Welcome to Family in the Kitchen!
The purpose of this post is to show you how you can find help on your cooking journey and anything related to the kitchen. You may be a beginner chef, or you are a master of your galley, you may looking for easy and quick meal recipes, or need ideas on how to get your kitchen better organized.
Whatever solution you are looking for, we are constantly creating new content and bringing new ideas to assist you. The list below covers the most popular topics you’ll find in Family in the Kitchen. Who are these contents for?
- I am at the beginning of my cooking journey.
- I am ready to adventure into advanced cooking.
- I am interested in having my kitchen & pantry organized.
- I am tired and have little time to prepare easy and affordable meals.
- I want to explore how the kitchen brings the family together, from toddler to elderly, including our pets.
- I want to create meals having Food & Health in mind.
Now, let’s explore each in a little more detail.
1. Are you at the beginning of your cooking journey?
Once upon a time, I was in your shoes, apron rather. I’ve been cooking for a very long time, but there are always new things and tricks to learn. So be patient with yourself. Cooking can be a relaxing experience, fun, and creative. Even romantic at times. Surprisingly enough, cleaning up after long meal preparation has its own satisfaction as well. Sometimes.
Our simple recipes, step-by-step image guides, and links to YouTube videos are tools that can help you gain experience and make delicious meals. Below is how your journey may look like:
- As your confidence grows, you’ll notice that you won’t follow new recipes rigorously.
- At first glance of a recipe, you’ll know what to do and how long it really takes you to prepare a dish.
- You’ll recognize when measurements and instructions are not correct.
- You’ll be able to adjust any recipe like a pro.
- No more throwing out failed meals and wasting money.
- No more struggle in the kitchen.
- Your cookery can turn into a fun place.
- You’ll be creating delicious meals and baked goods that you and your family will enjoy, and you’ll be proud of it.
- You’ll come up with your own recipes and may even publish a book!
2. You are ready to adventure into advance cooking
This is wonderful because it opens up countless avenues that enhance the dining experience. We are on a journey for unique experiences, methods, and more sophisticated recipes. Sophistication doesn’t have to be pricy and complicated. Simple is often the best and can be done at moderate prices.
The list below contains some of the techniques and processes that we’ll try and taste. Each comes with recipes and suggestions. Depending on your mood, time, budget, and willingness, your journey can be educational and entertaining. You can enjoy the flavours vicariously until ready to try and savour.
- Essential Cooking Methods
- Advanced Cooking Techniques
- Wine and Meal Pairing
- Cauldron Cookery
- Slow Cooker
- Juicing
- Drying, Canning, Storing Fruit, Meat, Vegetables
We’ll review the products we use in our recipes to help you decide it is something you want to invest in.
3. Kitchen & Pantry Scavenger Hunt – Getting Organized
An organized kitchen and pantry make our cooking time pleasurable. If you need help in this area, you’ll find ideas under the Kitchen and Pantry Scavenger Hunt. So what are we hunting for?
- Expired spices, canned and bottled fruit & vegetables.
- Long-forgotten frozen goods, sad fruit and veggies in the crisper.
- Kitchen stuff that your neighbour gifted you when moved out, but you’ll never use
- Old family hand downs hiding in the back of your drawer for years
- … and more
How we hunt?
- Show you before & after images, the time it takes, and the budget
- We’re continuously searching the Internet for the best organization resources for small kitchens or large, owned or rented
- Show you how to keep it up
4. Tired and have little time to prepare easy and affordable meals
I can hear you.
After a full day, we want to relax, enjoy a healthy meal that is quick to prepare. I am very good at creating a mental schedule for cooking, shopping, and kitchen. However, I found that writing things down and planning is what saved time and money. Even after years of experience, it is easy to slip with both. Below is what worked for me:
- Planned my weekly and monthly shopping
- Planned weekly meals for the family
- Planned weekly meals for my dog – she requires a special diet and home cooking.
- Planned a Cooking Day / Two Half Cooking Days
- Variety Cooking – More about this later
- Left Overs – A new way of meal planning, budgeting & cooking
I’ve created a monthly printable calendar dedicated to each topic. You will have access to these free tools as well. You can try them and tweak them to suit your lifestyle.
5. Kitchen brings the family together
Out of all our homes’ compartments, besides the usual meal times, we often find ourselves sitting around the kitchen table to converse with a cup of coffee or do work. If you have young children, you may have your work laptop, cooking tools, toys and pencils sharing the same counter. Involving toddlers and young children while having things down in the kitchen is one of the things we’ll cover here.
Some of you are living with your elderly parents. I worked with elderly and Alzheimer clients for years and lived with my senior father at some point. Despite the challenges, there are a lot of hidden gifts during the time we spend together. Each situation is unique, I know, so we’ll have resources covering diet and other topics as well.
What about our pets? They are a part of our tribe, and can’t have a family topic without them. They’ll pop up on these pages too. So who are the characters in the kitchen?
- You
- Your Partner
- Children
- Elderly
- Pets
6. Food & Health
To help you maintain your health goals, our recipes will have the following breakdown:
- Prep time, Cook time, Rest time, Total Time.
- Course, Cusine, Servings, Calories
- Equipment
- Ingredients
- Instructions (Images or Videos)
- Nutrition
- Diet Type (Vegetarian)
We don’t advocate for any particular diet, but we do much research to understand the science behind each. Under “What We Learned,” we’ll present the information we obtained and provide you with the sources if you want to know more. The sources are educational YouTube videos, articles, and books. Our aim is that you be able to make an informed decision before you plan your meals and purchase your groceries so you can maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Before I go
To help you with any of your journeys or maybe all the six listed here, we will post new articles on Fridays. If you want to have more in-depth information or need to reach out, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter mailed out on Saturdays. The newsletters are short and brief. It’ll provide you with a weekly roundup you missed and additional links to resources you may find beneficial.
Thank you for stopping by and read it all the way through.
Andrea from ColouringPieces