Truth be told, I used to find cooking and being in the kitchen (especially when needing to clean up or do the dishes) an exceptionally boring and frustrating experience.
It all just felt….mundane.
So, I didn’t do much of it. At all.
And lo’ and behold, my health and wellbeing suffered for it.
In my early twenties, eating out all the time or purchasing pre-made and packaged foods sent my health experience down the toilet (hello abnormal pap smears, chronic eczema, digestion issues, mental health issues, and more..).
I returned to the kitchen out of desperation, honestly.
I didn’t want to be on pharmaceutical medication and I didn’t want surgical procedures that just felt so…intrusive… and so I learned about how the foods we eat really do set the stage for our health experience in our body.
So I got over my ego and decided to start cooking again.
Overtime, I began to discover ways to help make my experience being in the kitchen more enjoyable, and soon, it became something I looked forward to!
Having some ‘me time’ in the kitchen to cook delicious meals for me and my (now) husband, became like a little slice of creative heaven, and well, the rest is history.
I want to share with you 5 things that I incorporated in my kitchen-routine that really and truly helped spice up (pun intended) my time while tending to the hearth.
5 Tips to Spice Up Your Kitchen Experience
1. Listen to upbeat music.
I love jazz, French cooking music, 1980s rock and roll, or dirty beats.
Really, whatever makes you inspired, listen to it! Dance and sing while you’re cooking. Your joy and happiness will be infused in the food, which makes it taste THAT much better (trust me).
If you don’t want to listen to music, but want other distraction for say the dishes or cleaning the stove, I oftentimes will grab my laptop and put on my favorite Netflix show. I get the luxury of binging on one of my shows without the guilt of just sitting and vegetating for no reason.
Choose a show that you don’t necessarily have to ‘watch’ and pay close attention to, perhaps one that’s a ‘guilty pleasure’.
2. Make a fancy drink and put it in a wine glass.
It doesn’t have to be alcoholic (although, I do on occasion love to have that glass of wine while I cook).
I love to get sparkling water and add fruit, flower-infused syrups, or even using a little bit of stevia-soda to give it some flavor (a whole stevia-soda is WAY too sweet for me personally).
Put a slice of lemon, mint leaves or some edible flowers, and viola! You have a nice fancy drink to enjoy while your cooking your delicious healing meal.
Also, I say put it in a wine glass because EVERYTHING tastes better when its in stem-ware.
3. Get a cushy mat to stand on at the sink or at the counter while you’re preparing your food.
This will help your body feel more relaxed and less strain when standing at the sink to clean up.
I found once I wasn’t standing on the direct wood/ linoleum/ tile, but rather having something nice to stand on, really helped ease my distain for dishes and cleaning what’s in the sink. My back and legs didn’t complain and the mundane tasks no longer feel like a slow torture process (lol).
4. If you purchase fresh herbs or greens, stick them in a glass/glass jar/ or vase of water (stem down) and keep them on your kitchen counter.
It’s so nice to see the fresh greens like a bouquet in the kitchen, plus it will help inspire you to use them instead of them going rotten from being forgotten in the refrigerator drawer.
I love to do this with parsley, cilantro, basil, and dill.
5. Spend a little extra time on presentation of your food (if you can).
Awaken your inner-muse and experiment with making your food beautiful.
I know we all love when we go to a restaurant and the plating of the food is pleasing for the eye. There’s no reason we can’t do that for ourselves!
Make shapes with your ingredients, add that extra ‘flair’ to your baked good, put a sprig of parley on the plate, make a rainbow or serve the portions in a way that make you giggle.
We do this for children, right? Well, we can do it for us too!
Let’s bring play back into the food-making process and awaken our inner child and creative-selves. There’s no wrong move because you’re just going to eat it afterwards! Edible art! The best!
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I hope these tips offer you some inspiration as to how to make your time in the kitchen more enjoyable, exciting, and creative!
Cooking doesn’t need to be a chore or something we dread.
We can thoroughly have fun and feel good about what we’re doing and how we move in the kitchen.
In my upcoming LIVE course, Kitchen Hearth Heart Heal, I’ll be sharing more tips, tricks, and insights in the way of what I call devotional cooking.
This course is where traditional ways and values of hearth-tending meet modernity, and how even we as 21st century women (with our careers, hobbies, families, and cultural pressure to ‘do all the things’) can return to the kitchen in an intentional and loving way.
This 5-week course (4 weekends plus a Q&A session on a Wednesday evening), will take you through all I’ve learned as I’ve intentionally returned to hearth after denouncing this traditional role all through my late teens and early-twenties.
It’s been a slow but gradual (and VERY rewarding process), and I want to share with you all I’ve learned and discovered along the way.
All the details found here:
https://kitchen-hearth-heart-
I can’t wait to ignite the fires of our hearth and devotionally cook with you!
It’s going to be so much fun!
xoxo
Denell