How to Stay Inspired & Motivated

[quote type=”center”]Favourite sources of Inspiration + Do-ahead Dinners + 5-minute Dinners.[/quote]

[tabs slidertype=”left tabs” auto=”no”] [tabcontainer] [tabtext] Video [/tabtext] [tabtext] 11 Favourite Sources of Inspiration [/tabtext] [tabtext] 3 Things You Should ‘Never’ Do [/tabtext] [tabtext] Your Homework [/tabtext] [/tabcontainer] [tabcontent] [tab] Prefer to listen on your ipod? CLICK HERE to download the audio in mp3. (you may need to right click and ‘save link as’) [/tab]

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11 of my favourite sources of inspiration.

This week we’re talking inspiration and motivation – some of my favourite topics. I personally believe that you can find inspiration anywhere and for me that’s especially true when it comes to cooking. So I’m sharing my own sources of inspiration and motivation.

1. Cookbooks

What can I say, my favourite books tend to be cookbooks. I’ve been rediscovering my local library this year which is a great inexpensive way to explore new authors.
Here are a few of my alltime favourites.

Tender Volume 1. A cook and his vegetable patch by Nigel Slater
His words alone are enough to keep me enchanted for hours, but Nigel Slater’s recipes are also some of my all-time favourites.

River Cottage Veg Everyday by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
I just adore English chef Hugh and his River Cottage TV series. His passion for growing food and cooking is infectious. This is one of his latest books and easily my favourite.

A year in my kitchen by Skye Gyngell
A wonderful book of cooking by the seasons from an Australian chef living and cooking in London.

Moro – by Sam & Sam Clarke
Another London chef book but this time focusing on Moroccan and Spanish cuisine – simply love all their books but this first one has the most classic dishes.

The Bourke Street Bakery Cookbook – by Paul Allam & David McGuinness
My go to book for all things bread, pastry and sweet treats.

Danks Street Depot – by Jared Ingersoll
A wonderful little Sydney cafe, I’ve pretty much cooked my way through this book and had some wonderful results.

2. Eating out

I often get inspired to cook new things from dishes I eat at restaurants. And it’s a great excuse to try new places in the name of ‘research’.

3. Travel

OK. So I know we can’t all just pack up and head off to Morocco for a month. But when you are planning a trip, it can be an added bonus if you visit somewhere with an interesting food culture. Some of my most enlightening food moments have happened away from home.

4. Food Blogs

My current favourite food blogs:

101 cookbooks – for healthy vegetarian recipes and the occasional sweet treat.

what katie ate – her recipes definitely aren’t minimalist but the photography is truly inspired.

orangette – as much for her writing as her recipes.

sprouted kitchen – wonderful photography AND recipes

5. Food Websites

While google can be useful, I find I get much more inspired by seaching on specific websites for whatever I’m looking for.

australian gourmet traveller – still my all time favourite food magazine

nigel slater – the man is a food writing god.

nigel slater’s column in the guardian – for when you need more St. Nigel.

jamie oliver – like him or not. You have to agree that for a chef jamie writes some really wonderful recipes.

donna hay – sometimes the cuteness and perfectness of it all annoys me – but still some great recipes.

6. Google

What did we do before Google? I tend to search Stonesoup first then I’ll do a general google search if I can’t find what I’m after.

7. Play the what’s in the fridge game

Although we covered it in the art of adaptation, I still believe that my best creations come from when I just make something up from whats on hand.

8. The supermarket or farmer’s market

If you struggle to get inspired, why not make a little promise to yourself to buy and use one new ingredient this week?

9. Stonesoup!

One of the reasons I started blogging was to document my favourite recipes and creations. 7 years later, Stonesoup contains a massive collection of recipes. I just use the search function in the side bar to find what I’m looking for. I should point out that there’s also a search box on the SYDD site.. it’s just hidden in the nav menu at the bottom of every page.

10. Try a radical Dietary Change

Try going veggie for a month or have an experiment to see what it’s like for people that are coeliac or intolerant to dairy. Even a week can be enough to give to a different perspective and break you out of your current food rut

11. Explore foods you think you don’t like.

As we age and experience different things our taste buds change. So you may surprise youself when you try something you hated in childhood with your adult taste buds. Trying something prepared in a different way can make a massive difference as well. When I was little I HATED my mum’s boiled brussels sprouts with a passion. But the first time I tried pan fried brussels I was hooked.
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The 3 things you should ‘never’ do if you want your cooking to stay inspired and motivated.

We all go through phases in life where we aren’t very inspired. Where everything seems like too much effort. When we’re stuck in a rut. Although it is rare, even I – someone how adores cooking, get a little ‘over it’ from time to time.

The good news is there are precautions you can take to keep these uninspired moments as infrequent as possible.

1. Don’t follow the ‘recipe’ every single time

As you’ve hopefully come to appreciate from the variations on Stonesoup and in Solve Your Dinner Dilemma, there are always countless ways to vary every recipe. Even small changes like substituting mint for parsley can keep a favourite dish becoming bored.

2. Don’t be complacent

If you find yourself stuck in a rut or completely uninspired remember it’s all about your attitude. You are the only one who can change your situation for the better and this is a good thing. You can make a difference if you want to!

3. Don’t play it safe

Rene Redzepi, chef at Noma, currently rated best restaurant in the world spoke in Melbourne earlier in the year and I was lucky enough to attend. One of the things I found most surprising was his attitude to failure. He is constantly reminding his chefs that if they aren’t failing then they aren’t trying hard enough. And that it’s only when we embrace the possiblity of failure that we allow ourselves the freedom and space to cook really delicious food.

Surely if it’s good enough for the best chef in the world, it’s good enough for your kitchen too!
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Your Homework

This week I’d like to hear about what inspires YOU in the kitchen.

Share your favourite sources of inspiration in the comments on the Homework Page
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Warm Butter Bean Salad	Pear & Parmesan Salad	Pesto Couscous	Tabbouleh Fried Egg
Green Goddess Salad	Thai Beef Salad	Apricot Chicken	Spanish Beef Stew
Chilli con Carne	Osso Buco	Ratatouille