Cultivating Culinary Confidence!

Reflecting back on 43 years as a professional in the food service world, I’m reminded that early in my career I was VERY intimidated by just trying to make a simple dish from a written recipe. I was overwhelmed by a lack of understanding of terms, ingredients and techniques I’d never heard of, and skills I had no idea how to perform.

I get it! It’s scary to imagine embarking on a plan to do more scratch cooking in your school food service operation when you and/or your team don’t have any idea how to get started.

I mean, there IS a lot at stake! If we try to make this recipe for the hundreds of kids coming to lunch today, what are the chances we will fail? What if we make too little, or make too much? What if it’s bland, boring, or burnt? Will it even be compliant with school food rules?

Fear of the unknown and fear of failure are probably some of the biggest obstacles stopping us from doing more scratch cooking.

Learning to cook is no different than learning to be a mechanic, an electrician, or plumber. To feel confident in ANY skilled profession, you need to understand the basic fundamentals of the job.

When I teach school foodservice teams how to get started with scratch cooking in their operations, we start with the basics, the foundational techniques that all aspiring cooks need to be successful! Once we have a few basics understood then we can more confidently tackle a recipe. Then, after a few times of making that recipe, and we see the positive responses from the kids, our confidence grows! There are really no shortcuts to this process. First we must learn the basics, and then gain experience and hone our skills with repetition.

And with that long-winded introduction, I would like to offer you some resources I’ve developed that will help you gain some of those foundational skills and give you confidence as a cook.

One more bit of advice that I always give is to try to do some scratch cooking every day. Some districts I work with have a particular day of the week that they do scratch cooking, which is great! But, I recommend daily repetition in order to make faster gains! Take roasting vegetables for an example. Once I understand the basics of roasting vegetables, what is stopping me from offering a different roasted vegetable medley every single day on my menu? It is only one aspect of your menu, but it is scratch cooking every single day! This will build confidence and will also build pride. Nothing feels better to a cook than seeing the happy responses from those who ate what we just created!

So here is a challenge for you:

Take a look at these resources, review them with your team, then get started doing some scratch cooking every day! If you choose to take this challenge, please let me know how it’s going, and reach out with questions!

You can do this!

Cooking with raw ground meats:

https://www.facebook.com/100063671315836/posts/566376655494707/?mibextid=cr9u03

Raw Ground Meat recipes:

https://www.facebook.com/100063671315836/posts/566743768791329/?mibextid=cr9u03

Understanding Recipes and Recipe Stsndardization:

https://fb.watch/iaE27hPfRB/?mibextid=cr9u03

Vegetable Roasting 101:

https://www.facebook.com/100063671315836/posts/492425139556526/?mibextid=cr9u03