As I wrote in another post, I’ve been cooking a lot more lately. This is a necessity and it’s also a way for me to pass some time each day (because each day does feel like it takes forever). There are still some things about cooking that are difficult for me, plus there are a few additional challenges.
A friend of mine asked me why I don’t like to cook, and I mentioned that I don’t mind cooking, I just don’t really like to cook for just me. Of course, that got me thinking about why that is and maybe I don’t feel like I’m worth cooking for (but that’s a big rabbit hole I could go down). But I think it’s just that I haven’t had the time or motivation to cook, and my kitchen might not be the best setup for cooking.
Well, I definitely have the time now. The kitchen setup is something that I’m working on. Motivation will probably always be a struggle. But the new struggle is also not being able to plan what I might want to cook because I also don’t know what I will be able to get for groceries. This is making me a little stressed out with cooking because I don’t have recipes that I feel comfortable enough with making huge substitutions. But I’m trying my best and also making a lot of things that are pretty basic and simple.
But just because I’m making easy things doesn’t mean I won’t screw them up. I’ve had a few really great cooking wins with making some awesome stuff, but I’ve also had some epic failures. Like ruining an entire recipe because it got to an unsafe temperature but not hot enough to actually cook (and I didn’t notice it for long enough that I didn’t think it could be saved). Throwing out food is not easy, especially when it’s the meal I planned to eat that night for dinner. But in that case, I didn’t think risking food poisoning was worth it.
In the past, that failure might have made me not want to cook for a while, but I don’t really have that luxury right now. I do need to cook almost every day. And while a lot of days are just making something simple like eggs, that still is cooking every day. Sometimes I do have a day where it’s just leftovers or things that don’t require cooking, but those days are rare. Being forced to cook like I am now is probably a good thing, but I’m looking forward to when I can cook without the stress of everything else going on.
I am far from a perfect cook. I know I will screw up so many more recipes in the future. Hopefully, those screwups won’t be complete failures where I have to throw out the food, but that might happen too. I can only try my best and try to make this time of forced cooking the most productive I can and hope that I will come out of this time of isolation with a new habit and a stronger skill set in the kitchen.
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Lack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week)
Baby Steps Back To Cooking (or My Check In Kicked My Butt Into Gear)
Cooking At Hipcooks (or Remembering Cooking Doesn’t Have To Be Hard)
Forced To Do Some Cooking (or Making The Best Of Things)
Baby Steps With Cooking (or I’m Cautiously Optimistic)
Still Cooking (or It’s Almost A Habit)
