Some people are naturals in the kitchen, it’s a relaxing place for them, even therapeutic. I’m not one of those people. However, over the years and with practice I have actually started to enjoy cooking. I found the best way to learn was to experiment. The barrier I had, especially in college, was a lack of understanding of flavor combinations and use of seasoning, leading me to cooking very bland food.

I wouldn’t say I’m the most confident person in the kitchen, as in I wouldn’t jump at the chance to cook for a dinner party, however I love eating my own food now and do so regularly.

If you’ve had trouble getting started or looking for a bit of guidance, here are some tips that helped me when I decided to commit to cooking more.

• Find inspiration – I love cookbooks, I have more than I know what to do with, but I found it essential to have a few of them on hand to inspire me and provide much needed guidance at the beginning. Some of the ones on my bookshelf are Jamie Oliver: 5 Ingredients, Green Kitchen Travels, & The Yoga Kitchen. Blogs and websites are also a great resource for this, as well as YouTube, but I’m more of a book girl. Some recipes I followed exactly, others I used as a base for flavor and adapted with ingredients that I had in the fridge or preferred over what was suggested. Most people would say follow the recipe exactly until you become more confident, but I learned in the process.

• Basic equipment – You don’t need much to get started, a good knife, a non-stick pan, a chopping board and you’re in business. However, I highly recommend focusing on quality (doesn’t mean expensive), as it’s actually quite frustrating and dangerous to chop with a bad knife. Over time and as you progress, you may want to add to your kitchen tools, some of the ones I use most are my NutriBullet, spiralizer, and hand blender.

• Plan ahead – With the busy lives we lead it’s so easy to put in an order with UberEats and not have to worry about cooking, so I found a bit of planning to go a long way. At the weekend I would look at recipes that would suit my schedule during the week, quick and easy with little prep and cook time after a long day. Making the process as easy as possible for yourself (the less thinking the better after work), means you won’t have to sacrifice on nutrition and cooking your own meals. For recipes that require more time, ingredients, and attention I usually skip during the week and maybe tackle when I have time at the weekend (that’s a big maybe, the meals I make still tend to be delicious yet quick and easy to cook).

• Adapt to your taste – Although I absolutely recommend trying new ingredients, keep in mind you can adapt recipes to your taste. If you only cook with ingredients that are ‘healthy’, but you hate the taste then your time in the kitchen will be short lived. My approach was to introduce new vegetables or spices into my cooking slowly, and overtime my preferences have actually changed. Now I love cooking with chilies for example, a few years ago I would never have expected that.

• Set the fear aside – Like many things in life it’s usually our own fear that keeps us from doing. Remember that it’s fine if the meal doesn’t turn out exactly as you expected. I can’t tell you how many dishes I cooked that didn’t look like the picture in the cookbook, but in most cases it still tasted great it just wasn’t going to win any awards for artistic merit. Have fun with it and if you’re really worried that the dish can’t be saved, then that’s what the backup pizza in the freezer is for.

“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.” – Julia Child

Happy cooking! x