Baking is absolutely the gateway to creative cooking. I didn’t start cooking in seriousness until I’d been baking for some years (although not sure it deserves to be dignified as such - I’m anything but scientific when baking, I didn’t even own a scale until last year and bought it for *brewing.* It’s all by feel.)
But the “big batch of something for all week” really is the way. We just finished a big chickpea curry and a big round of pasta sauce. Ready stuff in the fridge is bliss.