According to a Harvard Review article, only 10% of Americans enjoy the act of cooking, while a whopping 50% hate to cook and 35% are ok with cooking or not cooking. While these numbers are not surprising the health benefits of cooking at home, especially for those trying to lose weight are astounding. It’s no doubt that with more dual or single parents working full-time, there’s less time to spend making gourmet meals for the family. However, one cannot deny the benefits, not just to one’s health, but to one’s pocket book with creating meals at home.
In this article, I hope to provide some basic tools to help you attempt to get a home cooked meal on the table for you and your family at least 2 times a week or more. Julia Child once said, “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what the hell attitude.” So let’s journey together into the basics of home cooking with a unified end to perfectionism and more of a, “At least I didn’t set the house on fire” type of attitude!
Today we start with the basics. Every home cook must have certain tools to successfully create the simplest of meals. The hard part is figuring out what those tools are. What are the essential tools of the trade? Listed below is a check list of items I’d suggest for successfully making a homecooked meal. These can be purchased at thrift shops, through online free sites, or via Amazon in bundles (I’ve linked a few items below). Having the essentials will make it easier to create meals from the upcoming recipes I share later in this series.
- A large cooking pot – This can be stainless steel, non-stick, or for a splurge try a Dutch oven. A large pot can be used to boil pasta, cook soup, and boil potatoes.
- Sauce Pan – This can also be stainless steel or non-stick. A saucepan is used to boil milk, boil frozen vegetables, make mac & cheese, sauces, heat up canned soups and cook oatmeal.
- Wooden Spoon – Used to mix dry and wet ingredients, stir vegetable sautés, stir milk when boiling.
- Whisk – Used to mix eggs and wet ingredients.
- Spatula – You can purchase a steel or silicone heat resistant type. I prefer steel so that I can use it on the BBQ as well. Spatulas also come solid or slotted. Slotted allows for any grease to drain from a burger for example, which can allow for a healthier meal. Spatulas are used to flip meat while cooking, flip and serve pancakes.
- Tongs – These also come in steel or silicone. I prefer the heat-resistant silicone as it is easier to flip delicate meats and fish. Tongs are used for taking corn out of boiling water, hot dogs, to flip pieces of poultry or pork when cooking and to take meat off the BBQ.
- Large nonstick frying pan – Used to sauté vegetables, cook meat, eggs, pancakes.
- Measuring cup – This can be plastic or glass, I suggest glass so that you can use it to heat butter in a microwave. A glass cup measuring device is typically used for measuring liquids and not dry ingredients (measuring nested cups are titrated to measure dry ingredients) but for the sake of simplicity and because I’ve never really noticed a large difference measuring my dry ingredients via the measuring cup, I’d suggest stocking just the glass measuring cup and splurging at a later date for the nested measuring cups.
- Measuring spoons – Used to measure ingredients, especially spices, salt, honey, sugar.
- 4-sided Grater – The large side of this grater is used to shred cheese mostly but you can also shred onions for certain recipes. The two sides of different sized protruding holes that feel spikey to the touch are used for grating such as cinnamon sticks into cinnamon powder, parmesan or other hard cheeses or large quantity zesting of citrus (although a fine zester is a much better splurge!) The fourth side with the large half-moon shape is used when you want to slice something in a universal size such as potatoes to make au gratin, cucumbers, cabbage, onions, etc.
- Vegetable Peeler – Used to peel carrots, potatoes, parsnips or other produce.
- Paring Knife and Chef’s Knife – A Paring knife is a smaller sharp knife used to slice vegetables, fruits, cheese and cooked meats like steak. It is easy to handle and should be stored somewhere away from children as it’s usually very sharp. A chef’s knife is a larger bladed sharp knife used for preparing raw meats, cutting through large melons, and hard exteriors such as squash.
- Cutting Board – These can be purchased in wood, plastic, silicone, glass or bamboo. I prefer the wood as it is gentler on your knives and also has a natural antibacterial that will neutralize 99% of bacteria within 24 hours. Make sure to ALWAYS disinfect your cutting board when slicing raw meats, especially if you use the same cutting board to prepare your vegetables for the same meal.
- Manual can opener – Used to open canned items. Here is a quick tutorial on proper use of a manual can opener.
- Colander – Used to drain water from cooked pasta, separate bone broth out from chicken parts, if you purchase a fine mesh sieve to use as your colander, it can also be used as a flour sifter in baking or for separating grease after cooking meats.
- Nested prep bowls w/lids – These handy bowls can be used to mix ingredients, serve salads and store leftovers. Check this deal out on Amazon! Remember to use Amazon Smile in order to give back to your chosen charity!
- Rimmed baking sheet – Used to roast vegetables, bake cookies, bake fish fillets, roast chicken thighs and drumsticks, and bake bacon – yes that’s right! You can spend less time manning the skillet by laying tin foil over your rimmed backing sheet, then laying your strips of bacon out without touching. Bake at 400 degrees about 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of your strips!
- Baking Dish – Best if ceramic or glass. Can be used to bake cakes, baked chicken, pork casseroles, or vegetables.
- Hot mitt or pot holder – to use when handling hot handles on pots and pans or taking cookware out of the oven.
- Rice Cooker – Used to cook rice, quinoa and lentils.
- Slow Cooker – An essential in my house! Used to slow cook meats for tacos, stews, pasta sauce, crock pot bone broth, mashed potatoes you name it and this device can cook it!
And there you have it! While it may seem overwhelming to have 21 different things to think about, most will not take up much room in your cabinets and can be bought at thrift shops to cut costs. The more you and your family can cook meals at home the more you will save money and see lasting health and weight benefits, so lets get cooking!
