So, I like to cook. That might actually be an understatement. I really love to cook. There’s something about peeling a carrot, chopping garlic, coming up with new recipes, and making my own salad dressings from scratch that just steadies and calms me from the inside out. Cooking just feeds my soul.
I started really cooking when I was a senior in college with only 2 quarters left of my undergraduate career. At that time, I had finished out my presidency with the Order of Omega, VP of Administration position with the Panhellenic Association and presidency with the Associate Students Women’s Commission. Needless to say, I was bored and didn’t have anything to really fill all of my newfound time. I decided cooking was going to fill all of that time. (I also filled some of that time with exercising, but that’s not what this post is about.)
Because almost every meal I make at home is homemade, there are certain foods that I always keep on hand for my cooking needs.
Some of those items include:
- Gluten free flour
- Organic heavy cream (if I could find grass fed, I would buy that.)
- Organic grass-fed whole milk
- Organic cold pressed orange juice
- Organic lemon juice
- Organic tomatoes
- Organic grass-fed butter
- Organic sour cream
- Organic avocado oil-based mayonnaise
- Organic garlic
- Organic lettuce (different types)
- Organic cilantro, parsley, basil and dill
- Organic lemons and limes
- Wild caught salmon, cod or tuna
- Organic grass-fed ground beef
- Organic pasture raised chicken
- Pasta certified from Italy
- Organic grass fed raw sharp cheddar
- Organic lunch meat (chicken, ham, or roast beef)
- Organic berries and fruit (bananas, apples, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries)
- Organic tomato juice
- Organic pasture raised eggs
- Avocados
- Gluten free sliced bread
- Organic pasture raised chicken stock
- Organic crushed tomatoes
- Avocado oil and organic cold pressed olive oil
- Organic balsamic vinegar
- Red, sweet, and white onions
- Wild caught canned tuna
- Organic russet potatoes
- Organic spicy brown mustard
- Organic raw honey
- Organic broccoli
- Organic pasture raised eggs
- Organic pine nuts
- Organic parm and mozzarella
With all of these ingredients on hand, you can make so many different meals and salad dressings. You can whip up a berry smoothie, mix your own buttermilk ranch dressing, simmer your own homemade tomato sauce and roux, make your own tuna niçoise salad, and cook a perfect homemade breakfast.
Obviously, if you don’t like any of those meals, you would have different things on your list of staples, but in my opinion, the above list is a really good starting point to start making your own sauces, dressings and homemade meals.
If you are not that interested in making homemade meals, I understand the hesitation, it is a lot of work, and because of that, you really need to enjoy the process and journey of cooking—not just the end result. I would urge you, though, to make your own sauces and dressings. That’s because sauces and dressings have a lot of added ingredients and extra calories that aren’t good for you, such as inflammatory oils, added sugars, and preservatives. You can avoid those naughty ingredients if you make the dressings and sauces yourself. If you have a food processor making many of these sauces and dressings from scratch are really really easy. For example, you can make homemade pesto all in the processor. You first start by adding chunks of parm that you can literally break off with your hand in the processor. You pulse until fully chopped. Then, you add all of the other pesto ingredients into the processor in one swoop—whole pesto leaves, whole pine nuts, lemon juice, whole garlic cloves, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then, you pulse again until fully blended. It literally takes a few minutes, and you have the best homemade pesto that you made from scratch, and you can use the pesto as a perfect spread on your sandwich bread, layer on top of your favorite type of pasta or use as a perfect topping for your baked chicken. The possibilities are endless.
I hope this post helps inspire you to want to try your hand at cooking, and I hope it brings you some added peace and calmness to your day like it does to me.
Here’s to being well preserved.
Always,
Taylor
