Having good ingredients in the house
Posted by kathryn in Vegetables and Easier eating
Over the last few weeks I feel like I’ve got my cooking mojo back. For a while it had disappeared. Meals seemed difficult and I couldn’t decide what to cook. My usual ability to make a meal from the cupboards just wasn’t working and I was finding it hard to get enthusiastic about cooking.
This happens to me occasionally. While I usually spend a lot of time thinking about food, planning what we’re going to eat and cooking. Just sometimes the urge and interest deserts me.
As my enthusiasm has returned, I’ve been reminded of one of the fundamental principles of eating well – the importance of having good ingredients in the house.
Usually we get a vegetable box each week. However, for various reasons I’d recently dropped the subscription. A combination of being away from home, forgetting to re-subscribe and foolishly thinking we didn’t need it, meant we went about six weeks without our regular vegetable box.
The return of my mojo has exactly coincided with the renewal of my vegie box subscription. Which has been a good reminder of how much this helps me to eat well. Like Cindy from Where’s the Beef, we usually get a vegetable box each week and it’s the foundation of our meals. Having the vegetables in the house means having really good ingredients to play with and be inspired by. It also motivates me to cook, as I hate the thought of wasting the produce.
As my enthusiasm has returned I’ve been cooking up a storm. A dangerously sagging bunch of silverbeet was used in this dairy free Spinach Pie; a hunk of pumpkin was roasted and combined with chickpeas in this soup; and I made Have Cake Will Travel’s Caraway Seed Bread. I re-made a couple of old-old favourites, including Martha Rose Shulman’s Lettuce and Potato Soup and Jamie Oliver’s recipe for Baked Beetroot with Balsamic. I’ve also been loving Alice Hart’s Vegetarian book (so much so that I’ll be posting a review on my Everyday Kitchen blog at Reader’s Digest later in the week) and have made her Spiced Roasted Chickpeas and roasted Tahini Seeds.
I haven’t just been following recipes either, I’ve also cooked some delicious meals, making it up as I go along – my normal way of cooking. We’ve been particularly enjoying a combination of thinly sliced and panfried eggplant cooked with chilli, kaffir lime, fresh lime, red lentils with just a few tablespoons of coconut cream to thicken the mixture.
It’s been a good reminder of something I know, but sometimes forget or disregard. Good ingredients and having a fridge full of food actually motivates me to cook and eat well. By taking away a lot of decisions, a vegie box simplifies our weekly meals and makes good food easier and less bothersome.
What motivates you to cook and eat well?
09 May, 2012
Comments
Your meals sound excellent! Having good ingredients around really helps me too. Having extra time and inspiration definitely doesn’t hurt either.
Cooking mojos are mysterious things aren’ t they? Mine tends to be much more present in the first half of the year than the second for some reason. It’s reassuring to hear that yours tends to wander a bit now and then too.
We’ve been getting a veg box semi-regularly and knowing that I’ve got a fridge full of fairly expensive & good quality veg to use is definitely motivating. I like the creativity and planning around making sure that I use everything up and in a sensible order. And I’ve been really disliking going to the supermarket of late so I’ve got round that by getting all the basics delivered instead.
Going on holiday has been the biggest help though – we’ve been in San Francisco for a week where they are so enthusiastic about their food it’s positively contagious. And we ate out a lot, something we rarely do at home. I’d forgotten how many ideas you get just from reading menus. For me it’s been a bit about taking stock of priorities too – I’ve been all work and not enough (kitchen) play time of late.
So my kitchen mojo is definitely here this week (sourdough pancakes, lemon and lavendar chicken and lentil, broccoli & feta salad), but I may need to petition for another holiday to get it back when it drifts again!
It’s great to hear that you’re feeling inspired in the kitchen right now! Your eggplant invention sounds fantastic. I’m actually missing attentive home cooking a little right now – we’ve had a few weeks that combined travel, high work demands and a lot of eating out. But we were just delivered watercress for the first time and we’ll both be at home, trying it out in a new soup recipe tonight. I’m looking forward to it.
You’re right, having time and a clear, uncluttered head also helps with the mojo.
Sophie, it sounds like your mojo is well and truly BACK and I can’t stop thinking about sourdough pancakes – your recipe and if so, will you be posting (nudge, nudge).
Oh Cindy, I absolutely adore watercress. But you have to use it quickly. Watercress soup is beautiful and I also use it in salads. I’ve actually made a positively delicious potato, eggplant and avocado salad in the past – lovely combination (she says immodestly).
I totally hear you.
I think for me the key is in planning and shop for ingredients needed for the week. Having a lot of veggies ready is the key to hearty but balanced meal… I have been in the habit of meal planning for 12 weeks and it is so effective. I don’t always cook the meals I plan, but having a guide on hand is so much easier to get that right portion of protein-veg in our household.
Also. I find reading blogs and healthy cookbooks/magazines help… If only that all magazines in Australia will publish the nutrition content of their recipes! Most of those in the US did, and I find it helpful.
Let’s start with YOU as a source of inspiration. The original and thoughtfully curated recipes & your wise, realistic advice here & at Reader’s Digest inspire me to not only eat well but prepare familiar ingredients in new-to-me ways and combinations.
And even more than I ever imagined, my community garden plot inspires me to eat well. I’ll be honest, though, in spring my gardening mojo is much stronger than my cooking mojo. But now, thanks to you, I know how I’m going to use my abundant chard (silverbeet) harvest: in an adaptation of the dairy-free Spinach Pie recipe.
Hi there Anh, it’s interesting to find out what works for people. And often these strategies are highly individual. For me meal planning doesn’t work. I just get bored with the idea. But that’s just me. I regularly recommend this to clients and especially when you’re trying a new way of eating it can be invaluable. Well done you for making the change.
Elaine – you gorgeous person you. It sounds like your community garden is acting a bit like my vegie box, the produce and what’s available is guiding the cooking. Oh yes and the silverbeet pie is really good. I have another bunch of silverbeet this week, which needs using up, so I’m going to make the pie again. I cut the original one into 8 pieces and froze most of them. It’s been a meal saver over the last few week, when we’ve been busy. I’ve just got a piece out in the morning, heated it up in the oven and then served with some steamed vegies or a big salad. I hope you enjoy.
i just LOVE cooking at home. As much as restaurant food and takeaways can be easier for busy people… you have to think – what sort of cheap dodgy ingredients ate they putting in there? Food from scratch, from home, is ALWAYS the best (and tastiest!)
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