If you love cooking at home then you’ll probably know how much money you’re saving by avoiding takeout foods and how expensive ingredients can be. Many people start cooking at home because they like the idea of saving money on every meal they cook. But cooking doesn’t need to be about saving money and being frugal. Cooking can also be about treating yourself to a dish that would otherwise be extremely expensive to eat at a restaurant. It could also be about eating all of your favorite things and trying interesting flavor combinations that you’ve never experienced before.
This is a contributed post.
In short, cooking doesn’t have to focus on saving money. Plenty of people cook with expensive ingredients, but it’s understandable that you don’t want to. This is especially the case if your cooking skills were born out of necessity and not curiosity. So how does someone convince themselves to cook with expensive ingredients? How can you encourage yourself to have a treat once in a while?
Expensive ingredients are expensive because they’re harder to source
One thing to learn is that ingredients are priced as such because they’re hard to get, not because they’re some special thing that is locked off to most of the world. Ingredients such as Oscietra caviar take a long time to source and produce, which is why they’re expensive. It’s the same for something extravagant such as wagyu beef–especially of the A5 kind! These ingredients are just limited and it’s an experience to be able to eat them, let alone cook with them!
So don’t be afraid of using expensive ingredients. They’re not difficult to use and there are plenty of guides on the internet on how to make the best of those pricier food items.
Expensive ingredients can sometimes be hard to find
Even if you want to cook with expensive ingredients, they aren’t always easy to find. Some people spend months sourcing expensive things such as ethical foie gras or abalone, so it’s not exactly something you can just buy on the internet or from your local supermarket.
Thankfully, there are markets for this!
Buying expensive ingredients generally means being able to source them. Not only can this help you actually save money on your shopping since you’re buying expensive ingredients from trusted suppliers, but it also means a better product. So if you’re worried about the difficulty of obtaining them, start looking at the internet or asking restaurant chefs to see where you can source them.
You deserve to treat yourself now and then
Lastly, people deserve to treat themselves now and then. You don’t have to give yourself a reason to buy and cook expensive ingredients other than “because I want to.” Expensive food items come and go. People think it’s a waste of money to put something worth $50 into your mouth, but it’s really about the experience and enjoyment.
So if you’re in the mood for some caviar or want to shave truffles over your $5 spaghetti, who’s going to stop you? As long as you’re enjoying it, you’re making good use of it.
This is an interesting post. However, is it really important to cook with expencive food? I would not do that! I can treat myself good even with “cheap” ingredients. For others is very important to have expencive foods at home, i get that, but it’s not for me. I treat myself very good, without spending lot of money and i am happy!
Like the post says. You don’t have to do this all of the time, it can be a treat every now and then 🙂
its probaly all the chemicals in these take out foods i got food poising with that last year best organic home cooking
You have to be careful dont you. Its always good to cook food yourself so you know the food hygiene is correct and the food is cooked properly too!
yes olivia you do, i couldnt trust myself my wife does most of the cooking