Cooking is often seen in two ways:
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​Cooking as a creative outlet. This is someone who loves to create new recipes, learns new cooking techniques, and loves to try different foods.
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​Cooking as a necessary evil. This is the person who sees cooking as an obligation. It's how you feed yourself and your family. Basically, if you want to eat, you have to cook in some manner at some point during the week.
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​If you fall into the second category, this episode is for you.

Limited time for preparation, grocery shopping, and cooking
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Too many options in the store or online for ingredients and recipes; difficulty deciding on the fly with a busy schedule.
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If you have a large family or if you are feeding many people, you must consider many preferences, allergies, diets, and intolerances. Finding one meal to meet all these needs can be a challenge. And then to do it day in and day out for week after week makes for an almost impossible task.
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Time and effort around cleaning dishes, tools, and surface area after cooking. Sensory issues with certain textures or smells related to cleanup.
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Frustrations arise from being in the kitchen rather than spending time with family or doing other enjoyable activities.

Think about what is most important to you with regard to cooking to help prioritize your time, attention, and effort.

Examples: Health, Time, Money, Food Quality, Allergies/intolerances, Taste Preferences, Cooking Skill, Familial Responsibilities
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Analyze your expectations regarding meal time and kitchen responsibilities and be more flexible by reviewing your values and letting go of some unimportant expectations.

Examples: All family members must eat together, dinner at 7 pm, responsibilities of preparation and clean up)​
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Pair what you don’t want to do with what you do want to do. In this case, while you cook, listen to your favorite podcast or audiobook, listen to music, call a friend, have a glass of wine, or spend quality time with your partner or children.

Simplify by cooking the same thing, which requires less work in preparation. When overwhelmed with recipe options, look at only one book or one website for inspiration.

Know what you have in your kitchen cabinets and get rid of what you don’t need. Keep quality tools and organize the space in a way that makes sense and creates ease (categorize, donate, and contain all the items in your kitchen).

Respect your creation by being mindful of the presentation of your meal. Garnish and appreciate what you have created.

Improve confidence in the kitchen by taking the time to learn new skills. This can be a solo endeavor or a family experience.

Take a look at what you have and identify what are necessary and unnecessary tools. Here are a few things to assess:

Once you have determined your most essential items, consider only buying quality cookware and kitchen tools when needed. Check out these links when you are in the market:

Reconsider the arrangement and organization of your kitchen to improve functionality; things don’t have to go where they usually or “always” go. Take the time to ask yourself, “is this really working the best it can?” and rearrange to make the space work for you.

Example: utensils in a drawer - maybe they are better in a caddy on the counter

Planning will help to minimize thinking time and reduce friction and frustration when it comes time to cook.

During this show segment, we introduce four ways to interact with the material presented: A question to answer, a quest to complete, an aspect of creativity we've noticed this week, and a quote to ponder.

When it comes to finding a solution for your kitchen problem, it may be beneficial to reflect on why you don’t like cooking/being in the kitchen. So what is it about cooking that you don’t like?

Cook something new this week or donate the things in your kitchen that you are not using.

Aldi found creative solutions by providing an incentive for returning grocery carts to the store (quarter in and quarter back), which eliminates the need to task an employee with parking lot cleanup.

"I hate it when I go to the kitchen looking for food, and all I find are ingredients."
​- Unknown