Hello Everyone, Good Day from my end.
It's a new week, and I trust we're all doing well. Treating ourselves right is the least we owe ourselves.
Speaking of decisions, I've made a lot this year, from taking my studies very seriously to learning how to keep a good relationship and move on where possible, then taking my cooking skills to a whole new level and finally distancing myself a little bit from my family for a while.
Amongst these, the biggest decision I've made is taking my cooking skills seriously.
Taking my cooking skills seriously
Earlier this year, if I were told that my best place and most enjoyed hobby, let alone making a decision to work towards something, would be cooking, I'd definitely disagree because it was one thing I was very much afraid to do. I used to have a lot of what ifs forgetting that practice makes perfect.
In February this year, we had a two-week youth camp, a church function and the way it's done is that each day a particular set of people (youths) are selected to be in charge of the cooking and every other kitchen activities for the whole day, I've never been chosen before so I didn't even bother being worried besides as at then I suck at cooking.
So this particular time, I was selected to be in the kitchen the next day, and to make matters worse, I was the group leader expected to head 9 other youths, most of them younger than me, so it was more like they were to learn a few things from me while also working on making meals for over 1000 youths.
Realizing that I'm in for a very big pot of trouble and embarrassment I had to go from meeting the youth president to plead for a change in position, at least let me be amongst the led, he disagreed then I went to the youth pastor/Elder, who said the decision isn't his, I cried like actual tears. After crying I dried my tears and I went straight to my hostel waiting for the next day to come not without crying and praying again because I've never made a real meal aside from noodles, fries, and maybe pasta, how would I make an actual real meal not just for myself but for such a large number of people?
The next day came and I went into the kitchen sad and all and I started, since there were many and they were doing practically all the prepping of ingredients, my job was to give orders and cook the meals(jollof rice for Breakfast and Melon soup for lunch/dinner)
I started doing everything the way I see my mom do it, but the difference is more ingredients, more water, and more quantity of stuff due to the number of people involved.
After everything, the breakfast was done and to my surprise, it wasn't as awful as I thought it would be, just a few complaints from the judges about the rice not being moderately soft and the tomato not being properly cooked, For lunch, the melon soup was too thick hence not enough for everyone.
I was sad but also happy that at least I got it 40% right. I was always lazy towards cooking, harbouring the thought that cooking doesn't define a woman,, forgetting that I have to know how to cook so that I'd eat good meals and also make good meals for my family.
After that incident, I decided to take my cooking skills very seriously, watch cooking tutorials online, and practice solo cooking, engage more in the kitchen. From that day till now, I've done a lot of cooking, some of which o couldn't even capture.
Here are few pictures of my meals made by meals, the ones I remembered to snap tho😁
Rice and Egg sauce
Okro soup
Odogwu beans and white rice
Melon soup (came out perfect)
Ripe plantain and egg sauce
Vegetable soup
Pancakes (my second trial)
White soup with Eba
Snail sauce and white rice
Ekpang Nkukwo
Beans and rice
Afang soup with semo
Jollof rice and egg with moi moi
Okro-melon soul with Eba
Today I can boldly say I have some interesting techniques at the tip of my fingers and I'm not longer lazy when it comes to cooking,and I've been getting good comments from friends, families and of course few critics from my mom especially 😂.I may not be 100% but I'm still working towards it.
N/B: I don't have pictures of the incident but all pictures in this post are mine.
Thanks for reading.