Space matters

When it comes to cooking dinner, the space you're cooking in matters: you have to want to spend time in your kitchen.  This might seem self-evident, but it's something that I bet you don't often think about.

For instance, it's really hard to motivate yourself to make something delicious for dinner when you know that such an endeavor involves having to search through a tangle of pots and pans to find the one that you need.  Most people also don't relish the thought of going digging through their cupboards to find ingredients...probably because these things are so precariously stacked that taking out one bag risks  upsetting them all.  And then there's the thought of dishes...and then your stovetop is kinda dirty, and your counters are a little gross...and before you know it you've managed to talk yourself out of whatever delicious meal you were thinking about making.

This is all to say that your kitchen has to be a friendly place.  before you can want to spend time in your kitchen, it has to be a friendly place.  There are several ways to make this happen...

First, when buying pots try and find a set that stacks together.  This way you can fit four pots into the same space as one, and finding the one you need is as easy as lifting it out of the nest.  Apply this nesting strategy to bowls and casserole dishes as well...it will help keep your cupboards tidy.

Bonus: my bowls have lids and double as extra food storage.

Second, invest in some kind of pantry organization system.  It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive...all you need are some containers that stack together in some kind of way.  I swear by Tupperware, but that's an investment (though you can get really good deals when it goes on sale).  You can also find similar things at Ikea or the dollar store.  Organize your cupboard in whatever way makes the most sense to you, the idea is that you can find what you're looking for when you're looking for it.

Before.  Finding what I needed required digging...

After.  Everything has a place, and I don't have to worry about a Jenga type topple if I try to pull things out in the wrong order!

Bonus to this kind of pantry organization: the ability to store more staple items.  Another often overlooked fact about cooking is that in order to make your own meals you have to have the ingredients on hand.  Seriously...there is nothing worse than settling down to cook after a busy day and realizing that your recipe calls for some basic ingredient that you don't have (and have no desire to go out and buy).  If your pantry is organized you can avoid this problem, because you can look and immediately see what you have to work with.

Finally, there's the cleaning thing.  I know that cooking makes dishes, and washing dishes sucks, but once you get into the habit there is something very zen about the process.  I tend to clean as I go...when I make something that has to spend time in the oven, I'll wash all the pre-oven dishes while the food bakes.  Likewise if I'm making a soup or stew that simmers for a long time, I'll wash whatever dishes I can to keep the end of the night work to a minimum.  As for the stove and the counters, all I can really say is this: if you wipe them down right after you've done your dishes, they will never really get *that* dirty.

The moral of the story is simple: if you want to cook more, make your kitchen into the kind of place that you want to spend time in.  Invest in tools that make your life easier, and maybe one day you'll love cooking as much as I do!