“Sarah gave me the confidence to shop and cook. I still eat all my favourite meals, but it feels great to know I have cooked them myself and they taste so much better than the supermarket ready meals. There’s no more frozen roast potatoes in my house!

I never would have thought I would cook for myself let alone spend the occasional weekend batch cooking and stocking up my freezer with homemade ready meals!”

Phil’s challenges

Phil had never learned to cook and relied on frozen ready meals and takeaways. He hadn’t realised just how easy and rewarding cooking for yourself can be. Understandably, he didn’t know where to start or even how to go shopping for the right ingredients to be able to cook a meal from scratch.

How we overcame them

We started by discussing the food he enjoys then I wrote him some simple and intuitive recipes to follow to recreate those dishes. We talked about the ingredients and where to look for them in the supermarket, and with some support over the phone and by text, he had soon made, eaten and enjoyed the experience of cooking one of his favourite dishes.

He has now worked his way through all the recipes I wrote for him and has even been able to share his cooking with friends and family.

Next step

We’re going to build on Phil’s new-found confidence and start to cook from recipes books as well as cook some basic dishes without the aid of a recipe, something he didn’t even dream of being able to do when we first started.