How to Make Cooking a Little Easier: A Self-Assessment, Tips, and Go-To Ingredients

A Food Writer's, Recipe Developer's, and Baker's Confession

Let’s start with a confession. I simply cannot meal plan or do any type of meal prep. Yes, a food writer, recipe developer, and baker who can’t meal plan or meal prep. No matter how many mason jars I buy or how much I force myself to be more diligent about planning out all my meals for the week—it has never worked for me.

In today’s newsletter, I want to share a list of 15 self-reflective questions, 12 strategies and tips that have helped me get food on the table as quickly and as easily as possible. These tips have proven to be especially helpful during those weeks when cooking feels fucking hard or near impossible, which let’s be honest, can be a frequent occurrence nowadays.

Public Domain Kitchen Scene Floris van Schooten (Dutch, 1590-ca.1655)

Ultimately, my goal and the goal of the self-assessment (maybe you can even try doing it this Sunday evening) below is to help you come up with your own list of dishes, ingredients, equipment, and actions that will work for you and your life. And help make the work of cooking less stressful, time consuming, or emotionally laborious.

I recently read a very honest and refreshing essay by

Tove Danovich

titled “Food is not my love language.” Tove writes,

Yesterday I went on a cooking spree…Often this takes place when I’m avoiding other work. It also happens when my time feels less constrained. If I have room in my schedule, I will cook and even enjoy it. When I don’t have time, even throwing things in the microwave or putting together bagged salads from Trader Joe’s feels like a lot of work.

Tove’s essay resonated with me so much. I have written about similar topics previously. Check out my Invisible Labor of Being A Food Writer in 2024 article. We live in a world that’s incredibly demanding and where most of us are overworked, overextended, and drowning in to do lists and familial responsibilities.

We are almost always operating in a time-constrained mode. The reality of being a food writer is that you work all the time. You are constantly creating, writing, photographing, editing, developing, testing, and much more. When we are so stretched for time, it is not at all surprising that cooking, even heating something up, is something we barely have energy for.

Cooking has been so de-prioritized in our society that we tend to push it to the bottom of our to-do lists even though we literally can’t survive without eating. In this sense, I very much agree with

Michelle Albanes-Davis

that a radical systemic change needs to take place for us to be able to allocate more time to baking, cooking, and to do these activities with an actual sense of fulfillment and joy. Please consider reading Michelle’s article Ultra-processed love: why learning to cook will save your life.

But, at least in the meantime, I do hope that this essay can offer you some ideas to make cooking in your life more fun and less laborious. BELIEVE ME the last thing I want to do is write this newsletter. I am so tired of having to squeeze in one of my favorite things in the world, cooking and baking, but given how life is currently going.

Ultimately, today’s essay is my attempt at helping, especially those of us who struggle with planning, create your own framework for making cooking a little more manageable. I hope these things can help you feel like a more confident daily cook so that you can provide yourself with different forms of nourishment without beating yourself up or agonizing over every meal. There is enough stress in our lives as is.

Self-Assessment:

I know I just talked about how stretched we all are and how little time we all have, and now I am asking you to do a self-assessment, but I promise that this little time investment will make things much easier in the kitchen in the long run.

The best place to start is with a little self-reflection. This list of 15 self-reflective questions is meant to help you assess your own culinary and eating preferences and abilities. At the end of the newsletter, I share a list of specific examples including different types of ingredients, dishes, or small steps I personally take to make cooking a little easier during the week. I know it’s hard to come up with your own ideas right out the gate and I am happy to share what works for me. I hope these examples are a good starting off point.

Ultimately, you want to assess the things you like to eat and cook before diving into the actual cooking. Similar to starting a job search. You first want to identify your job search goals, criteria, values, skills before diving into the process of applying for jobs. You want to have a good understanding of what you know how to do and what you want to learn—professional skills that you already have and professional skills you want to develop. The same can be applied to cooking.

So, to get us started, let’s do a quick self-assessment. Take out a piece of paper or open a blank google doc and ask yourself the following questions. You want to get a sense of what you like to eat/cook, dishes/ingredients you already know how to cook/prep, equipment you have and enjoy using, and lastly things you might need to buy, learn, or have on hand during the week that align with your eating/cooking preferences. Answer these as honestly as you can. You can retake the self-assessment every couple of months or years. Our food, lifestyle, and cooking preferences tend to change, so it’s a good idea to check in periodically and make adjustments.

1. What ingredients do I enjoy eating?

2. What ingredients do I enjoy cooking with frequently?

3. What ingredients am I familiar with that are easy for me to purchase and work with?

4. What ingredients do I like to eat that I would be willing to learn how to cook?

5. What ingredients stay fresh the longest without spoiling that I like to eat?

6. What pantry items can make cooking easier for me?

7. What kitchen equipment do I enjoy using?

8. What dishes can I eat multiple times a week? A day?

9. What dishes can I already cook that require little to no effort?

10. What 10 dishes can I cook on rotation and not get tired of the whole year?

11. What types of dishes do I like to eat the most?

12. What types of dishes take the least amount of effort for me to make?

13. When do I have the most time during the week/day to think about cooking?

14. When do I have the most time during the week/day to allocate to cooking?

15. What dishes, tools, ingredients do I want to learn how to use/cook to make cooking easier for myself?

Now that you have a ton of data to work with let’s look at some examples. I encourage you to also do additional research now that you have specific keywords you can search with. If you like eating pho for example. You can search for easy Pho or same day pho. In Slavic, Balkan, and Central Asian cooking there are always “lazy” versions of traditional dishes (essay on this coming later this year). Search for lazy varenyky or lazy unstuffed cabbage. This reminded me, I need to share my same day sourdough recipe with you all!

Examples to Help Generate Ideas:

This is a list of ingredients, dishes, pantry staples, and steps that help me get food on the table with a little less stress. I will be sharing my easy go to dinner, lunch and breakfast recipes in the upcoming months. So if you want to add or are looking for more dishes to add to your weekly repertoire, stay tuned!

I would love to hear your tips and strategies as well, leave those in the comments for others to reference!

1. Leftover Cooked Rice

   1. Whenever I make rice, that’s at least once a week in our household. I make sure to always make extra. Leftover rice is one of the best things to have in your fridge as a backup dinner idea. The easiest thing to make with leftover rice is fried rice. There are endless versions of this dish and you can make it as complicated or simple as you like. Honestly, leftover rice fried with some butter/ghee, salt/soy, frozen veggies, and eggs can be a very satisfying and quick meal.

2. Cans of Coconut Milk

   1. Unlike the milk you keep in the fridge that has an expiration date to worry about. Canned or boxed coconut milk can live in your cardboard indefinitely. I always have extra cans/boxes of full fat Thai coconut milk. My favorite brand is AROY-D. Having cans of coconut milk around means easy and quick Thai and Indian curries. I buy these in bulk.

3. Thai Curry Paste or Curry Packets

   1. Another super powerful pantry staple in my arsenal is Thai curry paste. I always stock up on extra cans of Thai curry paste and Japanese curry mix for quick and easy dinners. You can of course make your own (I do that some times) and keep them in the freezer in some ice cube trays.

      

4. The Freezer is your Best Friend

   1. Frozen Vegetables and Fruit

      1. Your freezer is your best friend, I am serious! Having frozen veggies on hand means no extra prep or even thawing in most cases. Frozen fruit, on the other hand, makes a super easy breakfast and dessert. What’s easier than throwing everything into a blender? You can also store herds, ginger, horseradish, nuts, flour, grains in the freezer etc.

   2. Frozen Varenyky, Dumplings, Fish Balls

      1. There is nothing simpler than boiling water, adding dumplings, putting them in a bowl with some butter and serving them with sour cream. Whenever I make varenyky or other types of dumplings, I always make at least two 1 gallon freezer size bags full to put in my freezer. These last ages and can be a great way to fancy up your dinners when life is being crappy.

5. Baking or Buying Sourdough Bread

   1. I try to bake at least two loaves of bread at a time. Finding time to bake (for myself) at least once a week is my current goal. Working from home has given me some flexibility. I can mix the dough in the evening, shape before bed, and bake in the early afternoon. Having bread on hand throughout the week is my go to lunch. That can be as simple as a fried eggs and toast, toast with some canned fish, and of course endless sandwich varieties. You can keep slices of sourdough bread in the freezer and heat it up to use it. Store your flour and yeast in the freezer, they will stay fresh longer!

      

6. Buckwheat, Red Lentils, Quinoa

   1. These are my go to “grains” and legumes. They take around 20 minutes to prepare from start to finish. Red lentil curry made with coconut milk is one of my go to meals. Buckwheat takes 15 minutes to prepare! When I am really stretched thin, buckwheat with butter is my go to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I always double the recipe because it reheats wonderfully. The leftovers can also be turned into a grain salad! Cut up some veggies, mix in buckwheat/quinoa, season with salt and finish with some nice extra virgin olive oil.

      

      

7. Crepe/Pancake Batter

   1. Crepe batter can last 48 hours in the fridge. That’s two days worth of crepes for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You can make savory filled crepes for a complete meal, check out my Nalisniki or Ukrainian Stuffed Crepes. Since the batter can keep for a while you can make as few or as many at a time as you want or have time for. I always think it’s a good idea to keep milk or any type of non-dairy milk in the fridge for things like pancakes, oladki, crepes, etc. My favorite tool for crepe batter is an immersion blender by the way.

8. Canned Fish, Canned Tomatoes, and Canned Beans

   1. We don’t have time today to go into the food history of canned goods but they have been around for a while. These are my most frequently used canned products. Canned tomatoes turn into an easy and simple tomato sauce for pasta dinners, canned beans go into homemade “burrito” bowls, and canned fish like tuna, sprats, eel, gobies, smoked sardines, anchovies are a must for quick and punchy flavors.

9. Must Have Kitchen Equipment

   1. I don’t have a microwave, never have and never will. This means for me, this is not a good tool to have or own since I never have the desire to use it. I do have some kitchen tools that I use almost daily that make life a lot smoother. For me those are large mixing bowls, wok, immersion blender, a good kitchen knife, 6 quart dutch oven, sheet pans, a fine mesh sieve, silicone spatulas, a nonstick pan, a small sauce pan, and a cast iron skillet.

10. Double or Triple the Recipe

    1. When I make lentil curry, I will make enough for at least 3 or 4 meals. (This is the closest I have come to meal prep lol). Once you have a list of dishes you like to eat and cook frequently, you can make a larger quantity of those and store the leftovers in the fridge to heat up as needed. You can also intentionally pick recipes that taste better over time, aging in the fridge if you will. A lot of Ukrainian dishes taste better the next day, everything from stuffed cabbage to types of borshch. The flavors get to mingle and develop over time.

11. Roasted Vegetables

    1. I always make extra roasted vegetables. These make great additions to grains, salads, sandwiches, fillings even, and they can last in the fridge for days.

12. Must Have Ingredients

    1. Pasta and Noodles

       1. Just that. Have different types of pastas and noodles on hand at all time.

    2. Potatoes, Onion, Bell Peppers, and Garlic

       1. I always make sure to have these four ingredients on hand. They don’t spoil fast!

    3. Dried Mushrooms

       1. This is just one example of the many dried ingredients one can rely on during the week. Soaking is quick and you don’t ever have to worry about them spoiling in the fridge.

    4. Eggs

       1. I always have eggs in the house. Eggs are so incredibly versatile there are entire cookbooks dedicated to them. Hard boiled eggs can be turned into salad, added to curries, or even eaten as a snack with some salt and yes, mayo. Takes under ten minutes to prepare any kind of egg you want.

These are just some small steps you can take to make cooking and hopefully your life just a tiny bit easier.

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Some Additional Resources:

1. 40 Ingredients Forever
   by Ali Slagle

2. Sohla El-Waylly
   cookbook Start Here

3. Samin Nosrat book on cooking Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking

4. Melissa Clark’s One-Pan Meals

5. Emilie Raffa’s Artisan Sourdough Made Simple: A Beginner's Guide to Delicious Handcrafted Bread with Minimal Kneading and her blog The Clever Carrot

6. Andrea Nguyen
   cookbook Vietnamese Food Any Day