WLC Mission: Practice Recipe-to-Table Cooking

WLC Mission is a weekly challenge, meant to improve your life by disrupting your day-to-day routine — taking you out of your comfort zone, asking you to try something new, and challenging you to become a more complete person. Never easy, you can consider the Mission an advanced experiment in personal wellness, with you as the star.

This Week’s Mission: Practice Recipe-to-Table Cooking

The Idea

It’s one thing to eat at a “farm-to-table” restaurant, it’s entirely another to have a relationship with your dinner from raw ingredients through the kitchen and then onto your plate. This week, you will take on the responsibility of preparing at least one recipe for yourself, from start to finish.

The Payoff

It’s guaranteed that your skills in the kitchen will get better with practice (that is, after all, how practicing a skill works), but it’s also more than likely that you’ll learn some unexpected things.

You’ll learn flavors that you didn’t know you liked, you’ll learn about spices you didn’t know existed, and you may even learn how to chop up some really strange vegetables. You may also learn that you like hanging out in the kitchen a whole lot more than you thought. (Although, if you start liking the grocery store, we might worry a little about you.)

Most importantly, you’ll be empowered when it comes to fueling your body with healthy, whole, and natural foods.

The Parameters

Start with doing some research. Identify between one and three recipes that sound tasty and healthy. They could be anything from a salad to a main course (but let’s try to avoid desserts).

Look at the ingredients for these recipes. Inventory your cupboards to find out which ingredients you already have. Go shopping for any ingredients you don’t have. Cook the meal. Eat and enjoy.

Consider the following levels when taking on this Mission:

• Apprentice Chef: If this whole concept of cooking your own meals is a new thing for you or you just find your kitchen to be a scary place, then take on one recipe this week.
• Journeyman Chef: If you spend time in the kitchen but aren’t very adventurous, then this level might be a good fit for you. Your mission is to find two new recipes this week. Maybe even invite a friend over to share one of them.
• Master Chef: Feel decently confident in the kitchen? Then find three brand-new recipes to prepare this week. Maybe even make more than one of them for the same meal and invite a few people over for a gathering.

If you don’t know where to go for recipes, check out the WLC Recipe Blog. There are hundreds of WLC-compliant recipes right at your fingertips. And if you’re nervous about cooking, check out chef Casey Moulton’s article on the three essential cooking methods.

The Scoring

WLC Missions aren’t scored. Instead, they’re personal explorations, meant to give those new to the Challenge a look inside how we live our lives, while giving our veteran players “next steps,” new things to master once you’ve had success incorporating the 7 Daily Habits into your life.

In other words, give the Mission a shot — but leave the scoreboard at home. This is just for you.

Becca Borawski Jenkins

Becca earned her MFA in Cinema-Television Production at USC’s famed film school, and her first career was as a music editor. Becca found her way to career number two through martial arts. She trained in BJJ and muay Thai and worked with professional MMA fighters, building websites, organizing fight promotions, and producing videos.

In 2005, she became a student at CrossFit Los Angeles where she met WLC co-founders Andy Petranek and Michael Stanwyck. In only a couple years, she became CrossFit Level III Certified, left her entertainment career, and dedicated herself full time to coaching, serving as the Program Director of CFLA and founder of the CFLA CrossFit Kids program. After seven years as a music editor and then eight years as fitness instructor, Becca segued to her current career — full-time editor and writer.