If you find cooking a chore that you’d rather not have to tackle, you’re not the only one. Although some people love cooking and can find real joy in it, many others would rather just get a takeaway or throw something in the microwave than create a wholesome, healthy, delicious meal from scratch. Whether it’s because you’re busy, tired, or you just can’t find any inspiration for making interesting dishes, the fact is that cooking isn’t fun anymore.
However, what if you could make it fun again? What if you could change how you feel about cooking and start making your own food? You’d be healthier, you’d be happier, and you might even find a great new hobby to enjoy. One way to make this happen could be to build an outdoor kitchen; read on to find out why.
- Grow Your Own
When you have a fantastic outdoor kitchen that’s been designed well and gives you all you need to cook, you’ll instantly want to use it more. However, if that kitchen were also directly connected to a vegetable patch and herb garden that you’ve grown yourself, you’ll be even more keen to use it and use the completely natural and organic ingredients that are just a few steps away.
Once you start to taste the flavours that come from these fresh ingredients, you’ll realise that you’ve elevated your food to the next level, and with that feeling of accomplishment, you’ll want to cook more and more. You might also get to experiment with different flavours and ingredients depending on what you’ve planted – it might be trial and error, but that’s part of the fun.
- Easy Clean
For some, cooking isn’t the issue; rather, it is how much time it takes to clean everything up afterwards. It’s far easier to open a few packages and then put everything in the oven from the freezer compared to chopping and slicing and making a mess.
The great thing about an outdoor kitchen, and another reason why it can bring joy back to the job of cooking, is that it’s easy to clean up. You can choose durable materials like porcelain paving from mystonefloor.com that look fantastic but that are easy to clean and won’t stain if you drop food on them. Plus, get stainless steel appliances so you don’t have to worry about rust or other damage from the elements. On top of this, compared to indoor kitchens, outdoor cooking areas don’t hold onto odours for so long (if at all), so the space will always feel a lot cleaner anyway. You can even throw your leftovers straight into a compost heap to make the job a thoroughly clean one.
If it’s tidying up that really puts you off cooking, an outdoor kitchen will minimise that chore so you can focus more on the food you’re making and eating.
- Cook For Others
Sometimes the fact that you’re cooking for yourself might make the job tougher; why go to the effort or sourcing wonderful ingredients or putting in hard work when you’re the only one who’s going to eat the food? Although that’s not the right attitude to have – you deserve great food whether you’re alone or not – it’s easy to fall into over time.
When you have an outdoor kitchen, you’ll be more inclined to invite people over to share the space with you, so you’ll be able to share your food with them too. This can help you find more joy in cooking again and perhaps even open your palette.