Are you interested in joining the Food Revolution but don’t know where to start?  Here are 5 easy ways to start to incorporate the ideas behind Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution in to your life and your kitchen. Remember the Food Revolution is designed to be easy and to help you cook more meals from scratch. This might seem hard in the beginning, yet after a few weeks, you will become more adventurous and ready to try new cooking challenges.

OK ready to start? Here you go:

1. Cook 1 meal from scratch this week.

Food Revolution time is here, what are you going to cook?  It is time to reach for the Food Revolution cook book, or your favorite cookbook or check out the Food Revolution Recipes on this website for some ideas on what to cook.  We recommend the Broccoli and Pesto Tagliatelle (pg. 46) because cooking pasta is a great easy meal for beginners and it only uses one pan so it is easy clean up too. We also like this recipe because you chop all the veggies up and cook them in the water that you are also cooking the past in. Then drain everything, and return it all to the same pan. Then add your sauce and mix it all up.  Yum!  AND you have cooked your first meal from scratch in your kitchen. Congratulations!

2. Taste 2 new spices

Do you have some spices that you don’t use regularly in your kitchen? Do you know what they even taste like? I know we have some spices that get pushed into the back of the cupboard and then are never used… Well it is time to take them out and check them out. OR maybe you need to purchase some new spices to jazz up your meals at home?

Either way when dealing with spices that you are unfamiliar with, we suggest the following to become “friends” with the spices: Taste ‘em. What we like to do is spoon out a small amount onto a plate, and then dip a little bit of food into the spice and then taste both the spice and the food. You can taste the spices by themselves, but we think that when you taste the spices with some food (like cheese or carrots or cucumbers or a bit of mayo) you will get a better sense of how the spice will taste when you are cooking.  (Hey you can get your family or friends involved with this taste test, and see which spices become favorites)

Some good dry spices to try this experiment on: cumin, curry powder, sweet paprika, smoked paprika, cinnamon, oregano, basil, any spice “mixture” like Old Bay or Mrs. Dash or Italian herbs. This list is based spices that we use regularly and love to cook with. Have some fun and enjoy trying a bunch of new tastes!  (If you have a Health Food Store near you, check and see if they have bulk spices. Many stores allow you to purchase a small amount of dry spices so you can give them a try before spending a lot of $$)

Also, don’t forget about all the spices that you can try out at Trader Joe’s. These are two that we use on a regular basis to season up/flavor all kinds of foods from vegetables to fish and chicken and shrimps. Remember too that if you don’t like one of the items that you bought, Trader Joe’s will gladly refund your $$ so there is never really a risk to trying anything.

3. Tell 3 friends

Tell some friends what you are up to. Maybe some of your friends can help? OR maybe they will be interested in joining you on your cooking adventures? Maybe you can get together on a random Tuesday night and cook together?  What about a Saturday afternoon potluck where everyone brings a dish and the recipe? An important part of the Food Revolution is for you to Pass It On – all these great skills that you are developing in the kitchen. Start thinking about your group now… You never know who will be interested until you ask.

4. Spend 4 minutes cleaning

This part is the scariest…. In order to cook dinner on a regular basis, you really must know what you have to work with. This means everything from plates and cups to pots, pans, spoons and spices. This also means that you need to set aside some cupboard space for a small pantry of items that will ready to help you cook any night of the week. Basic pantry items might be beans, rice, dry pasta, canned tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. More adventurous items could include pesto, coconut milk and curry paste.

But for now just spend a few minutes cleaning out old stuff, checking out what you have and getting all these things organized. We love it when the cupboard with all the plastic containers is organized and no longer falls out when we open the door. Too bad that *#$$* area just can’t stay organized, right?

5. Take 5 to plan

This is perhaps the most important part for success in any project, but especially the Food Revolution. Plan out what you are going to eat when you cook at home.  We suggest starting with only one or two meals at a time.  Maybe one meal you will make from fresh ingredients, and the second, you purchase frozen stuff, so that you will have it in “reserve” just in case you plans change- or maybe you want to purchase a couple of meals to have ready to cook at home to help you with that last minute urge to go out?

We timed it once, and we could have pasta on the table in the time it took to drive to our favorite restaurant, let alone park, stand in the line and finally get table.  OR even worse, drive to our favorite fast food restaurant, order food then inch around the drive through, pay, and then pick up the food and drive home. Frequently in the fast food scenario, the food would be cold by the time we returned to the house. YUCK!

So we urge you to plan ahead for a few minutes and have an easy meal ready in your mind, the next time that fast food is calling. You might find that you enjoy eating at home a lot better! We hope that these easy 5 will get you motivated to try the Food Revolution this week and see how easy it can be to cook from scratch at home.