How do you guys motivate yourselves to cook?

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Replies

  • Unknown
    Unknown
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  • AirborneEd
    AirborneEd Posts: 69
    Go to your favorite fast food place and look at the people ordering there. Motivation found.
  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
    WTF?? COOKING IS JOY, LOVE, AND PASSION!! Why on earth would you not want to cook? How else do you get wonderful food you can't get at the supermarket, like curried parsnip soup, spiced oven-roasted golden beets, pork and peanut curry, chocolate peanut butter mousse, garlic roasted lamb.........

    I've never played a video game in my life.

    Que sera, sera.
    You know the amazing thing about human beings is that no 2 are alike?

    So, to your response I give you mine:

    WTF?? VIDEO GAMES ARE AMAZING. IT'S JOY, LOVE, AND PASSION! Why on EARTH would you not want to play a VIDEO GAME?

    So yeah, at least one of us is trying to step outside of themselves and try something new.
    [/quote




    I don't play any games, period. I'd rather do something creative, painting, drawing, sculpture, pyrography, gardening, work with the horses, fiberarts, wet felting, sewing, beadwork, jewelry, interior design... as I said, que sera, sera. Whatever floats your boat.
  • ironanimal
    ironanimal Posts: 5,922 Member
    Step 1: Do not buy prepacked meals - buy only raw ingredients.
    Step 2: There is no Step 2.
    Step 3: Refer to Step 2.
  • aribugg
    aribugg Posts: 164 Member
    in all honesty, my biggest motivation is the scale. my feet hurt, im tired, im hungry. i dont want to cook. but i never really ate "unhealthy", i ate pre-packaged. (along with being lazy) and now im fat. lol
  • maab_connor
    maab_connor Posts: 3,927 Member
    honestly, my wallet motivates that just fine. dining out is EXPENSIVE.

    I cut out dining out for a month and was able to afford an awesome pressure cooker. saves SO much time!!
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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  • Crateria_
    Crateria_ Posts: 253 Member
    Thanks everyone for all the great responses. :)
  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
    edited to not answer a post also now edited.
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
    Quite honestly, the only thing that motivates me is not keeping food around that I don't have to cook. I live alone and cooking for myself is not really fun.
  • Grammanut
    Grammanut Posts: 37 Member
    Yea, not everyone loves cooking as much as some of us do. My son, the gamer, is majoring in Graphic Arts. I got home from work a couple months ago and found a brain shaped rice krispie treat in my fridge. Thinking he was just being cute and artsy I almost ate the temporal lobe when he informed me it was the model for his Psychology project. LOL He did get an "A" !!!

    I saw your creative food log, you could log your foods/ recipes in the same manner.....XBOX snick snacks, PS II power breakfast eggs delight, lame I know but I'm a Mom and Gramma.

    Maybe there's a gamers dieting/ heath forum out there somewhere. If not maybe you should start one :-)

    Good Luck to ya!!!
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
    What? I never said i was better, just different interests. Jeez.

    Comments like 'WTF?! WHY WOULD YOU NOT WANT TO?" sort of imply it, even if that wasn't what you meant. (I don't think it was what you meant, but it can easily come across that way).
  • RobinLynx
    RobinLynx Posts: 60
    I like to play Mad Scientist in the kitchen, trying out recipes. The best part is that when you make the food, you get to make it YOUR way!!

    Both of my sons cook --& enjoy it. We always had fun in the kitchen while they were growing up, it's a good experience cooking something from scratch-- the colors, the scents, the creativity, all that. It's kind of all in how you look at it. Both do the cooking in their homes & their fiancees LOVE it. I think I told them pretty early on that chicks love a man who can cook :happy: And who has fun cooking. (well, it's true). You can show my older son how to cook a particular meal & he will make it about 100 times better, he works full time & is going to college but it's his passion. His fiancee hangs out in the kitchen with him, makes the salad, that kind of thing. My younger son cooks after work-- he leaves his work at work but his fiancee is a teacher, so her work follows her home. But they both have happy homes.

    Prepackaged, processed foods are not fun but not unpleasant or anything. When I'm cooking (which is pretty much every evening) & someone wants that, I'll make something separate for myself & go ahead & feed them what they want. I can't eat many calories (am short with a small frame) & I don't want to waste them lol.

    I love the recipe section in here btw.
  • Crateria_
    Crateria_ Posts: 253 Member
    Yea, not everyone loves cooking as much as some of us do. My son, the gamer, is majoring in Graphic Arts. I got home from work a couple months ago and found a brain shaped rice krispie treat in my fridge. Thinking he was just being cute and artsy I almost ate the temporal lobe when he informed me it was the model for his Psychology project. LOL He did get an "A" !!!

    I saw your creative food log, you could log your foods/ recipes in the same manner.....XBOX snick snacks, PS II power breakfast eggs delight, lame I know but I'm a Mom and Gramma.

    Maybe there's a gamers dieting/ heath forum out there somewhere. If not maybe you should start one :-)

    Good Luck to ya!!!
    Hahaha that's really cute about your son :)
  • grillnchill
    grillnchill Posts: 772 Member
    I prep meals in advance and store them for the days ahead so i can just reach in the fridge and grab a container of this or that. Sunday afternoons are usually my prepping days. During the week it can get hectic so I rely heavily on that.
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
    I dislike cooking and therefor only make very simple things. Do things like bake some fish/chicken/pork with some sauce and/or random spices, serve with boxed noodle mix, rice, boxed mashed potatoes and a bag of salad. We also have Zatarains Red Beans and Rice w/ chicken sausage probably once a week.

    Spaghetti:
    Cook noodles, brown turkey sausage, add jar of sauce to sausage.

    Tacos:
    Brown meat, add 1/2 cup tomoato sauce and some taco seasoning, pre-cooked taco shells, serve with canned green beans.

    Chicken Enchiladas:
    http://www.food.com/recipe/quick-and-easy-chicken-enchiladas-75758

    Meatloaf
    http://www.cooks.com/recipe/as7od5ku/oatmeal-meatloaf.html

    Chicken crockpot stuff:
    http://southernfood.about.com/od/crockpotchicken/r/bl104c4.htm
  • Grammanut
    Grammanut Posts: 37 Member
    Ha ha yea thanks, he's cute!!!

    You could probably start another thread reaching out to other gamers on here too.
  • MysteriousMerlin
    MysteriousMerlin Posts: 2,270 Member
    It's called "being poor" :laugh:

    But in all seriousness, I love cooking. I just hate the clean-up.
  • wyattj99
    wyattj99 Posts: 454 Member
    My husband does it if I'm being lazy..lol
  • kmbweber2014
    kmbweber2014 Posts: 680 Member
    You're a gamer like my son. Did you try googling video gamer cookbook or something to that effect?

    Here's some ideas I found..........

    http://www.delish.com/food/recalls-reviews/video-game-food

    http://www.gourmetgaming.co.uk/

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/angelameiquan/mouthwatering-video-game-foods-in-real-life-70fn

    http://mideastfood.about.com/od/tipsandtechniques/tp/video_games.htm

    These are seriously awesome.
  • lilRicki
    lilRicki Posts: 4,555 Member
    I make a load of food on Sundays so I don't have to cook much during the week. I also keep a bowl of hard boiled eggs in the fridge, meat slices, pickles, pepperoni sticks, cheese, etc so I can "grab and go", the slow cooker is also my friend :) Pinterest has a ton of healthy recipe ideas.
  • thomaszabel
    thomaszabel Posts: 203 Member
    I just approached it like I approached working out at the beginning. Started small, and worked my way up. Google "Easy fast healthy recipes" or something like that. If you're starting off, a meal that takes 3 hours to cook is a turn-off. Then work your way up from there. I cook all the time now, and only go out to eat a couple times a month. I don't miss fast food. When I eat what I've cooked, it tastes so much better than pretty much anything I could get from a fast food joint or even a nice restaurant.

    To tell you the truth, it's rare that any meal I cook takes more than an hour though.

    Good tip from above: Prep the food the day before or in the morning, measure it out, cut it up, and throw into plastic containers so it is all ready to put into the pot or skillet at the right time. If you do that, you might find that you have 10--30 minutes to play a few games in between recipe steps. Just make sure you set a kitchen timer, so you don't forget and burn something (I'm guilty of that).

    Other tip from me: Crock pot. Generally cooking in a crock pot is easy. Step 1) Throw in all the ingredients. Step 2) Turn it on to low setting. Step 3) Eat it when you come home from work. Plus generally those recipes give you a few days of leftovers depending on how many people in your household.

    Bottom line is the more you do it, the more motivated you get. It becomes a habit, and it's a healthy delicious habit to get into.
  • Grammanut
    Grammanut Posts: 37 Member
    @kburnach

    I thought so!!! :-) I'm gonna start trying some and quiz my son on them LOL
  • ncl1313
    ncl1313 Posts: 237 Member
    I meal plan and grocery shop for two weeks at a time based on our schedule for that time period so I don't have to think about it. I'm not a fan of leftovers, so I'm not big on making a weeks' worth of food at one time, but there are parts that I will make ahead. I'll make a couple pounds of shredded chicken or pork in the crockpot on a Sunday and then have it to throw in salads, casseroles, tacos, whatever for the nights I don't feel like doing much cooking or we've got a lot going on. And I always have sliced veggies on hand to throw together a quick stir fry or veggie fajitas.

    I also make a lot of tortilla "pizzas"...just lightly oil or butter both sides of a tortilla, throw whatever toppings you like with some cheese and bake at 400 until the edges are brown. We also eat lots of eggs for dinner. And grilled sandwiches. I love my panini press! Our other quick-fix is pasta. I get the noodles going and then throw some veggies in a skillet, maybe with some shredded chicken or frozen meatballs or italian sausage and it's ready in less than 15 minutes. By the way, others may disagree, but I don't think there's any shame in getting an assist from some frozen stuff...it doesn't ALL have to be homemade.

    Take it a day at a time. Maybe you'll grow to like cooking as you find out what flavors you like and find the fun in it. Or maybe it'll always be a chore and you'll only want to cook stuff that gets you in and out in a flash. Whatever floats your boat.
  • LizaDK914
    LizaDK914 Posts: 54 Member
    My husband and I struggle with this a LOT! Our deal is - because I HATE cooking, except for desserts - that he cook and I do the dishes - which he hates.

    I can't remember how I fed myself before him, but I think it involved a lot of freezer meals, fast food and when I didn't have money for those making myself cook.

    I've read suggestions about cooking a bunch of stuff on Sunday and freezing it, but I've never been successful with that. On Sunday, I just want to rest!

    If you find the answer to how to find motivation for cooking - I'm definitely interested in that fountain of knowledge! :)
  • Grammanut
    Grammanut Posts: 37 Member
    Gamer cook off or potluck??

    You have other friends on the same journey as you?

    Challenge them all to make/ bring a dish, share the recipes, play games, freeze leftovers
  • Amestris
    Amestris Posts: 152 Member
    Make it simple and plan ahead. For example Sunday I roasted an entire chicken. I have been eating that for lunch. For dinner I've been making black bean and chicken quesdillas. The quesadillas take all of about 15 minutes to assesmble and cool I'll probably make a chicken pasta with what I have leftover tonight again another 15 minute meal. One chicken= 3 meals. Just find a system that works for you.
  • AirborneEd
    AirborneEd Posts: 69
    Honestly, do most of my prep for the week on Sundays................set up my tuna for lunches, grill chicken for weekday dinners, and use mostly frozen veggies...............salads are easy to prep during the week and my wife and i take turns making it. Once otr twice a week we make a meal from scratch but it's usually very basic and oven baked or grilled outside, "sides Who doesn't like to grill outside?
  • breeshabebe
    breeshabebe Posts: 580

    By the way, others may disagree, but I don't think there's any shame in getting an assist from some frozen stuff...it doesn't ALL have to be homemade.

    I agree... If I find a good price on onions that are already cut, you better believe I'm using that. Same goes for frozen fajita chicken-- I love to be able to make a casadilla on a whim with chicken salsa and cheese.
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
    If I don't cook I don't eat.

    I just cook while playing video games. Waiting for the raid to fill? Chop some veg. Boss explanation is going down? Saute that stuff/throw my chicken in the oven. Walking back from a wipe? Make my plate; I'm a healer so someone will rez me anyway.

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