January brings with it the promise of a new year, a new you, and a heck of a lot of
insurmountable expectations. So before you overload yourself with too many commitments and throw in the tea-towel, how’s about keeping it simple and committing to one of these easy wins for a whole year (nay, life!) of better cooking.

Pick one cookbook or food blog and cook something new from it every week

The great thing about sticking to one cook or chef to crib from is that you’ll get to learn their language and start to pick up on patterns that have been hard-won that you can hack into your own cooking.

The advantage of a food blog (even picking a cook from the Good Food stable!) is that it’s online, and there might be bonus functionality such as video tutorials and toggles for calculating measurements up or down depending on the size of your household.

On the flipside, a cookbook will provide you something physical to stick tabs in, make notes on (welcome and encouraged!) and has usually been through many more tests and edits before it reaches you, so the recipes are more reliable.

Get some great gadgets

Sometimes a change is as good as a holiday, and if you’re done with the drudgery of dodgy tools, then it’s time to treat yourself to a few new nifty things to relight your fire.

A salad spinner living in your mixing bowl will prompt you to turn over a new leaf. I’d recommend you buy one that can fit in your cupboard and your fridge so you can soak, chill, then spin as you need (Zyliss is my choice).

A good quality stainless-steel garlic crusher will keep fingers funk-free (Dreamfarm Garject is my fave). Some silicon-tips tongs to toss things about in pans without scratching them, or some sharp kitchen shears. Now’s the time to pop into your favourite kitchenware shop and get playful – or check online marketplaces and op shops for kitchen bargains too.

But! Before you rush out the door to buy a new chef’s knife (let alone a knife-block, nooo!), check whether yours might not benefit from some sharpening instead. You’ll find your nearest knife sharpener by popping your suburb and “knife sharpening” into the search engine – they’ll always do a better job than any gadgetry, and it’s something you’ll only need to do once a year or so.

Make friends with your timer (or use your phone)

If you’ve resolved to spend more time in the kitchen but time-management gets you in a tizz, make like a MasterChef contestant and get around the kitchen timer. Now, you’ve probably already got one in the back of the cutlery drawer, but if that’s not forthcoming, I’m here to tell you that you’re probably already staring at one without even realising it … your smartphone!

Make a habit of setting the timer before you step away from the cooktop or oven, whether it’s manually tapping into the clock app and scrolling across, or asking Siri to do it for you.

Try it now: “Hey Siri, set a timer for 4 minutes” (about the time it’ll take to finish reading this!). Magic!

Join a CSA

If this is the year you’ve resolved to expand your fruit and veg horizons, you need
look no further than the farm next door. Joining a Community Supported Agriculture scheme is a total win-win, because you get seasonal, nutrient-dense produce that’s come straight from the grower, while they get the certainty of demand that means they can invest more in their supply. You’ll be able to find your local by entering your suburb and “CSA produce box” into a search engine. Browse to find the one that fits the bill.

If you think of this as a supplement to your grocery shop rather than
the entirety of it, it means you’ll be prompted to get creative with celeriac or funky with fennel, and because it’s farm-fresh, it’ll be at its tastiest too.

Glitter and gloss (always finish with salt flakes, freshly cracked pepper and olive oil)

We eat with our eyes, and making a habit of finishing every savoury with twinkly salt flakes from a height, a crack of freshly ground pepper for instant texture and aroma, and the flick of the wrist with some extra virgin olive oil for glossy glisten over the top, is a surefire way to elevate your tomatoes on toast from “nice” to “NICE!”

I have these by the cooktop to remind me, and provide more of the same on the table in case eaters want to help themselves to a little extra.