We can all get stuck in a food rut sometimes. The same recipes you used to love become bland and uninspired. Fortunately, there are many ways to reignite your cooking passion.
Try New Cuisines
One of the simplest ways of getting your flair for flavor back is by trying new cuisines. When you try the food of another culture, you are often introduced to new tastes you may not have been aware of. Umami foods are a perfect example and are used in numerous pan-Asian cuisines such as Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Or, if you have always been scared of spicy foods, then jump into Indian foods. Something you may not know is that authentic Indian food isn’t hot. Instead, spices are used delicately for flavoring. Your new passion could be on your next fork.
Buy Cookbooks from Charity Stores
If you’re any kind of foodie or looking for inspiration, then the cookbook is the king of learning. But cookbooks are expensive, you might say. Well, one of the great things about cookbooks is you can find tons of them in charity stores. People love giving them away for some reason. With some time and effort, you can amass a respectable collection of cookbooks from famous chefs like Nigella Lawson, Michel Roux, and Gordon Ramsay. Cookbooks from celebrities typically come with lessons and advice in addition to recipes, so you can learn a lot pretty cheaply.
Get Recipe Boxes when Stuck in a Food Rut
It can be a challenge to learn how to cook, especially as an adult who has never done so before. But all you need is the will to learn. But if you don’t like the idea of having your head in a cookbook every day, you can consider recipe boxes. The recipes box industry is massive these days, with a market value of over $30 billion per year in the USA alone. Companies like Hello Fresh let you select from various cuisines and send out boxes with all the ingredients and recipe cards you need to make the meals. They’re easy to use and reduce your food waste.
Research Your Favorite Ingredients
Pretty much everyone has their favorite ingredients. Maybe you can’t get enough meatballs, or hummus just does something for you. Yet we can also get bored, even with something we love. Fortunately, there’s more than one way to use every ingredient. For example, consider the ground beef in your meatballs. It can be used in cottage pie, bolognese, spicy kebabs, or an Indian keema. The internet is your friend when it comes to using your favorite ingredients in different ways. A Google search for “different ways for chickpeas” yields 20,500,000 results!
Get Cooking with Friends
Often, but not always, cooking is passed down from generation to generation. Chefs like Nigella Lawson love to talk of their childhood memories of cooking with grandparents, where their passion was born. Unfortunately, you may not have had that experience. However, you might have friends who are great at cooking and love to share their family recipes. Perhaps you even have friends from different cultural backgrounds with exotic cuisines to share. So why not gather everyone and have fun in the kitchen with fantastic food while learning something new?
Summary
Getting stuck in a food rut is a miserable time for anyone. But you can get out of it by trying new cuisines, sampling recipe boxes, or inviting friends around to share their cooking knowledge.
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