Part 1: Four Steps to Get Clear on Your Cooking Goals

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This post is part of a series to help you cook more in the new year. You can click the green button to follow along with weekly emails:

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As we start down the path of cooking more, let’s get clear on where where we’re going, and why.

Quick backstory

I used to not know how to cook. LIke, at all. That’s right: I’m the founder of Adventure Kitchen, a food business based on the recipes I write, the cooking classes I teach and the spice blends and Spice Pops I’ve created. But I started out not knowing the first thing about cooking.

I grew up in a household where no one really cooked much. My mom stayed at home with us, but she was disabled, and it was the 70s, when convenience foods ruled the supermarket shelves. She had grown up in the 30s and 40s as the oldest daughter in a home without much money, so she’d had to learn at an early age how to cook (and clean, and take care of her little brothers, and endless other chores). But by the time she became a mom herself, severely crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, she was ready for the all the modern conveniences food corporations could throw her way.

Roasting brussels sprouts for veggie tacos

As a teenager, it so happened I got my first jobs working in restaurants. Ever curious, I would lurk around the line, watching the cooks manifest meals from apparently random scraps. Wait - is that really how you make that?

So this is how I learned that the dishes we eat are made from actual food, which comes from plants and animals. Whoa. It doesn’t start with a box or a can or a powder!?!! It actually starts from a recognizable thing, like a potato. I literally never knew mashed potatoes actually comes from potatoes. (I had always wondered why they called it that. Hmm, I had thought, I guess it’s because that mushy stuff they make from those boxed flakes sort of tastes potato-ish…?)

So, what’s your starting point?

Whatever it is, I can pretty much guarantee it’s better than mine was! And no matter what your goals are, I’m here to tell you, you can do it.

You want to eat more vegetables? You want to save money cooking for yourself? You only know how to make 5 things and want to expand your repertoire? You already cook a lot but want to level up? Trust me, I’ve been there.

Prepping ingredients for Kerala Chicken Curry

You can cook more. And this is your year, baby!

But New Habits are Hard

Like any new habit in life, cooking more can be hard. We’ll talk about alllll the ways this is true (dishes! time! shopping! naysayers!) in more detail later. But for now, let’s get clear about this:

Change - any change - is hard.

We’ve been doing things the way we’ve been doing them for a reason. Maybe it’s just easier ordering takeout? Maybe there’s never enough time? Maybe it’s hard to know where to start? Maybe it just feels too daunting?

In general, less than half of us even make resolutions, and out of those few hopeful souls who do somehow beat the odds to dream of better things, only 9% of us will actually accomplish ours.

But I’m here to tell you, my friend, we’re going to do this. You and I. You’re going to be in that 9% and I’m going to be right by your side, cheering you on. Let’s go!

Step 1: Why Do you Want to Cook More?

At some point (maybe very soon) you’re going to ask yourself why you even wanted this.

When there are dishes to do, when your family is complaining, when a recipe doesn’t work, when you’re pressed for time, you’re going to realize this is hard. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face*.

So, let’s decide now: Why are we doing this?

Sauteeing red onions for curry

First, take a moment to get completely honest with yourself. Go someplace and sit down with a pencil and piece of paper. Write it down: “I want to cook more because _______________.” Your reason might be different from mine, or from your neighbor’s. So what is your reason? Really and truly.

Then, take it to the next level and ask why again. Whatever reason you wrote down, why do you want that? For example, if you wrote “I want to save money,” or “I want to eat healthier,” ask yourself why? Write down your answer.

Then, do it a third time. Dig even deeper and go to the third level. Whatever reason you just wrote down, ask yourself again: why do you want that?

At the end of the day, we all want the same things. We want to be loved and appreciated. We want to have a happy family. We want to be healthy. We want to live a long life. And in the end, we want to die without regrets. But your reasons for cooking more are your own.

In order to be part of the 9% who keeps their resolutions, you have to be different from the 91% who don’t. You have to know why you’re actually doing this. The real reason this is important to you. Deep down. In writing.

And then later, when things get messy and hard, you can look at that piece of paper. You can remember. Why.

Step 2: Name Your Specific Cooking Goal

The title of this series says “cook more,” but that can mean a million things to a million different people. Is your goal to cook with more fruits and vegetables? To eat out less? To spend less on food? To lose weight? To learn to be a better cook? What does a “better” cook even mean to you?

Cooking cinnamon-rosemary rice for braised chicken thighs

Here are some examples of the types of goals I’ve had for myself over the years:

• Cook meals that are “mostly plants” (majority fruits and vegetables)

• Make most of our meals from scratch

• Only eat sweets if I’ve made them myself

• Learn to cook without recipes

• Spend less on takeout and restaurants

Traditional goal-setting orthodoxy says goals should be quantifiable. There should be a time component to what you want to accomplish, and you should be able to objectively measure whether you’re achieving it or not. Words like “most” and “less” above may seem squishy at first blush, but they worked for me because I quantified what they meant: “most” meant more than half; “less” meant I have to add up what we’re currently spending, then make sure each month is less than that.

If your goal is just to cook more often, consider structuring it in some way, like:

Make dinner every weekday for a month, or once a week (or whatever)

Make my own lunch every day

Invite a guest for dinner or lunch once a month

Learn to cook with one new ingredient each week or month

Tomatillos for Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

If you’re feeling ambitious, you might want to tackle #cook90 like I did one year.

In my experience, the more “everyday” your new cooking routine is, the easier it will be to get over the hump and incorporate it into your daily rhythms. If you’re not used to doing a lot of cooking, there are a lot of new routines and things to get used to, so having a goal that involves some sort of daily routine (eg, make breakfast every day or whatever) can help you build a workable system faster.

But you know what you want and why. So the most important thing is to build it around that, whether it’s a daily, weekly or monthly thing. You do you!

And whatever your goal is, be specific and write it down.

This is your year!

Step 3: Tell a Friend, or be your own best friend!

The classic advice is to tell someone. Choose a trusted person (someone supportive!) and let them know you’ve set a goal. Better yet, partner up with someone and keep each other accountable. This is a great strategy.

But in the real world, let’s acknowledge that this might not work. Maybe the people closest to you aren’t super supportive. Maybe your family has strong opinions and baggage around cooking or eating. Maybe meals have been a bit stressful and chaotic in your house. Maybe everyone fights over doing the dishes. (Maybe all of this is the reason for your new goal!)

Ingredients at the ready for Budin Azteca

And let’s face it: statistically speaking, whoever you tell is probably in the 91% (who don’t keep their resolutions), not the 9% who keep them (like us!). So they might not get it!

So another approach is to be your own accountability partner. You can keep a running tally of your cooking. You can set a weekly date with yourself to honestly review how things have been going. Schedule this review to be a weekly pleasure you look forward to, not a chore! Maybe you play your favorite music, or light a candle, or sit at a coffee shop. Maybe you eat or drink something special that you only have during your review.

I do this weekly review thing with all kinds of goals, from business stuff to family stuff, etc. I have a special notebook where I write things down, so I can look back over time and see where I’ve come from. You could include pictures of the things you’ve cooked!

I generally ask myself the following each week:

• What were my wins? Depending on your goal, it can be fun to game-ify this by trying to beat last week’s/month’s score, or imagine which awesome plays you made that the network would be showing in slow-motion right now. Even if you didn’t reach your goal that week, you probably triumphed in some way. Maybe you kept your cool with teenagers rolling their eyes. Maybe you cooked that one day when you really didn’t want to. Maybe you learned to make something with rutabagas for the first time. Maybe you made enough that you could happily eat the leftovers the next day! Whatever it is, take credit for it! You rock!

• How did it go? What worked? What didn’t work? What do I want to keep doing? What do I want to start or change? What do I want to stop doing? This is your own safe space. We already know you’re a bona fide rock star, so be honest, and learn the learnings, so you can keep going.

• What’s my goal for the coming week? Maybe you want to double down, or maybe you want to ease up a bit. This is a marathon, not a sprint. With whatever else is going on in your life this week, how can you keep moving in the direction you want to go?

Step 4: Give Yourself an Assist

Sauteeing diced beets for Spicy Beet Curry with Beet Greens and Spiced Yogurt

The easiest thing is to slide back into doing things the way you’ve always done them. As we’ve already said, change is hard.

So you can help yourself by smoothing the path that takes you where you want to go, while adding speedbumps and roadblocks to the detours that take you off course.

Here are some examples of systems that can help you cook more:

• Have a weekly farmers market date or visit to a specialty shop with a friend or your family

• Join a CSA, so you’ll have to cook with all the fresh produce that keeps arriving

• Sign up for a cooking class or membership

• Join cooking groups or clubs, online or in real life, so you’ll be surrounded by like-minded people

• Subscribe to a print magazine, and have your kids/family members choose something for you to cook each time it arrives

• Start a cookbook club with friends

• Consider a fun food subscription for an ingredient you want to cook with more, like spices or cheeses or mushrooms

Adventure Kitchen can help!

As you can tell, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this! And since this is my business, I actually created a course to help people who want to cook more:

New Digital Course:

Roadmap to Becoming a Better Daily Cook

In this 8-week course, you’ll learn the skills, tools and techniques you need to become a better daily cook, without feeling stuck and frustrated by kitchen chaos - with a repertoire of recipes you can feel good about.

Recipe Inspo for Cooking More

Some recipes to get you started with your cooking goals:

Next week: Discover Your Meal-Planning Style

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*Props to Mike Tyson who said this originally.