I had never been good in cooking, neither do I have the patience to do it. Below are the reasons that made me change and if you have arrived to this article, chances are, you are also starting to feel the same compelling need to stop relying on others for food and reduce your take-outs.
All along, I consider myself to be bad in cooking. I have long resigned to the fact that I am no skills whatsoever in cooking. My cooking really sucks. I am not trying to be humble.
On 3 separate occasions (once during my university days and twice when I was staying in Thailand) people who insisted they did not know how to cook and requested me to cook for them. They did not believe me when I told them I do not know how to cook. After eating my cooking, the next day, they all mysteriously could cook.
And they never requested me to cook for them again. Never ever. Anything that to taste my cooking.
However fast forward now, I am learning how to cook. And with effort, faith and perseverance, my cooking skills are improving.
If a natural person who cannot cook could learn to do it….you could too ?. Must important thing….don’t give up.
Reasons why you should learn how to cook:
1.Saves you money
Food that buy from the market and cook it yourself is definitely more cost saving than buying ready made food. Even if you can find cheap eats that are delicious. If they are delicious, chances are they will do well and business will be good. There would then be compromises on quality and food preparation (they will not have time to really wash the veges clean, reuse oil again and again to fry/cook, use cheaper ingredients, put lots of food addictives like MSG, etc).
2. No matter how much you love to eat outside food, you would get so sick of them
When it comes to lunch, my colleagues who always eat out would not know what to eat. Actually, there are so much of choices available at our office food court but because they always choose to go out because they are so sick of the dishes. I am not sure about you but after a while, all outside food taste similar…..perhaps it is missing the homey feel.
Simple Chinese dish: Stir fried vegetables, marmite chicken and sausage egg omelette served with rice cooked by me
3. Better nutrition and healthy eating for you and your family
Believe it or not, food that are prepared and cooked by someone without feeling love taste does not taste the same as simple homemade dishes that are made with love. That is why the food you pay when eating at high end places taste nicer- the ambiance and cooked personally by chefs who take pride in their cooking and want to cook up good food for their customers makes a difference. And Chinese food often earn a bad rep because of high dosages of MSG in them….if cooked at home, you can make it taste delicious without needing to put any MSG,
If you love your family and want them to be healthy, then it would be great if you would make the effort to cook healthy meals for them. For example in my family, sometimes we would pack dishes back but I would cook the rice and a simple stir fry vegetable dish. The rice we eat at home is better quality and washed more thoroughly than store bought ones (also we save money cooking our own rice). Same for the vegetables which we would also soak and wash a few times before being used to cook. And usually I would cook the veges when we are about to have our meals so the vitamins are not really lost.
4. Important if you have someone at home that requires a special diet
If you have someone staying with you who have special dietary requirements such as cannot take food that are too salty, sweet, high in fats, processed food (due to allergies) or are vegetarians, the best you can help the person is by preparing home cooked food that take into account of those required factors. Because it is hard to find food that are not heavily flavoured or have a lot of food additives.
5. Helps you to lose weight (if done correctly)
There are many online healthy recipes that you can research from the internet or watch from YouTube. It would be next to impossible to be able to buy healthy food that are popular, delicious and not fattening. Let’s face the fact….most people will not buy healthy food to eat all the time. For example, a delicious piece of fried chicken needs to be heavily coated with fattening batter and deep fried. Sometimes served with mayo or cheese sauce. That is why people want to pay for…the taste, the satisfaction.
As a business, they need to do what they do to survive….to meet their customer’s expectation. If a cafe only serves healthy food, they would have very few customers and need to raise their prices to survive.
That is why when you are on the mission to lose weight, you would fare better if you take more time to prepare and cook your own nutritious food.
6. Saves you time
Once you get used to cooking, you actually save more time to cook up some simple dishes on your own than to go out and buy food. Learn to prepare and wash your veges in advance. Then put in the fridge and take out to use when you need them. In the morning, it takes me about 5 minutes to stir fry my veges and another 5 minutes to wash up. There are other dishes such as steam eggs and meat that also take a short time to prepare (actually there are dishes you can put together in the rice cooker as you cook the rice).
7. It is a survival skill that you would need
After some time of cooking, you would acquire the art whereby you could cook something with whatever that’s available. Regardless of where you are, you would be able to survive and cook up something for yourself and your partner/family/friends. I do not know about you, but in the past when I could not cook, I had wished I could.
8. A skill that impresses people
Adding cooking skills in your list of repertoire is impressive. The saying ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ is very true. Initially there would be the romantic sparks but after that, it comes the daily boring routine. Having a warm meal waiting for him when he comes home makes a lot of difference.
On the other hand, ladies are also very impressed with men who knows how to cook. You do not need to be a chef but if you could cook up a decent meal, you earns a lot of brownie points.
If you don’t try, you would never improve
My initial attempts in cooking have been met with nothing but criticism. My rice was not completely cooked/too dry/too wet, my vegetables were too salty, my soups were too bland, my chicken dishes taste like unwashed chicken (the chicken smell still there) and my tofu disintegrated into mush.
However I keep trying because I wanted to give my family good nutrition, especially now with my mom’s condition the doctor said she cannot take salty food.
If the rice is not cooked, then I know I need to cook it longer the next time. I need to adjust to water settings to ensure it is too dry or wet. I take note of the portion of salt that I put in my veges and next time add a little less.
After a few attempts on each failure, the food taste improve. Now, I could manage simple dishes. When I use to get my wok burned when cooking, I now know how to adjust the fire and the duration of cooking.
With time, your cooking skills would improve. I have friends who also could not cook initially but they also try and improve each time until their cooking becomes very impressive.
Try with a few dishes that you love to eat. Learn to cook them until you get the taste that you are happy with. For example, I love marmite chicken very much and so after googling some recipes, I try to cook the dish myself. Today, it is a dish that my family enjoys eating. When you see positive results in one dish, it would motivate you to keep trying.
After a while, you would be able to cook based on available ingredients even though there are no recipes because you are used to managing food and flavours.
