So what do you do to make your life a bit easy in the kitchen. I mean I love cooking and eating, in fact I cook at least a meal every day(coz breakfast on weekdays comes out of a box). I pack lunch in the morning, and when I come home, I cook dinner and the next day's lunch. Some of the things get so mundane, and are so time consuming that I like to finish it off over the weekend. Maybe you could use some of these tips. So here's what I do
- Chop up an entire batch of onions - usually 7 or 8 and store in the fridge
- Shred up carrots and keep in the refrigerator - they make for an excellent salad with or without yogurt. Sometimes on a weekday I just sprinkle some lime, salt and let it sit while I do the rest of the cooking and cleaning. By the end of it - they are nicely soft delicately sour n sweet at the same time. I love it.!
- Garlic. I know a lot of people who prefer pre-minced, or garlic paste from a tube. Its all fine, but I am a bit of a fresh-food-fresh-ingredients junkie. So I peel open the pods of garlic and keep it in a glass bottle. I know peeling hardly takes a second - just smash it under your knife - but ready peeled is still better! One of those handy tools - the garlic press is a must have for me. I put in some garlic cloves , and let the press do its work.
- Aluminium foil, silicon moulds, greaseproof papers, ice cube trays! What a lifesaver these can be! No mess no cleanup. I sometimes even spread out a newspaper while peeling potatoes/carrots etc coz I just roll it all up and I'm done with the cleaning! In fact I prefer making a crostata rather than a pie simply coz it uses a dish less! (Recipe for crostata coming up soon)
- Mise En Place - just a fancy word meaning putting in place.(And its French, so I had to use it!). Have you seen how chefs have 10 different bowls with all ingredients neatly chopped and measured out? You don't have to do that, but putting all the ingredients so its within hands reach makes it a lot easy, I find.
- Lastly, invest in a good knife, and learn how to use it. Makes a world of difference, trust me.
What are your kitchen time-savers? Share
Its a lovely post. I am due to post one in similar lines & tats when i came across yours.
ReplyDeleteSome more tips to add:
Green chilli :Remove the head from about 50-100 gms green chillies when freshly bought from the market. Crush them in your blender on its own. Store them in the freezer in a small air tight container. It works for months. Dont need to chop green chillies everyday. Use a knife to get a bit out of it everytime one needs.
There are many more :)
Do visit my blog @ www.sandhyas-kitchen.blogspot.com & let me know wot you think of it.
Great reading youur blog
ReplyDelete