I’ve loved cooking and baking ever since I was a child. When I was still living with my parents baking was more my thing even though I occasionally made dinner for the whole family. These days baking has taken more of a backseat, mainly because me and hubby are not big fans of desserts of baked goods so I only bake when we have guests of for special occasions. I also love cookbooks and would call myself a collector. I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to cookbooks. I have tried to cut down on buying cookbooks lately as I tend to use the Internet to find recipes and inspiration instead of actual books.
I love looking for new recipes to try out, especially during the weekends but also have certain favorites that are repeated in my repertoire. Weekdays tend to be a bit of a different story even though I do try to mix it up every now and then but there are times when I find no inspiration and resort to convenience food like frozen pizza or frozen fries. As hubby doesn’t cook I am responsible for all food-prep in our home. This is not a problem as I do love cooking but sometimes it does feel like a chore, especially when I lack inspiration. However, as we are a two adult household I am lucky in that if I don’t feel like cooking we can have, for example, potato chips or ice cream for dinner.
In addition to my cookbook collection and a couple of food magazines I subscribe to, my biggest source for inspiration is the Internet. As I mentioned in a previous post I am an avid Pinterest user and my biggest boards definitely concern food. Here are some weekday favorites I have found on Pinterest. Pictures from Pinterest.
There are some recipe sites I use regularly: valio.fi, soppa365.fi, tasteline.com, allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com. I also use Google a lot when I have an idea of what I want to make but need a recipe to give me a more precise idea. I tend not to follow a recipe literally but use it more as a basis for developing my own version, except when I am baking. Also when I try something for the first time I tend to follow the recipe more closely and then when I’ve eaten it for the first time I get ideas of how I could develop it. But one thing I always do, especially with Finnish recipes, is add spices as many recipes tend to be quite bland. Labels: cooking, food, recipe
