To ask for tips from people who enjoy cooking!

[Greenville]

I absolutely hate cooking. I avoid it alot and unfortunately because of this we end up eating lots of crap takeaways and ready meals.

I've tried getting into it but can't. I have bought cookery books but try one recipe and then its left collecting dust. I've tried doing a meal plan but only realise I only know how to cook around 10 meals, half of which are just meh and I don't enjoy.

I want to stop wasting money on takeaways and eating crap and to cook everyday.

When I wake up and think about cooking the first thing I struggle is what to cook. I don't know what to cook! Then it's I don't have the ingredients in the house and it's too much hassle/ no time to go shopping so then it's just easy to get a takeaway!

Help me break this cycle please!

How do you enjoy cooking? Why? How do you think about cooking? To me it's a chore.
Where am I going wrong with food planning?
I want to fall in love with food and cooking!

I’ll answer as a fellow loather of cooking: go simple and go quick. I bought an Instant Pot and an accompanying cook book. I know that I won’t bother cooking if I have to chop up a dozen things in different ways, get ten different pans and trays dirty, and keep an eye on the oven. If I simply need to prep a handful of ingredients and do everything in one pot with the touch of a button, I’m more likely to. Tray-bake meals fall into the same category.

People who love cooking don’t seem to mind all the faff and generally always have a stock of random ingredients, so often don’t understand how those who don’t can’t enjoy cooking.

If you don't love it, minimise the time you're spending on it. Food is fuel it doesn't matter if it has a fancy sauce.

Don't worry about recipe books, just write a list of quick meals your family will eat. Have about 20 and just rotate these.
e.g.
omelette
baked potatos
beans on toast
fish fingers
(loads of good threads on MN of basic meals).
Add frozen/tinned veg.

Make sure meals over the day are "balanced" for your families nutrition needs (veg/dairy/protein/carbs). Depends on kids ages etc.

Everyone take a supermarket multivitamin daily.

What do you like to cook? That’s a good place to start.

Also keep it simple! Especially if you don’t enjoy cooking start with simple basic meals that don’t require lots of ingredients.

We buy stuff that can be used for multi meals to help as well.
So plan a week around 2 or 3 types of meat that can be used in several recipes. Same of other ingredients. If you need carrots of a Shepard’s pie try making other meals that need carrots etc

Oh gosh- I've already tried that!. I actually have an Instant Pot in its box unopened, brand new! I've never used it! 😯

I think a lost case!

I love cooking, it’s really creative and I enjoy pottering in the kitchen, listening to music, maybe a glass of wine... I enjoy thinking up new recipes and spend a lot of time watching cookery shows and reading cookery books.
I rarely follow a recipe step by step, I just find them useful for ideas and techniques. Maybe try a few different books to find ones that suit you better, I really like Jamie Oliver’s ones, especially 15 and 30 minute meals... the 7 Ways one he had out recently might work well for you, recipes based around popular staples, could help with your meal planning/shopping.

Theres lots of fuss about food planning and prepping. I just plan a few dinners before I go shopping.
As for prepping sometimes I double up a mince dinner or marinade meat the day before.
Who's on your household? Can they help you.
What sort of takeaways are you buying? Curry or pizza can be fairly simple. You can premade pizza dough now- so you can knock up a pizza in 10 mins.

Start with what you enjoy eating! No point in cooking food that you don't like.

If you just don't enjoy it, there isn't really anything that anyone can do to solve this. Just accept it and make life easier for yourself.

What food do you like? Cook those things rather than food you don't like.

What do you and your family like to get first? Don't bother with cookery books, there are millions of receipes online. The BBC website has a great range

Instead of stressing about what meals to cook, start looking at what you need to eat, to be healthy. That information is easy enough to come by but basically I base many of my meals around salads and vegetables. Obviously you don’t cook a salad but a salad with some chicken makes a lovely meal. A chicken is easy to cook, the supermarket ones all have instructions on them.

Another easy meal is chicken with vegetables. Again veg is easy to cook.

We have jacket potatoes once a week, with cheese, beans, or perhaps homemade coleslaw and tuna.

A very simple homemade tomato sauce is easy and poured over pasta with cheese on top is easy.

I slow cook a lot of the meat I cook. Choose cheap cuts, like shoulder of lamb or pork. If you slow cook them they are bullet proof.

Try and present your food nicely and take your time to enjoy it. Try and fall in love with food and then wanting to cook nice healthy meals will follow.

I hope this helps. 👩‍🍳

Sorry one thing I should have perhaps mentioned is that I'm Asian so I'd say 3/4 of food we eat is Asian and the rest "western" food. So I think half the time I find that really overwhelming. The recipes even simple ones seem to be such a faff.
I wasn't taught how to cook and have picked things up as an adult. My mum is a good cook but she loathed it too!

'One pot' meals and traybakes are your best bet, super simple and tasty

Try Hello Fresh or Gousto

Think about what food you actually like eating and use that as a start point - there’s no point expending time and effort on food you don’t actually even want to eat!

Then I’d find some simple recipes - BBC Good Food have recipes that are good and have a difficulty rating and have a go. Read through the recipe first so a) you have everything to hand and b) you know what you’re going to be doing.

One thing I would steer clear of though, is Jamie’s 30/15 minute books. I’m an experienced cook and I can’t make some of those recipes in that time without either making an awful lot of mess (multiple pans etc - I bet Mr Oliver doesn’t have to do his own washing up…) or relying on convenience ingredients. The latter is fine if that’s what you want to do, but they do tend to be more expensive.

I couldn't be bothered with meal planning, and like to eat what I fancy that day. The thing that restimulated interest for me was getting a veg box each week. They are great for giving you new recipe ideas, and a bit of structure to make your meals around.

You might find the “The Roasting Tin” books useful as they’re generally straightforward and “put it in a tray and put it in the oven” type stuff.

Simply Cook might appeal to you. They send a box with 4 recipe cards and the spices/sauces to turn quite ordinary ingredients into a simple, tasty meal

Here's a code. If you sign up, you get a free box, and do would I simplycook.com/invite/60VNCR

Hello Fresh and Gousto are similar, but lots of packaging as they send all the food too

My main tip would be to keep it simple eg make a roast chicken with ready made roast potatoes and peas. Once you're confident doing the chicken, then learn to make roast potatoes yourself. Once you can di chicken and potatoes, then have a go at gravy

Make big pot of curry and freeze some

We used Hello Fresh then switched to Gousto after a few months.
Totally changed me from an adequate but uninspired cook with a husband with unadventurous taste in food, to someone whose only problem is choosing which one of dozens of failsafe recipes we are cooking tonight. With a husband who is equally keen to shop and cook.
We keep gousto recipes we like and follow them. We now only get a box every few weeks

Get things like frozen mash, frozen roast potatoes etc. It is more expensive than making your own but less expensive than takeaways! Frozen or tinned veg. Make it as easy as possible. As a pp suggested, tray bakes, things like a slow cooker or instant pot, where you just chuck everything in. I don’t think you can go from hating cooking to loving it. I never have. I don’t cook anything that requires more than about 10/15 minutes of effort!

It sounds so obvious but yes writing a list of foods I enjoy is a great starting point. I've realised half the stuff I do know how to cook, I don't actually enjoy!

Have you tried things like Gousto/simply cook/hello fresh?

I really enjoy cooking but when I got in a bit of a rut I tried some of these for some inspiration.

I didn't stick with them for long as once I had a few more ideas I am one of those people who have a big store cupboard of stuff etc and didn't really need pre portioned out spices etc.

I could see how they would be great for a less confident cook or someone who wasn't ever going to 'cook from scratch'' regularly enough to warrant a cupboard full of ingredients.

I would also say don't over complicate stuff though. One of the favourite meals in this house is e.g. pork chops/lamb chops put in an oven proof dish with leftover boiled potatoes and some sliced onion, butter and salt and pepper all cooked together. Very simple, minimal washing up and very tasty.

What’s your favourite thing to eat? Start there.

Maybe have a look at Gousto - they send you just the right amount of the random ingredients you need for each recipe and it was a game changer for us. You can look at the recipes before hand to see how easy they are and they have a selection of easy to prepare and 10 min meals.

I’m also someone who doesn’t really enjoy cooking but just does it.

List some meals that you all like. Maybe we can help find some quick easy recipes for them.
Or go to bbcgoodfood for recipes. Jamie Oliver’s site is good too.
Find shortcuts like using a paste, prepared garlic and ginger (frozen or jars), get some music, podcast or audiobook on in the kitchen and get cooking.