Yes, we all love going to a nice restaurant and trying delicious dishes, but when it comes to preparing food at home we don’t always have the will to cook. If you find it difficult to motivate yourselves to cook after a whole day at work, or you just don’t feel up to it, you definitely need what I call a cooking motivation boost. In fact, I can guarantee that by the time you’ve finished reading this article, you will be on the look for a new recipe to prepare today!

DISCOVER GREAT RECIPES, TIPS & IDEAS!

Find an Amazing Food App

We live in a technology-driven world, and while we still cannot rely on robots cooking our own food, finding a good recipe app is the first step towards cooking inspiration. Even if you know how to cook, more often than not choosing what to prepare for lunch or dinner is way more difficult than the actual preparation process. Having a recipe app at hand will surely provide you with the inspiration you need. Plus, these apps have step by step instructions that newbie cooks can follow and many useful tips and ideas to make your regular dishes stand out! Have you downloaded our cooking app yet? If not, do so by clicking the links below.

MyGreatRecipes for iOS

MyGreatRecipes for Android

Go Grocery Shopping at Least Once a Week

Ideally, you could make a sort of a “week menu” and go grocery shopping in advance. This way you won’t get disappointed if the recipe you like calls for ingredients that you don’t have at home. Plus, you wouldn’t want to throw the money down the drain? Once you’ve spent money on groceries you might as well use them, right?

Make sure you prepare a list of the things you need before you head out to the supermarket. Plus, if you are not cooking that often, I will take a wild guess and say that you are not all that familiar with what you have in your pantry. So, check out whether you already have some of the ingredients in your kitchen. Say if a recipe calls for a drop or two of olive oil, and you already have it at home, buying it will be spending money in vain.

Plus, if you have a list of the things you need, you are less likely to buy anything you don’t need. Let’s face it, more often than not we end up buying something we don’t really need, just because the discount prize seemed tempting. This is especially important if you have a limited budget, or are on the look of saving money. Are you a student trying to learn your way around the kitchen? Check out our Student Guide to Efficient Cooking and learn everything there is to know about

Write it Down!

Regardless of whether you are a onetime cook, or like to cook every day, taking notes is of crucial importance. Yes, recipes have guidelines and measures, but one time out of three, you’ll see that these things are not constant. So, if you thought that one cup of flour was not enough for the bread you are baking and you decided to add a spoonful more, write it down! Forty minutes at 400° were not enough for the bread to cook through? Write it down! You swapped regular oil for olive oil and it was a success? Write it down! Next time you are to prepare your favorite recipe you will have the notes ready to guide you further. You can do this the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper, or use your smartphone as your notebook.

Find Someone to Cook With

Just like every other thing in life, cooking is way more fun when you do it with someone. Be it your mom, husband, or friend, you will be simultaneously helping each other and having a blast while doing it! If, on the other hand, you don’t think cooking WITH someone will be effective, then cooking FOR someone surely will be! Surprise your family members with dishes you’ve prepared especially for them (say your daughter’s favorite pancakes or your husband’s favorite meat cut). Do this day in day out, your loved ones’ reactions will surely motivate you to cook more often!

The Ultimate Cooking Motivation

Well, if you weren’t inspired to grab your apron and toque blanche by now, then one of these delicious recipes will surely convince you to do so! And get this: all of these recipes take 30 minutes or less, start to finish!

Italian Chicken Sandwiches

The stringy, gooey mozzarella makes these sandwiches so irresistible, they will become your new favorite! If you don’t have a tomato paste on hand, use Italian-seasoned tomato sauce instead. Feel free to enhance the flavor with basil, oregano, and any other herbs or spices you like. Plus, if another type of cheese is more to your palate, you can always replace the mozzarella with Swiss cheese or grated Parmesan cheese.

Citrus Grilled Chicken

The orange sauce and pink onions are reminiscent of a sunset, and once you’ve prepared this recipe you will start affectionately calling it sunset chicken. Oregano and cinnamon go hand in hand to make the perfect sunset chicken marinade (use ½ a teaspoon of the first and a ¼ teaspoon of the latter).

Greek Style Orzo

The flavors of this orzo bring back the traditional tastes of grandma’s cooking. Childhood memories will evoke with every bite and you will enjoy the road to memory lane. Remember, some canned chicken broths are saltier than others. So considering the salt in the broth, the salt in the butter and the salty feta, you can omit the half a teaspoon of salt until you add all the other ingredients and taste the result. If not salty enough, add more, if it’s to your taste, skip the salt altogether.

Berry Berry Parfaits

This light, sweet and rich treat will definitely become your favorite summer dessert! Parfaits can be served year-round, so you can use whatever fresh berries that are in season. During blueberry season, substitute blueberries for the strawberries. In blackberry season, freeze sweetened blackberries so you could use them instead of raspberries in the winter.

Glorious Garden Pizza

Chopped the vegetables, especially the broccoli, into small pieces so they would cook to just the right crisp-tender texture. Because the cooking time needed for broccoli can be hard to predict, cook the cut-up florets in a little water for 2 to 3 minutes, then drain and dry them before arranging them on the pizza.

Country-Style Cube Steak

Plain good cooking like this never goes out of style! But hear this, you can alter this recipe to make something very much like pepper steak with just a couple of changes. Reduce the amount of ketchup to a ¼ cup, use soy sauce instead of Worcestershire sauce, and omit the dry mustard and vinegar.

Frosty Sherbet Squares

In Italy, this dessert is made with ice-cream flavors unique to Europe, such as nougat, rice pudding, burnt almond, and hazelnut. Create a completely different dessert by substituting coffee or maple ice cream, chocolate ice cream and vanilla ice cream for the sherbets.

So, was I right? Have you started looking for the kitchenware and ingredients needed for one of these recipes? Wait, don’t start cooking just yet, I have one more thing to say to you: Happy cooking! 🙂

DISCOVER GREAT RECIPES, TIPS & IDEAS!

I’m in love with food and everything about food! Blogging is my way of celebrating that love and MyGreatRecipes made it all happen. If you, too, are into great food and interesting reads, you will enjoy reading my posts!