Confidence in the Kitchen

This month, I've decided to document all the basic cooking tricks and techniques that keep me eating the healthy food I love at all times. I want you to challenge yourself to carve out some small chunks of you-time in the kitchen. If you feel comfortable in the kitchen, stay tuned, this is going to change your world.

Kitchen-time IS you-time.

These are the tools that help me to eat what I want to. So much of the food out there is full of excess sugar, salt and mystery ingredients and additives. A HUGE part of getting healthy and feeling energized in your body is giving yourself the food you know will get you there. Get this down, and your body will practically take care of itself.


What self-sufficient cooking is all about:

1. Make what you like and know. For me, that's fresh Italian food. When you like and know the flavors of something already, it's a lot easier to replicate. Think about your go-to's. What did you grow up eating?

2. Keep it simple. Don't start, like I tried, with recipes that take a lot of time, steps, techniques and gourmet ingredients. Start with the easiest things you can think of and if it's too plain, add condiments as you eat!

3. Think ahead. Stock your kitchen up with the basics. Once you have a bottle of extra virgin olive oil, some salt and fresh pepper, soon you'll be able to whip up almost anything into deliciousness whenever you feel like it. No one likes to cook dinner when they're already hungry if it means you have to go back out and shop first. I'll post my favorite go-to condiments and basics later this week! Until then, clean out and save your glass jars.

4. You get to say what it is. Some of my best meals were things that I completely made up, or that turned out totally wrong. In either case, put it in a pretty bowl and make up a gourmet name for it. The best part about cooking for yourself is that there's no pressure to impress. Just trust your taste buds. And fudge the rest.

5. Eat quality. You are a quality person. And you are what you eat. When you give yourself the good stuff, you'll find it's more satisfying, you eat less, and you appreciate it more. This is the secret to easy cooking. When you start with the good stuff, you barely need to do anything to it to make it taste incredible.