube video.

[JoeP]

I personally get excited when I challenge myself to use a specific cooking technique.

Case in point: We've almost always used non-stick frying pans, and while they are convenient, they really limit you in achieving certain results. For our anniversary, we're planning on gifting ourselves an All-Clad 12" stainless steel frying pan so that I can work on my pan sear technique.

Also with grilling, I enjoy using charcoal a lot, so grilling cookbooks, techniques, tools, etc. get me excited to try new things on the grill.

[Joe Moore]

Challenging yourself is a good idea. You will make some inedible food in the process but you will enjoy when you get the hang of it.

[Sinbad43]

I enjoy making specific fancy dishes. Something like making a peach cobbler can get me excited. But making something more normal, I'm less motivated to make.

So I find a dish that sounds delicious then decide to make it!

[fruitbowlk]

I started enjoying cooking when I seen the endless possibilities of what you can create. And how easy it is to create them. Signing up for a meal planning site was also a great idea with me it helped me cook in season and with whole foods. I was able to go to the farmer market and see veggies that I have never seen before and that within it self is so exciting to know what we have food growing that is so beautiful and flavorful but that's different than what we have in the regular grocery store. ex. fractal broccoli, tuscan kale.

[Like2Plan]

Check out www.budgetbytes.com, for recipes that are written with your budget in mind. They are very simple and easy to follow.

Do you know what I hate more than food prep... paying someone else to do it.

Thanks for that website. I just tried the Baked Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal and it is really yummy!