How to Improve Your Creativity in the Kitchen through Food Inspiration
Where does inspiration come from, and how does it improve the quality of your cooking in the kitchen?
Does inspiration come from recipes and cookbooks? Or perhaps it comes from a tip floating around in the community until it reaches our eyes and ears. Or, if we’re lucky, the food bulb in our mind may just light up and inspiration will begin to flow.
If you know how to cook half the battle is won. But if you’re an average cook, it will take a bit more imagination to come up with fresh ideas to prepare a meal. I learned from observing others do their thing in the kitchen. Later, I read recipes from books and magazines to enhance the meal experience. But like everything else, the same recipe gets old and you want something new or improve the recipes you already have. Here’s where some inspiration can help save the day in the kitchen.
So without further ado, let's dive in
Images and sense of smell
Sometimes, for me, I’ve been inspired just by picking up a food scent floating in the air near restaurants or a food truck. Other times when I’m looking at food products in the store, I notice the pictures on them and sometimes have ingredients arranged in a certain way that gives rise to an Aha! moment. So food scents and pictures can be sources of inspiration.
Research cooking ideas
Another way Inspiration may arrive is by turning your kitchen into a food laboratory. I’ve come up with new cooking tips by tweaking a few ingredients to come up with a different flavor and texture, or simply to improve an old recipe. For example, if you’re out of chicken, you can substitute chicken for beef or even shrimp for a pasta dish. If you’re out of butter, you can use apple sauce per se. Using the substitution method can save the day or dinner if you’re out of a certain ingredient.
Cooking Programs on The Air & Online
I enjoy watching cooking programs on TV and radio. Milk Street Radio with Christopher Kimble is one of my favorites that comes out on Sunday afternoons on PRX.org and also on PBS radio stations. Another favorite program that also comes out on Sunday afternoons, on PBS TV is Jacques Pepin: Heart & Soul. You can also find him on YouTube. He’s a French chef and writer and has a unique way of presenting his cooking expertise by cooking at home in a relaxed and enjoyable setting. Both chefs have uniquely inspiring ideas for prepping and cooking amazing meals and desserts.
Also when I need a quick tip or idea, I always go to YouTube. Alternately, I also check out online sites like recipes.com and Food Wishes with Chef John to look for inspiration.
By the way, the purpose of needing to look for inspiration is for those days when you have no idea what to cook for dinner.
Another great place I look for inspiration is Pinterest. I can spend hours going through a plethora of food-inspiring pictures from different food categories. Take rice recipes for instance — one of my favorites. People on the Pinterest platform, have a variety of chicken and rice recipes to inspire you to cook your own rice from one of their recipes. A recipe I found that’s a snap to make is (chicken, broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole). I like making this casserole on Sunday afternoons for dinner. This is a minute example of what you can find on Pinterest for inspiration and recipe ideas.
After spending some time on Pinterest, I always walk away with an idea of what to cook for dinner and also for those weekend special dinners we all enjoy and look forward to making.
Cooking by The Book
Cookbooks in general, are excellent sources of food inspiration, but not all are created equally. You need to find one that specifically meets your needs. So depending on what your food options are, you would choose a cookbook that identifies with your meal preferences. Since there is a plethora of cookbooks that have been created and published it can be a challenge to find the right one.
One cookbook titled: 150 Classic Chicken Recipes is a cookbook for those who love chicken & rice dishes as I do — available on Amazon. Jacques Pepin: Simple & Healthy Cooking for the health conscious. Then there is 123 Recipes, Chicken & Rice, by Christine. This cookbook is based on the family tradition of gathering around the table to share a meal, and the book is a product of many years of the mother and sisters preparing many dishes.
To conclude this article, these are a few examples of how to find inspiration and how to make the magic happen with your home cooking adventure. So we have food scents and food pictures to inspire some food creativity. Your kitchen can become a laboratory to experiment and tweak ingredients in order to improve the quality of your food prep. Culinary experts like Christopher Kimble and Jacques Pepin can bring oodles of inspiration to the kitchen table. Pinterest is an amazing website with a plethora of breathtaking pictures of entree dishes to satisfy the most discriminating palate. Finally, cookbooks can take food inspiration to the next level but care is needed here to make sure you get the right cooking manual.
