How is your kitchen/food preparation since you've started eating Primal? page

[PrimalKev]

Eating Primal makes a lot of changes to what and how you eat. It removes processed foods, which were quick and easy to consume, and you need to learn new cooking and food preparation skills.

• What do you find is the most annoying about meal/food preparation when eating Primal?
• If you had all the time/money/equipment, how would you want meal preparation to be like?

[oxide]

I have to arrange my shopping schedule around the Saturday morning farmer's market.
I spend a lot of time washing, trimming, and chopping vegetables.
Most annoying: I'm constantly afraid of cross-contaminating something with raw chicken or ground beef.
Best part: I don't have to pretend to like baking any more. Flour is nasty to clean up after.
Equipment: Big sink. Very big sink. With lots of strainers and cutting boards. Stove, I don't care.

[sbhikes]

What do you find is the most annoying about meal/food preparation when eating Primal?

At first I found it annoying to remember to thaw some meat out. But now I'm good at remembering or improvising if I forget.

At first I was annoyed by dishes. I HATED dishes and had NEVER done them. When I lived alone I wouldn't do dishes until I totally ran out and then I'd wash only the dishes I needed. Yeah, it's gross but I hated dishes. I managed to get my man to always do dishes. But lately I really like doing the dishes. It gets me some alone time. It's not really a big bother. It's kind of relaxing. For any housework I give myself permission to do it half-assed at any time so it's not a big deal.

I find the clutter and lack of counter space annoying, but that's not Primal's fault.

If you had all the time/money/equipment, how would you want meal preparation to be like?

More counter space would be nice. It would be nice to have a little kitchen boy to wash the pots and pans and knives and other things as I use them.

I'm not really into kitchen gadgets or equipment except I wish I could find my ginger grater. I like to make and eat simple meals so time's not an issue.

[trekfan]

Most annoying thing: Finally learning how to cook (still learning) because I couldn't cook the CW foods for the life of me. The Primal stuff I can actually cook but the thing is no one wants to eat my stuff... my family is pretty SAD and it's infuriating to finally learn how to cool but have no one eat the stuff but me.

How would I want my Primal meal prepared, if I had the best stuff? I'd like it prepared by myself and my friends. I find the experience of cooking fun with others.

[Theresa92]

Most annoying thing: Finally learning how to cook (still learning) because I couldn't cook the CW foods for the life of me. The Primal stuff I can actually cook but the thing is no one wants to eat my stuff... my family is pretty SAD and it's infuriating to finally learn how to cool but have no one eat the stuff but me.

+10000!!! I can relate a lot to this. I never really started cooking/preparing my own food until I became more health conscious. Since becoming Primal, I've discovered many foods that I would of never tried before.

For example, I bought some chicken livers from an organic/grass fed farm. My brother has recently taken an interest in southern foods such as liver mush. In case you aren't familiar with it, liver mush is pretty much a sausage patty alternative that consists of liver, sugar/spices, and grains. He buys it prepackaged from the store. I offered to make it for him(since I have some really nice organic chicken livers in the freezer). He immediately turns up his nose and states that would be "gross". I reminded him that the liver mush he buys in the stores has liver in it. He says "yea but that doesn't taste like liver".

...isn't the point of eating something that has the name "liver" in it, to taste the liver?

Anyway, I do understand what you mean when you say nobody will try your food.

[gopintos]

When I went primal, my cooking time was cut down to just a fraction, well my dinner prep work that is. I would start at about 3 to have it ready by 6 or 7. I did alot from scratch. I might make homemade bread or homemade this or homemade that.

I dont do that anymore.

I don't do elaborate sides, which I didnt do that much anyways, but if I did something like quinoa that took some prep/planning time. Now I med/rare some steak, quick fry some veggies, maybe nuke a sweet tator, tear up some romaine - boom, done! Sometimes I roast veggies but I havent for awhile. I do have a NuWave also so that is much quicker.

I do have way more grease to deal with now. I hardly fried anything before, now I fry most everything, in CO.

Now that I am comfortable and settled in to this way of eating, I might could look at my cookbook and meal planner again, and just adapt some recipes. I had my meals planned out to the end of the year before I went primal. I have a good grip on my hunger most of the time now, so I could probably look at recipes w/o going AWOL.

[auntie thesis]

The most annoying thing: When my Ninja blender refuses to chop things fine enough.
Ideal meal prep: I'd be able to afford top notch ingredients. I'd have awesome cookware. I'd have an iPad or something to store and look up my recipes so I wouldn't have to worry about spilling stuff on print outs.

[inesenite]

The way I cook or the time I spend cooking has not changed - I learned to love cooking before I became paleo. I used to hate it but then met a chef and cooking for him meant I had to try hard (scarrrrry at first!). Somehow I realised I actually love it and since I have always cooked from scratch - CW or Paleo. Acually following Paleo means a lot of stuff I cook is simpler tha before (no need to do Beef Wellington).
Oh but the question about if I had more money.... My OH and I am are gourmets, so sourcing means we spend a lot of money on food. And gadgets. If I had more time and resources, I would love to source more good seafood (not easy in Brussels) and game as well as grow my own stuff.

[SentWest]

Somehow I managed to end up with like 10 of these tiny frying pans. They sat in the cupboard for years until I started eating primal/paleo, now I basically cook everything in a tiny pan.

I would love to have a good food processor, but can't seem to ever find the money for that.

[longing2bfit]

Nothing really annoys me because I love cooking. In a perfect world I would have a gourmet kitchen with every appliance and kitchen tool ever invented and a stocked larder like on chopped