We all love shortcuts, especially when they save us time without affecting the quality of the result.
In the kitchen, there are many ways to avoid repetitive and annoying chores and I’m going to suggest some of them.
If you look at a restaurant kitchen, the cooks have on hand refrigerated drawers full of ready-to-use ingredients, as well as huge and well-stocked pantries, and walk-in refrigerators. Certainly these conveniences must make their job much faster and easier but, since very few of us can afford such luxuries, we have to find other ways to make your cooking simpler.
- When a recipe requires half chopped onion, chop two of them and freeze the extra. Next time you need some chopped onion it will be ready to use.
- Following the same principle, while you are chopping some celery and carrot to make a soup, chop more and freeze it. Together with the frozen onion, the base for most of your soups is ready to use in seconds.
- When you make a salad, wash some extra lettuce or mixed greens, dry them in a salad spinner and transfer into a Ziploc. It keeps for days in your refrigerator, ready to eat.
- Buy a vacuum sealer. Food lasts much longer when it’s vacuum-sealed, allowing you to buy bigger quantities, saving yourself some trips to the grocery store for things like cheese, meat, seafood, bread etc. Use what you need and vacuum-seal the rest of it. Be careful to cut the bag along the sealed line so that you can re-use it. Moreover, whatever you vacuum-seal has no risk of freezer burn.
- Freeze, freeze, freeze! Cook one or two extra portions, to use when you are in a rush or don’t feel like cooking. As I suggested in its recipe, basil pesto freezes very well. In minutes you’ll have the perfect sauce for a quick pasta or a tasty dressing for your caprese salad. Ratatouille freezes well and so do soups. Thaw them directly in a saucepan (whenever possible, do not use the microwave oven). When you know that you have some food ready to eat in just minutes, you are less tempted to buy and eat processed food with the excuse that you don’t have time to cook or you are too hungry to wait.
- If you do have a pantry, stock it with the things you use more often, like oil, flour, rice, pasta, coffee, nuts, etc. If you don’t have a pantry, re-organize your kitchen to make room for one. It’s the perfect opportunity to clean up your cabinets and to throw away any expired food. By moving things around, you’ll find the empty space you need. You can find a great selection of cabinet organizers both online and in stores and, with a small investment in time and money, your kitchen will become better organized and easier to work in.
- Plant your herbs. If you don’t have a garden, all you need is a pot or two and some potting soil. Herbs are easy to grow and pleasant to see. Plant rosemary, cilantro and thyme in one pot; sage, dill, parsley in another. Mint and oregano have to be planted in separate pots because they grow very fast and tend to suffocate other plants. When the weather gets warm enough, add a plant of basil to your collection of herbs. It’s such a satisfaction to snap a sprig of rosemary or a few leaves of sage for your recipes! They are right there, only a few steps away in your garden, on your balcony or on your porch and, most importantly, they haven’t lost most of their fragrance by sitting for days in a supermarket refrigerator.
Just remember to water them. Although most of them are drought-tolerant (for example, sage, rosemary, oregano), others (like basil and parsley) need to drink often to stay alive.
I hope to have inspired some little changes that will make your cooking life easier.