I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but recently I’ve been avoiding the kitchen. To what do I attribute this sudden disinterest in food? Maybe it’s all the stress from the job search. Maybe it’s not having a kitchen to call my own. Or just a failure of inspiration. Whatever the problem, it’s making me shy away from my favorite room in the house.
At the beginning of the week I had a menu plan and got as far as buying the ingredients, but like a spooked horse approaching a jump, I stopped short just as I was starting to prep. Much to Andy’s disappointment, dinner one night became fried eggs on toast, followed the next night by main-course Panera salads, then finally, the ultimate cop-out, Chinese food. Delivered. I had a lot of good excuses, of course, but the truth is I just couldn’t focus, couldn’t get in the groove.
The realization of my problem was starting to set in (as was the guilt), so the day after Chinese delivery, I promised Andy a good home-cooked meal. Spaghetti Bolognese, one of our favorites. I had the ingredients, planned to start cooking around 4:00, but when I went to the pantry—no canned crushed tomatoes. Here, for the first time all week, was a legitimate reason to beg off cooking. Somehow, though, I was determined to make dinner.
I couldn’t make Bolognese, but I opened the freezer and spied a couple chicken breasts. If you’ve got that, it doesn’t matter what else you’ve got in the house—you can always make something. I decided to go back to basics, to a simple recipe Mom used many a weeknight when Sharon and I were young and she was working full time: Sautéed chicken breasts with a pan sauce. I won’t lie. The meal itself wasn’t a show-stopper. I served the chicken with frozen vegetables and instant brown rice, but the chicken was so good it carried the meal. And most importantly, I cooked. Andy devoured. The magic of the kitchen—cooking and eating—was back. The next day, I felt drawn to the kitchen again.
Gotta say: This sautéed chicken breast and pan sauce concept is probably one of the best recipes Mom ever developed. It’s in How To Cook Without a Book. A master recipe for sautéed chicken breast, pork chop or piece of fish with dozens of simple, done-in-a-minute pan sauce choices to suit your taste buds or what you happen to have in the pantry. Because sometimes you just have to get dinner on the table. Especially when you’re kitchen spooked and need to get your mojo back.
I too have the “I just don’t want to get started, it’s too much effort” problem this time of year. I think it’s the weather – day after day of gray and cold starts to wear me down mentally.
I’ve found that the best way to break out of my funk is to “just do it”, and start cooking. Even when I don’t feel like it. Especially when I don’t feel like it! It’s hard at first, but once I get going my mood picks up.
(Some people exercise for their mental health; I cook for my mental health.)
And, like you, I use this recipe to get me going when I’m in a funk. I wrote about it on my blog recently; I agree that it’s one of the best Pam’s ever done. Learning to saute with a pan sauce moved me from being recipe-dependent to being a real cook – I can’t say enough good things about it.
Yup! I do that more than I should. Just get something to eat that is fast and easy. I agree with Mike V. Once i get started it’s good!
Everyone should have “How to Cook Without a Book”! It is a must have for every cook!
Clearly I’m in the Mike/Bob camp. I don’t always feel like running on scheduled days or going to my 6:30 a.m. yoga class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I’m committed to a healthy body. It may not look pretty, but I try to get out there.
Same with cooking. I’m not always enthusiastic and super creative, but I’m committed to family (however you define it) meals. So I do it. I mean when’s the last time you got up from the dinner table and said, ” I wish I hadn’t done this.” Anything worthwhile is worth the effort.
For years I’ve kept my Le Creuset on the stove as a daily lure. I may not even use it, but when I see it I think, “I don’t even have to pull out a pot to start cooking!
Oh, Mags. I knooooow your pain. The difference is: your rut has been like three weeks and mine was like three years.
Working at a food magazine, I lived, breathed, wrote, and thought food ALL day. And even if I didn’t cook a single thing at work, I still was just sick of the whole thing by the time I got home.
And then grad school happened, and it was soup and toast and the occasional pasta night. But then a lot of things happened, I met Tony, I got new knives, and a Le Creuset dutch oven for Christmas, and I just got inspired. (I even rearranged my kitchen a little bit for more effective prep and flow).
Now, I am cooking more than ever before and loving it. But, I still have days where it feels like the last thing I want to do. Like you said though, you just have to get in there and start doing it, and then you’ll be glad you did.
Mom, I love that explanation of why the Le Creuset lived on the stove, and not in a cupboard like every other pot and pan we have. I never even looked for a place to put the Le Creuset you got me for Christmas. It lives on the stove, just like it always did at our house. And come to think of it, I’ve used it just about everyday since I got it.
There IS less of a barrier to cooking that way–all you have to do is turn on the flame and drizzle in a little olive oil and you’re on your way.
But it’s good to know that Mom’s chicken is the cure for culinary ruts. I’ll keep that one in my back pocket to fend off my next one. (I’m a big fan of the chutney pan sauce.)
I’m getting me a pretty Le Creuset soon — I’m definitely in the “rut” camp. You’re not alone, Maggy!
I love this recipe. I’ve used it often ever since I learned it from How to Cook Without a Book. It’s easy and deeelicious! Great story Maggy.
I go through the same ruts now and then. Fortunately for me, my husband loves to cook, so he can cover for me. Unfortunately, that means there’s less motivation for me to get out of the rut.
I remember reading How To Cook Without A Book in bed a few weeks ago (I borrowed it from the library), and having an AHA! moment when I got to the pan sauces. It was brilliant in its simplicity. And it made it even clearer that it’s always possible to create a good home-cooked meal, regardless of the time crunch or any temporary lack of inspiration.
Because if you’re genuinely into food, that lack of inspiration is always temporary. At least, I like to think it is. Then again, I skipped dinner last night, so what do I know.
I wish I could figure out how to skip dinner sometime!
It’s easy to skip dinner! All I have to do is have a big second lunch really, really late in the afternoon. Then I coast into breakfast running on the fumes of guilt.
Then I have pancakes for breakfast because I run out of guilt by the morning.
Could make a case for a variation on writer’s block (cooks’s block?). Truly a scary thought!
I will have to try your approach using pork chops. There is one package languishing in my freezer from a whole pig I had butchered over a year ago. Hmmm… pork chop block?