With a full time job and a life to live, I'm always looking for ways to save time in the kitchen without sacrificing quality or flavor. Here are a few tips I use to make life a little easier when it comes to culinary adventures.
Cook big. I cannot stress this one enough. If you are going to spend the time and energy to prepare a meal, make lots of food! It usually doesn't take much (if any) extra time, energy, or dishes to make extra. Then you will have leftovers to stash in your fridge and freezer. That way you don't have to cook every day, yet you will still enjoy a fabulous home cooked meal.
Chop your produce ahead of time. You have to find the right balance with this one to avoid waste, but it's very helpful when your veggies are ready and easy to grab. This is great for both cooking and snacking! I find it very handy to have some peppers sliced at least into strips in my fridge at all times because I put them in so many recipes. Also, even though pre-minced garlic loses a bit of flavor next to freshly minced, I personally find it very worth it to have a jar or squeeze bottle of it on hand.
Keep easy-to-grab flavor boosts in your freezer. Freeze fresh herbs just as they are, or chopped in water (or broth or oil) in an ice cube tray for a quick addition to a recipe. It's also helpful to have broth or stock in the freezer in 1/2 or 1 cup measures for recipes that do not require a lot of broth. I did this recently with chicken broth in a muffin pan, then stored the frozen "broth pucks" in a gallon size freezer bag. It's very easy to grab one and toss it in with what I'm cooking.
Make your slow cooker your best friend. I adore slow cookers. The possibilities are endless when it comes to what you can make, and it's so nice to have a one dish meal (in many cases anyway) that you can assemble the night before in a few minutes, and have dinner ready when you get home. Most of us work full time, so what about those recipes that need to cook for 5-6 hours? That doesn't work with a full day. The answer is simply to go to the store and pay just a few dollars for a lamp timer, usually found near the light bulbs. This works like a dream because you can set the slow cooker to turn on at any point in the day, so you can rest assured your meal will not overcook. Being able to cook for any length of time during a normal work day opens up a lot of wonderful possibilities.
Plan your meals. This will help you avoid the late afternoon dilemma when you try to figure out what on earth you are going to make tonight, which can be time consuming and frustrating on many levels. Planning ahead will ensure you have the correct ingredients ready (purchased, thawed, and maybe even already chopped or otherwise prepped) so dinner will be a snap.
Learn (and use) good knife skills. This makes for faster and more efficient chopping, which saves you time and allows you to chop a lot at once, making good use of my other tips. Please be safe! Use good knives and keep them properly sharpened to avoid slips and cuts. Be sure to use a non-dulling cutting board like wood or bamboo, otherwise the knives are dulled on impact.
While cooking one meal, prep another. I do this quite a bit with slow cooker meals when I'm cooking something on the stove top. If I'm already chopping stuff, I might as well get two meals out of the way and have some ingredients in the slow cooker for the next day.
I hope you will find these tips handy and allow you to cook more efficiently so you can go live your busy life!
Bon appetit,
Jillian
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