21 January 2010

Cooking Made Ez

busy woman cooking clip art Pictures, Images and Photos

Since schooling has already started, so does my cooking activity. For somebody who loves to cook, I dont find it that troublesome to wake up early in the morning to cook & in the evening after a tired day at the office. As I mentioned before, cooking is some kindof a therapy (besides shopping which is the no. 1 therapy) for me. It gives me some sense of relieves once the dish is cooked. And the feeling is even greater when people enjoyed my cooking ( which wouldnt be that easy when it comes to Marsya's standard ).

I agree that cooking for the family takes up a big chunk of our time, especially the working mothers. From the preparation of the ingredients, the cooking process & not forgetting the cleaning up. That's why most of us opt for eating out though the food is not that satisfactorily to our taste and the cost is indeed much more especially for bigger families.

So here are some tips I've used which has proven to shorten the time spent in the kitchen :

>> Thaw frozen food earlier
Thaw the frozen food like beef / chicken / fish in the refrigerator the night before. You can start cooking straight away the next day then.

>> Be prepared
Prepare the ingredients beforehand. If you plan to cook something for breakfast, do all the necessary cutting & pounding the night before. This will save you at least 50% of the time required. Also, to those who cooks everyday, it is wise to keep a spare gas cylinder - in case you're running out of gas while in the midst of cooking.

>> Cook & freeze
This is what I did when Marsya was not around. I prepared a larger portion of food & store them in a few small containers. I'll just consume one portion of it while the rest I've kept it frozen. For the next few days, I'll just have to re-heat one portion for every meal I take. If you cant eat the same meal everyday, at least you can skip one or two days of cooking in a week already, isn't it?

>> Make use of appliances
Electrical items like blender, pressure cooker & slow cooker helped a lot in saving time. Blend the onions & chilies once a week & keep them in the fridge. Invest on a pressure cooker as it easily cut off cooking time by half - though it's a bit pricey but it's well worth it.

>> Keep a notepad handy
A notepad allows you to immediately jot down any food item that is running out. It is very frustrating to find out that you dont have the complete ingredient to cook something you craved for. Making a trip to get a piece of ginger is a total waste of time on top of that, it add up to the cost of fuel, parking & other related expenses.


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