The Cookbook Shelf

When I was pregnant with my youngest, I went on a bit of a rampage and decluttered our entire house top to bottom. This was no small feat, since we were living with stuff packed into every possible nook and cranny. We took so many trips to Goodwill over the course of that year that the workers began to recognize us as soon as our car would pull in! I pushed myself to go pretty far with decluttering (being inspired by the minimalist lifestyle), and, since I’m not very sentimental when it comes to stuff, I was able to get rid of a lot. Our family has loved living in simplified spaces ever since, and I continue to (attempt to) maintain our decluttering so our house doesn’t get too out of control. I've only regretted decluttering one thing: books, and especially cookbooks.

When I decluttered my bookshelves and kitchen during that first round, my criteria was simple: if I’m not using it currently and/or planning to use it within the next year, then it needs to go. This meant all the “healthy” cookbooks I had bought with big plans to make changes to our diet went in the donate box. The Pioneer Woman cookbooks that I had loved in the past but simply didn’t have the bandwidth to cook out of while homeschooling a kindergartener and preschooler, navigating newly diagnosed food allergies with my toddler, and dealing with pregnancy sickness left, too. I was left with two, maybe three, cookbooks in my home. 

But then something strange happened once my house was decluttered: I suddenly found myself having the bandwidth to cook more than hot dogs and mac and cheese and spaghetti, but then I missed my cookbooks! Every piece of clutter in your home is draining both physically and mentally because it represents something that needs to be done: the pile of clothes spilling out of the laundry basket tells you you’re behind on laundry, the toys scattered all over the floor need picked up, there’s still things in the box from your latest Amazon order you haven’t put away, and the dirty dishes covering your kitchen counter need washed before you can cook dinner. In addition to this there is actual research showing that our brain interprets things on the floor as dangerous! Hence why us moms of toddlers are stressed out all the time 🤣. 

In the last few years since that initial decluttering, I’ve been slowly rebuilding my cookbook shelf and cooking from my cookbooks more and more. I’ve also found that I love being in the kitchen again (my kids may disagree, but I find zero joy or inspiration in hot dogs and mac and cheese and spaghetti!). If you are finding yourself in a rut in the kitchen, may I suggest investing in one or two good cookbooks (or just dusting off the ones on your shelf)? Here are some tips that have helped me to actually use my cookbooks:

1. Know what season you’re in. Sometimes I've hated this advice; when I was in the season of having babies, I definitely did. But it’s true, nevertheless. If you’re having babies, experiencing your first year of homeschooling, caring for sick/aging family members, or dealing with illness yourself, maybe this isn’t the time to be adventurous in the kitchen. When my daughter was diagnosed with 3 different food allergies, I didn’t try any new recipes for a year. Instead I took our list of family favorites (what the Lazy Genius calls “brainless crowdpleasers”) and learned how to make them safe for her. Navigating the world of allergies was hard enough without learning new recipes on top of it. 

2. Know what your goal is. We have been really trying to reduce our grocery budget over the last few months, which means I don’t pick out just any recipes from a cookbook. Instead, I go to my pantry, fridge, and freezer first, see what ingredients I have, then flip through my cookbooks to find recipes that use those ingredients. But you may have a different goal; for instance, my mom does Keto, so she’s going to use a “keto-friendly” filter when choosing her recipes. Sometimes you may be in a busy season, so you’re going to choose crockpot meals, meals that can be eaten on the go, or freezer-friendly recipes. Just make sure you start by naming what your focus is for food for right now.

3. Just because you own a cookbook doesn’t mean you have to make all the recipes in it, or even ANY of the recipes in it. I know what some of you are thinking: but if I spend money on it, then I HAVE to use it. But I want to remind you that cookbooks have value as BOOKS, too, not just as recipe collections. Maybe you just need the inspiration of looking at the photos or reading the recipe intros to get you excited to get in the kitchen. And please, please don’t try to cook every single recipe in a cookbook; I know many cookbook lovers, and I never have met a single person who has made every recipe in a cookbook. No matter how much you love that cookbook, I guarantee there are going to be recipes in it that just aren’t going to be a good fit for your family. Remember what we just talked about in tip 2? Choose recipes based on your goal, not the cookbook itself. I used to very much be a perfectionist about this, but the funny thing is that once I let go of the need to make ALL the recipes, I found myself cooking a lot MORE of them than I ever had before. 

4. Get comfortable tweaking and adapting recipes. I was always fascinated watching my mom cook growing up; she would add a little bit of this and that, only pulling out the measuring cups when absolutely necessary. In many ways cooking is an art form, which means YOU, the chef, are the artist. How often do you see artists following a set of directions, step by step, to make a painting or sculpture? I’m not saying recipes are bad, but I think we all would enjoy cooking a lot more if we gave ourselves permission to do what we want in the kitchen, regardless of what cookbook authors say. For me this often means substituting ingredients, whether it’s sunbutter for peanut butter to make it safe for my daughter, or putting whatever veggies I have in soup instead of what the recipe calls for. I rarely measure salt. I also break lots of cooking rules, like putting frozen meat in the crockpot (I’ve been cooking my roasts from frozen for our entire almost fifteen years of marriage, and it has never caused a problem). 

5. Know when to find a recipe online. I like to look through my cookbooks and get familiar with the recipes and ingredient lists when I’m NOT in the middle of writing a meal plan and placing a grocery order. When I’m in the middle of writing my meal plan, a lot of the time I’ll think of a recipe that uses the ingredient I have, but if I don’t then that’s usually when I go to Pinterest and do a quick search (AKA “recipes using frozen mango,” etc.). In general I don’t love cooking from recipes online, although I do it sometimes. I just find cookbooks to be easier to follow because there isn’t all the additional “fluff” you get on a recipe blog. I fully understand why recipe bloggers write these long, drawn-out introductions, but I just don’t have time to wade through it to get to the actual recipe in my day to day life. I’ve recently started printing out a lot of my online recipes when I need to use them, and, maybe I’m old-school, but I find it makes my cooking go SO much smoother. 
   

I hope you’re feeling inspired to get in the kitchen and put your cookbooks to use!