Cooking Tools

What is the best way to get started cooking reguarly when it is one of your least favorite activities?

I would love to find a passion for cooking. I would love just to want to cook once or twice a week. I want to eat better! What are some strategies or recipes or tools I can use to help me attain this goal?

Think of how much longer you'll live if you're not stuffing your face with preservatives, artificial flavors and colors, partially hydrogenated oils, chemical additives (carbon-monoxide to keep meat looking fresh?).

Or just go to a fast food chain and ask for a brochure listing the nutritional information for their menu items. (Yes a hamburger is healthier for you than that broiled chicken with the vegetables on it).

Just find a passion for not killing yourself with takeout food, and the passion for cooking will follow.

And, if you hate cleaning up and don't own a dishwasher (like me), buy some of those fancy disposable presoaped dishwashing pads. They work great on cookware crunchies and make cleanup a snap. Or to even make cleanup less of a worry, wash pans and plates and utensils while you're cooking immediately after you're done with them.

As for tools, a big old pot with a thick bottom can cook anything from condensed soup to pot roasts. I'd also invest in two cutting boards -- a big wood one for vegetables, and a plastic one with rubber bumps on the bottom that won't slip when you're cutting up a chuck roast for chili.

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