There are times and seasons in our lives that make eating easier or more difficult right? Like, when you’re a kid and your mom or your grandma are diligent about providing food for you, it’s easy to eat well. But there are other times, maybe when your family structure changes or when there is illness or maybe when you are just getting your start and you’re living alone, that cooking and eating can become a pretty challenging tasks!
How to make those more intense seasons easier?
First of all, whether you are cooking for one or for ten, the “worthiness” is the same. You are worth cooking for if you are alone, one child is worth cooking for if you are a single mother, and certainly, a house full of all ages means it’s all the more important to figure out strategies for cooking that can make life a little easier.
Declare it!
“I love providing healthy food for my family!”
“I do what it takes to feed myself well and give my body the nutrition it needs and deserves.”
“I love food and there are so many fun, healthy recipes I want to try!”
“I am committed to treating myself well.”
How do you make cooking as enjoyable as possible at your house?
Here are a few thoughts I’ve had:
When I know what I’m going to cook ahead of time, my stress level goes way, way down. Planning is a big deal.
Making more than I need for one meal is crucial for my mental health. Leftovers feel like manna from heaven, because doing a lot of cooking one day and then having a break the next day really helps me to keep wanting to cook. Even better, is making a good sized batch of something and then dividing it into single servings and freezing them. It makes for real, healthy food that only requires putting it in a saucepan with a lid, on low heat. And there is a meal!
Wash and break up a variety of greens and store in an airtight container. Then when it’s time for dinner prep, pull out enough to fill up a serving bowl and add the rest of your salad ingredients, just enough for one meal. Then tomorrow, you can make a different kind of salad using the same greens, with the prep time cut in half. Better yet, grate carrots and slice celery and peel cucumbers and prepare other vegetables so that they will be easy to add when you need them.
Make some healthy desserts and keep them in the freezer in small portions!!! And along with that, don’t buy and store anything in your house that doesn’t support your health goals. (Oreos don’t belong in your pantry. T-R-A-N-S-F-A-T-S. They just don’t.)
Cook with a friend one day a week! You can grocery shop, cook large batches of soups and main dishes and share the results. It is much more fun to have company, so find someone that wants to be healthy too and support each other and make planning and cooking fun!
Juice your own veggies and fruit and mix them together and freeze them. Then take them out of the freezer in the morning and put them in the fridge for the next day’s breakfast smoothie or snack. And hey, smoothies make really good snacks! Just don’t add sugar to them! But do add a lot of veggies…
I hope that you will add your ideas in the comments to this post! What have you done that has made life in the kitchen easier for you?
Take good care!
Love,
Jacque