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Find yourself eating the same four or five meals over and over? Most of us get in this rut at one time or another- food is a pleasure and shouldn’t be boring so it’s time to break free! Here are five ways to break out of your cooking rut.
Watch cooking shows
Cooking shows on TV can teach you so much about food. They introduce you to ingredients, recipes, and techniques you’d never have heard of, and can really inspire you to get into the kitchen and try things for yourself. It could be cooking competition shows like Masterchef, or chefs walking you through recipes step by step, they’re strangely fascinating. Browse the food channels and record some cooking shows you like the look of, give them a watch when you fancy getting inspired.
Scour Pinterest and recipe sites
Pinterest is absolutely chock full of amazing recipe ideas. If you’re in the mood to try out something new then have a browse, create a new board and start pinning recipes. You could search by type such as ‘chicken recipes’ ‘healthy dinner recipes’ or ‘interesting salads’ or you could just search general food/ recipe terms and see what pops up.
Travel when in a cooking rut
Travel is a great way to learn new things, along with meeting new people, experiencing a different culture and being exposed to a new language, you get to try all kinds of new foods. Different places around the world will have different ingredients and cooking techniques that you can taste and then try out when you get home. Your trip to Greece might inspire you to try a tzatziki sauce recipe, or a trip to India could help you to branch out your spices and curry making skills.
Think back to your childhood
One great way to inspire new recipes is to actually look backwards into your past. What recipes did you used to love growing up? Perhaps your grandma used to make incredible cakes and pies, you could search for baking books from that era or ask family members if the recipes she used was ever recorded. You could modernise some of the classics your enjoyed when you were young, or enjoy cooking with these older types of ingredients like suet, lard and offal. Ask family members what kinds of meals they remember from when you were young and have a go at making some of them!
Try a recipe box
Recipe boxes can be fantastic, they provide you with the exact ingredients to cook a number of meals of your choice and are delivered to your house each week. There’s no waste as you’re only sent what you need, and you can try recipes you might not have had the confidence to cook otherwise. These can inspire your own creations, or become part of your meal repertoire where you can just buy the ingredients yourself in future.
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