Blog.EmealsForYou

Finding Your Cooking Comfort Zone (CCZ)

July 23, 2008 at 8:26 pm 1 comment

Grilled Cheese

Pavlova with Berries

Whether you are a basic beginner cook making a grilled cheese sandwich for your kids or an established chef preparing the pavlova on the bottom for a dinner party; it’s important to develop your Cooking Comfort Zone. (CCZ)  This is the mental place you go to when preparing food.  Some of us enjoy cooking so we look forward to getting into our kitchens and making that special meal whether for family and friends, or just for ourselves.  The others, and I think this is the majority, dread the ORDEAL of having to get the meal on the table.

Establishing your CCZ doesn’t mean you must all of a sudden jump for joy at the thought of putting your apron on.  What you need to do is create a mental neutral mindset where you will be open to at least attempting to make a good meal.  Even money says that when you are in the waiting room of the doctor’s office or the chair at your hair salon, you are thumbing through a magazine and looking at the food pictures.  You may be saying, ” that looks good but probably too hard to make” but at least you are looking.  So now take that fleeting moment when you thought positively about that food photo and carry it over to your kitchen.  You may be surprised at just how good it comes out.

I write my posts and the recipes on emealsforyou.com hoping to make them useful to all levels of CCZ.  We keep the ingredients to those you probably have in your kitchen and are comfortable using.  The instructions are easy to follow and the end result is a recipe or meal you can take pride in.  Recently I had a question from one of my readers who asked, “my husband can’t eat onions; what do I do if the recipe calls for onions?”  Well the best answer is don’t put the onions in the dish.  You see, recipes are just guidelines…most can be changed without destroying the dish.  If you don’t like something in a recipe; try putting something else in or just eliminate it entirely.  Many spices are like this; use the ones you like and don’t use the ones you don’t like.  Baking recipes are the exception to this; these are really formulas and adding or omitting ingredients can cause some problems.

A quick note for those of you who are good cooks; as the purpose of my blog and website is to get families to the table enjoying meals together, sometimes I don’t put the “extras” into the recipes.  You know the ones where you say, “why didn’t he put fresh ginger into that?”  I encourage you to make my recipes your recipes, add, subtract, alter any way you like.  For those of you who are just starting out on your quest to become a good cook; try things, have some fun.  The main thing is to try and then watch your CCZ begin to expand.

Entry filed under: Tips.Techniques and Ideas. Tags: cooking comfort zone, getting comfortble in the kitchen.