PHOTO BY ANNIE SPRATT

KISS Cooking: Keep Cooking Simple, Stupid

Simplify meal prep, and make cooking fun again.

by Catherine Gannon Taintor

August 2022

Cooking is a joy—meal prep not so much. As we get older, we tire more quickly. Preparing a meal–planning, cooking, and cleaning up after a meal–can become overwhelming. What we need as we age is the person in the restaurant kitchen wearing checkered pants who chops vegetables, butchers meat, and prepares sauces. We need a line cook—the person who follows the chef’s orders and keeps the work area clean.

Most of us can’t afford a line cook. Instead, we need a strategy to simplify the cooking process. The payoff is less stress and more time to spend on ourselves and our loved ones.

PLAN: THINK 5-INGREDIENT RECIPES AND ONE-POT MEALS

There are many wonderful 5-ingredient or even 12-ingredient cookbooks or online recipes to help us whip up quick and nutritious weekday meals. Consider making a one-pot meal, a healthy dish in which all the ingredients are combined in a single pot for cooking. One-pot meals are easy to prepare and a cinch to clean up afterward.

SHOP FROM A LIST

  1. Plan out what you will eat for the week making sure to include lots of fruits and veggies. Make a list of the ingredients you will need to buy. Grocery shopping will go more quickly if you know exactly what you need.
  2. Stock your pantry with staples. Our pantries may differ, but we all need to have an easy meal or two we can make from what’s in our pantry. Think pasta and tuna casserole. Add items to your shopping list when your pantry is running low.
  3. Use a recipe organizer app to store your collection of recipes and make a shopping list. They also help you scan and organize online recipes. Big Oven and Chef Tap are two free apps with good reviews.
  4. Go ahead and cheat! Buy prepared meals in the grocery store and salads in the deli section and save yourself some work.

COOK: PACE YOURSELF

Ideas to help you simplify the meal prep process:

  • Prepare and eat your main meal at noon if that’s when your energy level is highest. Don’t fight your body’s natural rhythm. Schedule your most demanding tasks when your energy is highest.
  • Keep your evening meal simple with soup and sandwiches or salad.
  • Wash, peel, and chop veggies for a week and store them. (Soft veggies such as tomatoes and cucumbers may need to be prepped twice a week.)
  • Do some tasks sitting and others standing
  • Keep frequently used items on lower shelves within easy reach
  • Go slowly. Rushing around can cause a slip and fall.
  • Make enough food to repeat meals during the week.

CURE FOR COOKING FATIGUE—THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

What happens when we grow tired of the daily grind of cooking? Cooking becomes tedious instead of fun. We are eating meals to stay healthy but not to enjoy ourselves. It’s time to rethink your daily meal plan and fall in love with cooking again.

To help you revive your love of cooking, here are some ways to get creative:

  • Experiment with ingredients. Add ingredients you aren’t familiar with. It could make your cooking exciting again.
  • Invest in a cooking subscription box or a recipe box such as Hello Fresh or Blue Apron and have recipe cards and spices delivered to your home each week.
  • Watch a YouTube video and learn a new cooking technique.
  • Take a cooking class for seniors. Check out classes in a local senior center or community college. It’s a great way to meet new people and have fun.
  • Go online and take a Master Class and learn new cooking techniques, ingredients and recipes. Master Class has over 15 cooking classes. Annual membership is $15 a month and allows you access to all 150+ instructors. A sampling is below:
  1. Gordon Ramsay “Teaches Cooking I”
  2. Gordon Ramsey “Teaches Cooking II: Restaurant Recipes at Home”
  3. Thomas Keller “Teaches Cooking Techniques I II and III”
  4. Alice Waters “Teaches the Art of Home Cooking”
  5. Massimo Botturo “Teaches Modern Italian Cooking”

HOLIDAY COOKING

Love entertaining but dread the work cooking for the holidays entails? You probably have cooked at least one elaborate dish that takes hours to prepare. Your family and friends compliment it every time you serve it. The problem is you no longer have the energy to prepare a complicated meal.

Time to find a new recipe—with fewer ingredients and fewer directions. Enlist help. I love it when my sons help me to cook. The kitchen comes alive with music and laughs. Cooking is a wonderful activity to share

KEEP IT FUN

  • Turn on the music while you are cooking. Boogie as you chop. Twirl as you stir.
  • Buy a new kitchen tool. I bought myself a mandoline and became a slicing maven.
  • Create a playlist for your family or friends to listen to and enjoy while eating

THREE COOKBOOK IDEAS

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