Expand your understanding of cooking, says Margaret Eby, author of Cooking. You Have to Eat: Real Life Strategies for How to Feed Yourself When Cooking Feels Impossible. This includes assembling charcuterie boards and garnishing items like cheese or instant noodles with simple, nutritious toppings. Illustration by Maria Toro, excerpted from you must eat Author: Margaret Iby (Quirk Books, 2024) hide title
I never liked being in the kitchen. I hate the heat of the stove. I always seem to mess up recipes. On rare occasions, my meals are often over-seasoned.
If you're like me and just don't really enjoy cooking, there's a way to make it less of a chore. Change your perspective on what it means to prepare food, says Margaret Eby, a food writer and author of "Food." You Have to Eat: Real Life Strategies for How to Feed Yourself When Cooking Feels Impossible.
She says your time in the kitchen doesn't have to be strenuous, time-consuming or even heating up to count as cooking. "Your habits and the way you eat yourself don't make them any less valid just because they aren't professional kitchen habits."
Here are three mindsets that can help you gain confidence in the kitchen.
If you can make a sandwich, use a can opener or throw some ingredients into a slow cooker, go ahead and pat yourself on the back. You are cooking!
Assemble meals you can try at home:
🫘 Bean Salad: To make a Greek-style salad, toss together chickpeas, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and tzatziki. For an Italian-style salad, Iby says, combine cannellini beans, pesto and Parmesan cheese.
Need ideas for a delicious bean salad? Screenshots taken from Eby's book for this guide you must eat . Illustration by Maria Toro, excerpted from you must eat Author: Margaret Iby (Quirk Books, 2024) hide title
🥪 "Any Falafel": Iby writes in her book that you can create "simple and delicious sandwiches" by mixing canned meats, leftover proteins like rotisserie chicken, hard-boiled eggs, and even deli meats with mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and a bit of mustard. you must eat.
🍲 Dump recipe: Use slow cookers and pressure cookers to your advantage. Grab your ingredients, add them to the pot, and press the start button. Kitchen ideas 5 Ingredient Junk Dinner.
Iby says there are no rules when it comes to making a cheese board or charcuterie board. But if that's too much for you, here are some "gentle rules" to follow: Add something salty, like nuts, olives, or aged cheddar; Something to scoop, like pita bread or crackers; Spread Or something for dipping, like soft cheese or hummus; and something sweet, like jam or grapes. Illustration by Maria Toro, excerpted from you must eat Author: Margaret Iby (Quirk Books, 2024) hide title
If dinner has been a source of stress or disappointment, it might be time to think outside the box, Iby says. “Anything that allows you to think of dinner as party snacks is a great day.”
Non-traditional dinner ideas:
🫕"Super Bowl": That's what Ibby and her husband call the dip for dinner. Throw together whatever you have in the refrigerator, like carrot sticks, pita chips, lettuce cups, or mashed potatoes, and serve with any dipping sauce: baba ganoush, chicken salad, hummus, or sour cream and onion dip.
🧀 Gorgeous charcuterie board: Place the cheese and cured meats on a plate. Balance it with pickles or olives; crackers, breadsticks, or baguette slices; spreads like butter, cream cheese, or hummus; and something sweet, like grapes, apple slices, or figs, Ibi says.
🍶Savory yogurt: Eby recommends adding fried eggs, avocado, salmon, crispy chickpeas or pickled cherry tomatoes to plain Greek yogurt. This also applies to cottage cheese.
Some dishes don’t require you to follow a recipe exactly. For example, when it comes to fried rice, "You can use a lot or a little sauce, add a lot of vegetables or just a little, use oil or butter. Whatever you prefer, it's the right way to make it," Ibby writes in her book wrote. Illustration by Maria Toro, excerpted from you must eat Author: Margaret Iby (Quirk Books, 2024) hide title
Ibe says the recipe is a lot more forgiving than people think. Here are some tips to remember when working with recipes.
👀Read the recipe first. Get a full understanding of what you need ahead of time, Iby says. This includes how long it takes to prepare the ingredients and what kind of kitchen equipment you need.
Maybe the dish requires you to soak the noodles for three hours before cooking, or use an appliance you don't own, like a food processor. These details can help you decide whether to cook or not.
🥒 You don’t need to have all the ingredients. "If you have two onions and it calls for three, it's going to taste a little less onion-y than you expected from the original recipe," Iby says.
If you're not sure whether to try a recipe without certain ingredients, check the comments section of an online recipe. Often, other people will share recipe substitutions that have worked for them.
⚖️ It’s okay to visually check your measurements (unless you’re baking). Baking usually requires a certain level of precision because of the chemistry involved. But for many snack foods, like stews or casseroles, there's no need to worry about the exact markings on the measuring cup, Iby says.
Share your recipes and ideas with us. Send email to lifekit@npr.org The topic is "Cooking Confidence," and we may feature it on NPR.org.
Digital Stories edited by Malaka Gharib. Visual editor is Beck Harlan. We'd love to hear from you. Please leave us a message at 202-216-9823 or email LifeKit@npr.org.
Listen to "Life Kit" Apple Podcasts and Spotifyand register with our communication. Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekit.