As I continue to get more intuitive with making food and food planning, I found making a plan weekly helpful for a couple of reasons. The first is it takes away any anxiety, especially if you are trying to follow some rules, dietary restrictions, or something along those lines. Secondly, it creates a safety net for when life happens, you will no longer need to respond by driving to your favourite fast-food joint because you didn’t anticipate (fill in your situation here). Next, it creates accountability. Also, a food plan helps with making a grocery list too, I call that a double win. Lastly, it becomes easier week after week.
Category: Fear
the benefits of learning to cook
I have been doing a lot of reflecting lately, and I was thinking about some of the benefits of learning to cook, and thought I would share them here so if anyone is thinking about learning to cook (like I did) or even get better, this may motivate you into action.
Adult-ing
The most obvious one for me, is that I felt like I finally grew up into a real “adult”. In this regard, I had always felt like a fraud adult. I have a great career, husband, home, etc, but I couldn’t for the life of me invite anyone over unless we ordered in. Now I feel like Martha Stewart or my mom even who can be the hostess with the mostess.
Cost Savings – kinda
This may seem like a no brainer, but for the life of me, my grocery bills are insanely expensive. I think I spend for 2 adults about $1500/month. In comparison to about $2400/month eating out. So yes, I guess I save about $900/month, except, I keep on hearing how people feed a family of 4 for $1200/month.
Creativity
I am a relatively creative person. I grew up doing arts and crafts, and as I focused on my career and all my goals, creativity lost its prominent place. I still get to be “creative” at work, but not in a artsy fartsy way. Learning to cook has given me an outlet to make art on my plate every night. I watch Chopped for plating ideas and stalk sales for nice dinnerware, I have yet to buy my dream dish set, but that’s a whole other blog.
Personal Accountability
I find the more times I cook at home against my food plan I usually prep on Sunday’s, the more likely I am to do my other tasks like running, working out, visiting friends, etc. I find that learning to cook helped me increase my personal accountability. Even more so, I have no excuses on eating food that’s crap and makes me feel bad.
Sense of Achievement
Lastly, I get a huge sense of achievement. It feels good to make something, to create something from scratch and not be sure of the outcome. In elementary school we had sports day, and everyone got a participation ribbon. I thought that was lame, I wanted the get first place, or second, or even third. I strived for the sense of achievement, and now I can get it every-damn-day.
If you ever come over, I will ask you if it tastes good, looks good, and what would make it better. So be prepared to wear your critiquing hat.