Increase Your Cooking Skills

I had an impromptu dinner guest last week and was so happy to have her stay! It was really the first time in my life that I had already started cooking and someone was going to stay and eat what I was preparing without any planning ahead on my part. Ack! Makes me sweat just thinking about it.

It made me even more nervous because this was the night I had decided to just kind of throw something together. I had no recipe and was feeling ambitious. I had all the right elements and I just wanted to try and throw them together using skills I have learned over the past couple of years. I have been subscribing to Everyday Food magazine for about that amount of time and it really has increased my knowledge and skill when it comes to cooking. I highly recommend it if you want to learn some basic skills that will help you create healthy and delicious meals.

Don't be afraid that it's Martha. Trust me. Most of the recipes are on one page, 4-6 steps, 6-12 ingredients. Lots of fresh and seasonal items. It will help you to eat outside the box and not use boxed stuff to cook. You will quickly learn how to make your own dressings, sauces to put on top of meat and poultry, what to do with different vegetables you have seen at the grocery store.

One section I particularly like is where they give you a recipe for something basic (like grilled veggies) and then show you 3-4 ways to use those (in a salad, to top a pizza, side dish). Everything I have ever cooked has been very tasty and healthy, not to mention easy!