From Culinary Zero to Hero: How I learned to Love Cooking

Zero confidence in your ability to cook for yourself? Fret not. At the age of 24, I moved to a new country 9,680 miles away from the comfort of a full pantry and mom’s home cooked meals. 

I have committed so many cooking atrocities that it’s a miracle I’m still alive. I’ve put a fork in the microwave, made the kettle explode by boiling it with no water (several times) and eaten pink chicken more times than I’d care to count. 

Addling to my sense of inadequacy, my sister is one of those people who can whip up a tantalising dish without breaking a sweat. 

But, recently,  I’ve had a breakthrough in my relationship with cooking and have begun offering to prepare meals  for family and friends - and I am finally ENJOYING it. 

Cooking my own meals each evening now gives me a sense of control over my life and helps me to live with intention, and I find preparing my ingredients before cooking helps me to be more mindful and conscious of what I put into my body. 

Through the trials and tribulations of learning to feed my body and my soul, these are the tricks that have helped me redefine my relationship with cooking

Writing out Recipe’s by Hand 

I keep a notebook with hand scrawled recipes on my kitchen countertop as I find it takes me so long to process what a recipe is calling for. Writing the recipe out by hand also helps me to focus on the steps involved and I often rewrite the recipe while going through my cupboards to check that I’ve got all the ingredients I need to hand. I can’t be the only one who’s made a lasagne with no lasagne sheets before, right?

The Practice of Preparation 

The French call this “Mise en Place”: simply round up all of the necessary  ingredients and arrange them in order of use and then prep them as you would assembling flat pack Ikea furniture. It’s also the perfect, systematic way to check which ingredients your missing. 

Be Realistic

I can’t count the number of recipes I have added to my home screen on my phone, only to never open them again. While spatchcock poussin with gremolata sounds amazing, it’s unlikely that I’m going to spend almost 3 hours cooking this on a Tuesday evening. Instead, I’ll look for recipes that I know I can cook easily enough in a realistic timeframe but that stretch me enough that I feel like I’ve just won Masterchef when it goes well. 

On the other Hand, Good Things Take Time

In this super fast paced life, it can be hard to strike a balance. It’s easy to dive into recipes that take 30 minutes or less but always give yourself extra time to prep and change direction if you’re en route to a kitchen disaster. 

Plan for Leftovers

Putting in the extra time to cook a delicious meal is more rewarding when you can enjoy your efforts more than once. So, ensure you have food storage solutions that actually work for you. Look for containers that have multiple uses, that are lightweight and will travel well. For example, a lunch bag - like SoYoung’s Lunch Poche! - so you can take delicious leftovers to work with you. 

Shop our selection of Lunch Poches Now