Anonymous wrote:Yes, I enjoy cooking. However, there’s a difference between cooking and getting dinner on the table for a family seven nights a week for years on end. The latter is a chore.

+1. For me the issue is that someone is always hungry, and there are times when I just want to make food that I want to eat, instead of accommodating everyone's preferences in order to ensure the food will actually be eaten and not wasted. At least the latter will happen when everyone is finally out of the house and I am back to just cooking for myself.

I love it. It’s a creative outlet, which is a good thing, because it’s a necessity. Re: daily family dinner being a chore - yes, but you can make it easier on yourself by having a pretty standard roster of weeknight recipes that are lower-effort, and save the fancy/time-consuming recipes for the weekend.

I love cooking and used to dislike it.

Start by making stuff you like—e.g. trying to copy a dish you enjoyed at a restaurant.

Also invest in shortcuts temporarily such as buying pre-chopped veggies, jarred sauces, precooked ingredients (e.g. rotisserie chicken).


Meal planning helped me too.

If you are staring in your kitchen at 5pm on a weeknight with no ideas, cooking will feel stressful. If you’ve identified a few dishes you want to make ahead of time and have the ingredients it can be fun.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I enjoy cooking. However, there’s a difference between cooking and getting dinner on the table for a family seven nights a week for years on end. The latter is a chore.

Totally agree. I enjoyed cooking for my kids but it often was a slog. When I finally had an empty nest I thought I wouldn’t cook for the first six months. But I found I enjoyed cooking for myself.

I don’t know that I have a specialty per se. I like to try new things, but also enjoy putting together a “classic” meal.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I enjoy cooking. However, there’s a difference between cooking and getting dinner on the table for a family seven nights a week for years on end. The latter is a chore.

So true. Cooking is a time investment.

I do. I didn’t pick it up until married, and cooks illustrated helped teach me. I like chemistry, so that helps. Baking and cooking is essentially science. The right recipes makes a world of difference. Try cooks illustrated books or magazine, and America’s test kitchen.
Once you get the skills, you could try simply in season cookbook. Beware, many recipes on line and many cookbooks are pretty awful. But if you have the skills you can fix them.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I enjoy cooking. However, there’s a difference between cooking and getting dinner on the table for a family seven nights a week for years on end. The latter is a chore.

Agreed. Can you and more importantly do you want to eat out once a week? Give yourself a break for 1/21+.

Yes, I enjoy cooking. However, there’s a difference between cooking and getting dinner on the table for a family seven nights a week for years on end. The latter is a chore.

I realize I didn't answer your questions.

What I am good at making: beef bourguignon, salmon cooked various ways, outstanding chicken pot pie, curries, soups, salads, and stir fries. I hate food waste, so a lot of ingredients end up as soups or stews.

I started cooking when I was in second grade. I loved making myself bacon and eggs for breakfast, and I have loved trying new recipes ever since.

Tips for the novice: there are so many wonderful recipes out there. Don't be afraid to try new things.
I also like to keep things simple. Get excellent ingredients, rely on herbs and spices, and let quality ingredients shine. A salmon filet seasoned with salt and pepper, broiled for seven minutes, then removed from the broiler, add Dijon mustard and panko crumbs and broiled another two minutes, coupled with some brown rice or boiled fingerling potatoes and a mixed green salad with avocado and cherry tomatoes is a quick, easy, relatively inexpensive, and delicious meal. Cubed chicken breast seasoned with chili powder and cumin, sauteed in olive oil, then added with kidney beans and a can of diced tomatoes, then added with brown rice, makes a terrific meal when paired with a vegetable. After a while, you will have a collection of about twenty quick and easy nutritious meals that your family likes.

I am a good cook, but I no longer enjoy my cooking. I did my best for my family, but now that I live alone, I have very little interest in cooking. When I host parties. I cook, but that's about it.

Yes, I love to cook. I started out at age 10 assisting my mom and grandmother in the kitchen and was cooking full-scale meals by age 13. I like trying out different cuisines and will make whatever my family asks for.

No.

Not for the last almost two decades - I was never a good cook but tried, and then had to move to a home with VERY little counter space and a poorly laid-out kitchen, very final storage, no dishwasher, small oven, etc. So I don't like being in the kitchen. Growing up I had to cook dinner for the family once a week starting at age 7, and my weirdly passive-aggressive mother would always either claim to be too sick to eat, or eat what I made and then claim it made her sick. So that didn't really instill much confidence in me.

Now in my 40's, if I had a kitchen that worked well, I would love to make matzo ball soup. I could eat that every day. You can freeze portions of it (even the matzo ball) and just defrost as you want it.

Yes I enjoy it. I started cooking as a teen in the kitchen with my mother.

I enjoy cooking dinner on Sundays.

My kids are now 17 and 21.

What items do you like making? What are you good at making or you think you are good at making?

Advice for the novice?

How did you initially start cooking?

Or do you find cooking as an unpleasant chore?

If you have kids, do you know that you will make, prep or buy a little less than 20,000 "meals" between kid's birth and age 18...