Healthy eating depends on knowing the ingredients of your meals and how they have been prepared. This is much simpler if you do your own cooking rather than relying on prepared food, but many of us need to go back to basics to regain the cooking habit.

It isn’t that hard to get back that cooking ‘mood’ if you follow these 8 tips 😉

1. ENJOY COOKING

Cooking is a pleasure and is actually far easier than many ‘non-cooks’ realise. For the sake of your health, your pleasure and your wallet, aim to learn or relearn the joys of cooking. Spend time with your friends and family whiie they cook so that you can absorb thc methods and routines.

Do consider taking a class, or buy an introductory cookbook. Most of all, lose your fear. It is harder to be a bad cook than a good cook, particularly if you use good ingredients.

2. KEEP YOUR KITCHEN TIDY

Families tend to congregate in the kitchen, bringing with them newspapers, schoolwork, mail, toys and other things. Don’t allow it.

Set a new policy: The kitchen is for cooking and eating only!

Why? It’s hard to get motivated about cooking if you have to clean up a mess first, not to mention what it does to your mood.

3. MAKE YOUR KITCHEN A PLACE YOU LIKE TO BE

Is there music playing? Is the evening sun shining through thc window? Are the knives sharp, the vegetables fresh, the pots good quality, the worktops clutter-free? All of these factors will contribute to your desire to make good food.

4. PRACTISE DELEGATION

If you have children aged 10-plus or another adult who gets home before you do, get them started on dinner. For example, you might ask your teenager to start chopping vegetables for the salad and fill the pasta pan with water and your younger child to gather ingredients for a given recipe and put them on the worktop (or use note sharing application like OneNote or Evernote )for you.

Involving your children from a young age will make them more interested in nutritious food and encourage them to try new things.

5. PLAN A WEEK’S WORTH OF DINNERS

Planning ahead takes just a few minutes. Every Friday night or Saturday morning, sit down with your ipad, phone (or an actual pad of paper and pen) and your favourite cookbooks or cookery magazines. Think about what’s in your freezer and fridge, what your family likes to eat and what the coming week entails. Then plan out a week’s worth of menus (you can always leave one night for takeaway pizzas).

At the same time, write out your shopping list.

6. ADD EXTRA FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

Here are 2 easy ways to increase your and your family’s intake of fruit and vegetables:

• Purée a few handfuls of lightly sauted mixed vegetables, such as onions, celery, red capsicum, cauliflower or carrots. Then stir this into sauces, stews and soups to add extra flavour along with a healthy dose of vitamins and anti-oxidants.
• Replace half the fat in cake recipes with apple or prune purée. Allow about 5 tablespoons of water for every 100g of cooked apples or soaked, pitted prunes and blend to make the purée. Or to create a quick dessert, simply add the purée to yogurt.

7. REPLACE THE CREAM IN SAUCES

When you are making beef stroganoff or creamy pasta sauce, use Greek yogurt or skim or low-fat evaporated milk instead of cream. It will provide the same rich taste for far fewer calories and much less fat.

8. STOCK YOUR FREEZER

Stews and soup freeze wonderfully, so it’s worth cooking them in bulk for the freezer so that you always have a few meals in reserve.