As a young wife and mother we lived in an older home with a super small galley kitchen. It was so small (*how small was it? you ask), It was so small that there was very little storage and counter space. Worse yet, it was so small that more than one person in it at a time could easily induce claustrophobia.
To help alleviate the constraining limits of said tiny kitchen, I turned the coat closet into a pantry and found a spot in the "dining room" for the coffee pot. This helped, but it was still hard to cook in there.
Not only was I hampered by the limited space of my kitchen, but I had no skills and a picky eater of a husband. Oh, I could follow a recipe with (mostly) good results and I knew how to use the tools I had available to me, but I didn't know how to cook. I had a small repertoire of meals I could cook, but I couldn't just throw together a great meal based on what was on hand. I needed something else, something that would allow me to easily and quickly cook a meal without it being a box of hamburger helper or a frozen lasagna. I needed to learn how to organize my cooking and how to pair flavors without relying on someone else's recipe. Did I know that I needed these new skills? Of course not, I didn't realize I needed anything other than a bigger kitchen (and a live in chef 😉) until much later.
After The Vegan became a pesce-pollotarian (or semi-vegetarian) in her early teens, I had to think a little harder. No longer could I rely on pre-packaged and convenience meals and the handful of go to recipes that I used, because many of those options were either made with red meat and the sides weren't rich enough in protein. I needed to alter and/or replace my go to recipes to accommodate her new lifestyle. But accommodating her lifestyle left The (picky) Hubby eating (or more often NOT eating) foods he didn't like (and complaining about it.)
Another problem was noticing it was 5:00 (not "It's 5:00 somewhere", but it is time to be cooking right now) and I had no idea what was for dinner. So I would look around and try to figure something out, run to the grocery store for that one ingredient that I was inevitably out of. I'd get back home only to realize that I hadn't gotten the meat out of the freezer before I left. So I would start thawing the meat and painstakingly cutting ingredients up with my slow knife skills. We ate late dinners more often than I would like to admit.
Then I finally wised up. I started planning my meals a week at a time, at a glance I could see what I was making, what ingredients I needed to purchase, thaw or prep, I made fewer trips to the grocery store saving time and money and I had less random stuff on hand which reduced waste. I also took the time to look for and try new recipes that would accommodate The Vegan's lifestyle. There were hidden bonuses to trying new recipes, as is usually the case when you step out of your comfort zone. I learned how to pair flavors. What aromatics, herbs and seasonings taste good with which proteins and what side dishes will balance the meal. That bonus came in handy when The Vegan dropped the seafood and poultry options and became a full vegetarian (and again more recently when she became a vegan). It was even more useful when The Hubby became paralyzed, which wreaked havoc on his GI system, and he had to go on a Low FODMaP diet, as well as when I figured out that an anti-inflammatory diet would help with my arthritis. Now I had the skills to alter existing recipes and come of with some of my own that would eliminate the high FODMaP and inflammatory ingredients from our diet. I also learned that The Hubby wasn't quite as picky as I thought, he just had a limited idea of what he liked and needed to broaden his palate.
Stay tuned, I will share favorite recipes, tips and tricks, information about Low FODMaP, Anti-Inflammatory, and Vegan lifestyles and ways to cook for a variety of different dietary restrictions at the same table.
