I feel like people either love or hate cooking. There’s rarely an in between person. If you are an in between person, you are one of very few.
I’m no Chef Boyardee by any means, but I can whip it up in the kitchen to an extent. Coach Laney though, now she surpasses Chef Boyardee.

If you haven’t seen her cooking reels on Instagram, you are missing out. I’m going to tag two of them below, so check them out before reading this so you can see her credentials.
Laney crafts her own sourdough, kombucha, and a host of other meals that look absolutely amazing. She’s super passionate about the kitchen and being conscious of what you eating/cooking. If you’ve been along for the ride with Laney’s journey as our Nutrition Specialist, it should come at no surprise that Laney loves to cook.
She’s bringing you her experience and opinions on cooking for a very realistic and practical blog. If you’d rather watch the video, click below!
Lessons Laney’s Learned
- Whenever You Stop Relying on Recipes is When You Become a Good Cook.
I know this can be a tough one. You always hear ‘I don’t measure I just pour till it feels right’, but some people don’t roll that way. There are tons of people who are exact recipe followers, but you may benefit from going off track of the recipe.
Laney has experimented with this concept quite a lot. She’s done the same meals, one following the recipe exactly and one going off taste and feel. Her findings were that the taste and feel approach always turned out better than the recipe version.
This is most likely because in order to become a good cook, you have to know:
- How to Estimate
- How to Salt to Taste
- How to Season to Taste
- You Will Save Time and Money Cooking with What You Have and Buying Sale Items
With this approach you will be able to look in your fridge and pantry, see what you have available, and whip up something beautiful for dinner without having to go buy exact ingredients from a store.
I have seen that shopping based on a recipe causes you to spend more money in the end. Buying things on sale or using what you already have is a much cheaper alternative that can bring you great results.
If this isn’t your style and you like a more black and white plan, that’s totally fine! It’s always your preference.
Doing this also changes your meals up every week. Laney shops for the BOGOs and sales at Publix. One week their steaks might be on sale and the next their chicken.
They may have a Japanese chicken sauce on BOGO one week and steak sauce the next. You never know what you’re going to walk into each week when you shop like this – it’s kinda fun.
She also shops for her staple items at Aldis because she knows she’s going to get great low prices. Coach Laney loves balling on a budget while staying natural and healthy when it comes to the kitchen.
- Always Stay Stocked on Staple Items
You should always have these staple items in your house: rice, beans, canned foods, anything you can use when you are in a pinch.
If you keep these items stocked in your pantry, you will be able to create more recipes at home and reduce your trips to the store.
- Take One Trip a Week to the Grocery Store
Going to the grocery store less through the week will cause you to use more of your pantry and fridge components. This in turn allows you to get the most out of your grocery money spent and waste less.
If you have the time to go and enjoy going more than once a week, go ahead. Laney has just noticed that if she goes once a week, buys items on sale that she can use all week, and does not go back, she wastes less and uses most everything in her kitchen. It also pushes you to be more creative with what you cook!
Cooking With Taste and Health in Mind
Whenever Laney cooks, she wants to cook like a chef at a high-end restaurant. What she means is you should be able to cook simple, real foods and make them taste amazing with cooking methods instead of 1,000 ingredients that hide mistakes and bad tastes.
These cooking methods could be caramelizing onions, putting garlic in the onions before the meat, letting the flavors come out completely. God has given us amazing tasting foods to eat, they just have to be cooked right!
If you like red meat and steak, try cooking it medium rare. If you overcook your meats, the flavor just cooks out pretty much. Not only this, but when you overcook steak, it becomes less healthy as some of the nutrients are cooked out of it as well.
Overcooking meat also makes it taste rubbery, and it’s harder to eat. So next time you’re cooking meats, try really hard to not overdo it, you’ll thank me later.
Another tip is using real chicken broth when you cook meat in a sheet pan. This allows for the meat to not dry out while cooking.
You should also season your food before cooking ALWAYS! Doing this will allow your food to soak up all the seasoning flavors.
Cooking everything in the same juices – meats and veggies – also almost always makes things taste better than if they were cooked separately.
When Laney cooks with health in mind, she always wants her meals to taste good because she cooked them well. She doesn’t want them to taste well because she added 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, 1/2 cup of sour cream, and 1/4 cup of cheese to it.
These things aren’t necessarily bad on their own but mixing them all together is a recipe for a fatty meal that leaves you feeling bloated and miserable. Plus, you didn’t make it taste good either.
Don’t Limit Yourself
When it comes to recipes, there are so many influencers out there pushing different ones on you – guaranteeing it’ll be the best meal you’ll ever cook.
This isn’t false, but it does limit you. To be a good cook you have to step out of your comfort zone, try cooking without looking at any recipes, measure through estimation, and flavor using the flavor profiles that are in front of you!
Experimentation is everything when it comes to cooking. See if you can recreate a meal you really like with things you have in your pantry and fridge without looking up a recipe. Now, if you have no clue if certain flavor profiles should go together, you can look that up but try just using what you have without the phone!
Use Pinterest or the Internet for Inspiration
When you hit a wall or have 0 clue on what to cook with the ingredients you have, look to Pinterest or the internet. You can easily look up key words like ‘meals with ground beef, garlic, bell peppers, and carrots’ to help stimulate your cooking brain. This is different from using a recipe and here’s how:
Instead of following the recipe they give word for word, try looking at the picture, seeing what foods are involved, and try recreating it based on the picture. This gives you freedom and helps you create something beautiful!
Wrap Up
Laney encourages you to branch out, get creative, and challenge yourself every time you step into the kitchen. You will be happier, healthier, and have more free time and money by implementing these tips in your life.
Laney is currently working on a personal cookbook to share with you! She is piecing it together and will send it out when she is done. Don’t think you are getting your typical recipe book – a lot of her recipes are ‘add to taste’ or ‘add as desired’ there are not really any exact measurements.
Overall, the kitchen should be a fun place for you to let your creativity shine. If you want to know more about how you can transform the way you cook for you and your family, Laney would love to hop on a call with you. You know what goes so well with nutrition? Strength Training.
Check out our website below and see what we are about at Steel Strength Training. We want to help you get leaner, stronger, and healthier so you can do the things you love with the people you love.