LOL! Love ”weirdo food prep tasks”. Great phrase. :)

When I was 14, I was tasked by the cook (father's best friend's wife) with cleaning a bag of brown mushrooms and slicing them evenly. I was very diligent and they were coming out really nicely. She got mad. She needed them for the next step in her cooking and I was only half done. That mussed up my attitude towards prep forever.

I try to find quiet times for fiddly stuff. No deadlines. No minions. Just music. Or if it can be done sitting down, I'll watch a TV show. That way the tasks are just hand work, an amusument to enliven the expanses of not much between the interesting bits. Same as pairing socks, sewing, or even doing a puzzle. I do enjoy that, but this year, forwent the fava beans as just not being worth the trouble, no matter how delicious they are fresh out of the pod. For most basic, daily cooking, I tend to just whomp. get it done and into the pot. But I admit, I include the stems of greens in quiche. I'll whomp them off, casually, to inch long (or smaller for fatter stems), but like the texture and savings on food waste.

My joy comes at the end of the cooking process. I take a great deal of pleasure in washing away the detritus and putting the kitchen back in order after a major cooking event. Clean pots and pans, sparkling dishes, and shiny utensils are what make my day in the kitchen fun.

Making bread rolls. It's satisfying cutting a chunk and doing the swirl to make perfect rounds. The hollow thump of a fresh baked loaf. Picking batches of green beans and getting them tipped, tailed, vacuum sealed, and into the freezer before they are even cool from the garden. Hearing the pings of canning jars as they sit on the counter. The quiet zen of sharpening knives on a stone. Setting up a mise en place for a stir fry. A lot of garde manger activity. Getting all hands in on mixing something messy up. I could go on.

Honestly, I love cooking. I like doing prepwork. Most of cooking is prep work, with the other most being cleaning up. Actual cooking itself is a small and wonderful filling sandwiched between. There is a rythm of peace and almost a ritual of bringing good food and health from rawer form materials, especially when it's something I've tended from a seed. I love growing my microgardens in the kitchen window, like prepping a tray of something specific for a dinner, growing corn shoots or tiny bok choi for a dinner in a few weeks, or greens in anticipation of the first really ripe tomatoes. Or like today, I cut the dry greens off my garlic and now start the process of peeling most of it for the freezer. It's deeply gratifying to see those quart bags fill up and nice to do while watching after dinner TV.

And a simple pleasure thanks to my love- a clean kitchen. He does the after cooking cleanup, and it's something I appreciate. We chat, I make a pot of coffee or some tea.

Pleasure. I forgot to really address that. Inventing recipes is the most fun for me, with adapting or fiddling with them a close second. And baking, but more the measuing and mixing than rolling and shaping. Combining the two, just now, is my new daily bread (once a week loaf), which has solidified into a regular pattern without an actual recipe. Measuring out the preferment, figuring out vegetative ingredients to use instead of water, seeing what I actually have after autolyze, adjusting, then turing out the finished loaf. These steps are all fun and satisfying, calming and reassuring. Part of it is repetition, which is at the point of ritual, even though I've only been doing this kind of bread for a few months.

I like baking, anyway, but this is so stripped down! Years ago, when I was still allowed whole grain, it was a big thing with milling flour, weighing out mix-ins, developing the starter, etc. The new kind of bread uses Central Milling flour, ADY and discard (rather than fresh starter), the mixer, takes little actual time, and zero fuss, all pleasure.

“Love ”weirdo food prep tasks”. Great phrase.”

WFPT!👍🏻 plllog, your comment about the mushrooms made me think of a phone call I once got from a friend. She’d just cleaned a pound of mushrooms she needed to slice. She wanted to know the easiest way to peel them first.😵‍💫

Most food prep for me is just part of why I enjoy cooking/baking. Therapeutic, I guess.

hobbitmom, I just got done trimming up some chicken thighs and legs.😊

Also, like Ricky posted, I also enjoy getting the kitchen back to clean and orderly. Then I look forward to the next time!

I don't really enjoy any food prep and I make it all as simple as possible. I certainly don't like clearing up and I try to do it all as I go along. My enjoyment is in the eating and for me that is spoilt by having to do any kitchen tasks after the meal.

floral, I could have written that^^^ myself! The cleaning up is the worst part! UGH!

LOL! Chloebud, as a kid, I was taught how to peel mushrooms, but either or, scrub with a soft brush or peel. ;) Today's mushrooms seem a lot cleaner.

I HATE washing up. While I'm cooking the sink is in constant use for draining, rinsing, hand washing etc. on the other hand the dishwasher is sitting there obediently receiving each item as it gets dirty so there are never any used pots or pans lying around.

If there was a show titled "The Messiest Cooks in America" I would be named the queen! I use every pot, pan, spoon available, I hate chopping so use the Cuisinart for nearly every chopping task and if I have to chop something for part of a meal and the food processor has already been used and the ingredients can't be combined, I'll pull out the mini processor or the stick blender or anything to avoid having to chop by hand or wash the FP bowl mid meal prep. I pile dirty dishes in the sink when I run out of counter space, until I can empty the inevitably full dishwasher and re-fill it. I refuse to wash anything by hand so it all has to be dw safe. It may not sound like it, but I am scrupulously clean about food safety and cleanliness where I am handling food; I am just not a clean up as you go person. My late husband used to shadow me and clean up after me mid-prep, close all the cupboard doors I leave open while cooking, etc. and he'd do the dishes. I really miss that! We built a house many years ago and I was sure the kitchen wasn't visible from the dining room, as I feared it would ruin people's appetites to look at the mess.

Oh, I can't think of one prep task I truly enjoy

HA-HA Olychick. I'm exactly the opposite!! My food processor sits and collects layer upon layer of dust, year upon year, as it's far too much trouble to haul it out, assemble, (once I remember how) and the clean up is too involved for my liking. A sharp knife is my go to. I bought the FP ages ago thinking at the very least it will come in handy for cheese grating. Nope. Easier just to grate it with a standard box grater.

Sometimes it horrifies me the number of hours I have spent doing food prep. I might get 2-3 meals out of the result, but 2 1/2 - 3 hours at a stretch for prep is more unusual than not. I don't enjoy most of it.

The exceptions might be the kneading bread dough (if the recipe isn't very sticky) and the smell of fresh ground spices and freshly cut herbs.

“Today's mushrooms seem a lot cleaner.”

Yes, much cleaner!

I do take pleasure in a clean kitchen, but that's the only part of washing dishes, loading what goes in the DW, and puttihng them all away, that I enjoy. Or...I actually do like putting away clean and dry things from the drainer or where the minions have sat them on the if it's here it's washed counter. It's really the DW I dislike emptying, though I do it so things will be where I want them. I don't much like washing produce either, but it is pleasurable to remove them to the prep area once clean. In general, keep me out of the water! Though I am constantly rinsing or washing my hands while cooking. I guess the difference is that when I'm washing my hands the water doesn't get all over me. :)

If I'm not in a hurry, or solo cooking for three dozen, I do like slicing and chopping. I like stirring and tasting. I do not enjoy hand whipping at all. At all. I don't really like dealing with raw chicken. The watching out for cross contamination is necessary and not too bad, but they're so cold! Even through gloves! Ugh! But it's totally worth it to get Awesome Chicken!

ETA—I keep thinking about this thread. And thinking. While making bread dough just now (heirloom tomatoes, huge ahaheim pepper, 1/3 bunch of dill (main stems removed—way too strong for bread!)), especially. I realized that while I don't mind prep, I wouldn’t miss it. I'd miss it a lot more than doing dishes, but, for me, it's just something one does. And, while I enjoy cooking, I get really bored making the same thing more than now and then—though I don't mind eating the same thing for several days if it's good. I'll even repeat a sandwich several days in a row if I have the same ingredients. The fact is, I make better food than much of what one can buy, so if I want to eat it, I have to make it, pleasure or not. ;)

Podding peas and beans. Takes me right back to my Mum's kitchen. Happy memories. I love cooking so the chores aren't too bad. Cooking yesterday with a grandson - we made ice-cream from whipped cream, concentrated milk and speculoos. No churning. He was very happy. Also, he said he didn't like pesto - (Mum buys jarred sauce) but he loved fresh on pasta and chicken. I love opening young eyes to fun food.