This is
Better than Take-Out: The purpose of
this article is to help busy people find quick and easy ways to put satisfying,
tasty meals and snacks on the table without spending a lot of time in the
kitchen. Therefore, it makes sense to
think of as many ways as possible to cut down on time spent in the
kitchen. The following provides the information
on general tips for decreasing time
spent on food preparation.
Timesavers:
Consider quick alternatives to chopping and mincing onion
and garlic. For onion, use a bag of
fresh chopped onion available in the produce section of the market or frozen
chopped onion available in the frozen foods section. A jar of crushed garlic is a very handy
alternative to fresh garlic. For a quick
way to peel and mince fresh garlic, cut off the ends of the clove, smash it
with the side of a knife or cleaver to break the skin, peel the skin off and
mince it by making checkerboard cuts into the clove through which you slice
sideways. If this doesn't work for you,
use that handy jar of crushed garlic.
Except in the case of cheeses that don't come pre-shredded
or grated such as Gruyère and Gorgonzola, buy shredded cheese in bags.
When shredded cabbage is called for, use a bag of coleslaw.
When doing a vegetable sauté, I almost never cut my
vegetables first on a cutting board and then put them into the pan. I put the oil on and chop the onion right
into the pan. (The same goes for garlic
and I haven't lost any fingers yet, although this is not a method for children
to use.) I add softer vegetables when
the onions are translucent by chopping these directly into the pan as
well. If you are not comfortable with
this, your cooking time may be a few minutes longer than that indicated, but it
shouldn't vary by much.
I use almost no special equipment such as food processors or
blenders when making food for any occasion.
I don't want to clean the equipment because I don't like doing
dishes. The one piece of equipment
sometimes referred to in the recipes is a potato masher which I prefer to
something fancier. Where a blender or
food processor would work much better than a potato masher, I have referenced
this in the tips that follow many of the recipes.
Rice: Obviously, one of the fastest ways to get
something that passes for rice on the table is to use minute-style rice, but
for those who prefer the taste and texture of less refined types of rice, there
are some other methods to try. First,
you might consider investing in an electric rice cooker. Rice cooks quickly with no attention required
and it keeps warm until you are ready to serve it. For help cooking specific kinds of rice,
consider the following:
Basmati Rice: This is excellent rice, but can be a long and
tricky job when cooking it stove-top.
Instead, do it in the microwave.
While you are fixing your ten-minute meal stove-top, your basmati is
cooking in the same time on the other side of the Atlantic in the
microwave. For 1 cup basmati, add 2 cups
water. Put it in a microwave safe bowl
and cover. I usually just lay a plate on
top of the plastic mixing bowl. Heat it
on high for about 9 minutes. Depending
upon the size and material of your container, it should be more or less done at
this point. If it needs a little more
time, continue cooking for a minute or two.
Wild Rice: I have
yet to find a real fast way to cook up wild rice. Whether in the microwave or stove-top, it
seems to take an awful long time. You
can use 3 cups water to 1 cup wild rice and cook it using the same method as
described for basmati rice above except that the cooking time is between 20 and
25 minutes. Once you have invested this
much time in the cooking, maximize the effort by freezing the results in 1/2 to
1 cup increments in freezer bags. Then
you can use wild rice whenever you want by defrosting it in the microwave. Add 1/2 to 1 cup wild rice to 2 or 3 cups
cooked white rice for a tasty, nutritious side dish. Seasoned with garlic powder, green onions,
and a bit of butter, it's a winner.
Pasta: Pasta preparation time depends upon the
type of pasta you choose to use. Here
are some timesaver ideas for pasta.
Angel Hair Pasta: If you want to prepare quick pasta for a main
dish or a side dish, this thin string pasta is a great choice. It cooks up in about 3 minutes, once the
water is boiling. This is not good for
freezing and reusing later.
Fusilli,
Corkscrew, Elbow, Bow Tie, Penne:
These pastas take longer to cook-between 7 and 10 minutes, depending
upon the one you choose. They are,
however, sometimes the best choice for the dish you want to make. If you plan to use them for your quick pasta
dish, make sure you start the water as soon you begin preparing the other
ingredients. Then, the pasta will be
ready about the same time you have finished with chopping and cooking the vegetables
or making your sauce-about 15 minutes, max.
Another way to make these pastas user-friendly is to cook
them ahead of time and freeze them in gallon size plastic bags for reheating
later. To do this, drain the pasta well
and rinse with cold water so that it is room temperature. Freeze it in plastic pouch-about 2 cups to a
pouch. To heat for use, put the bag in the microwave cracked open for air to
escape and heat on high for 2 1/2 minutes.
Move it around a bit and heat on high again for 2 1/2 minutes. It should be ready to serve. Rinse with hot water and use in your
dish. This method allows you to have
thick pasta ready to use in five minutes.
Some cooks may like this method.
Others will prefer cooking pasta fresh when they plan to serve it.
Potatoes: If you want to make potatoes for potato
salad or other chopped potato dishes, do not boil the whole potato and then
rinse, cool and chop. This method is
very time consuming. To be as efficient
as possible, chop your potatoes (with the skin on-it never hurt anyone) and
drop them into the boiling water already at the size you plan to use. When they are done, rinse them in cold
water. They both cook and cool more
quickly this way. Be careful not to cook
to mush unless you want to use them to make mashed potatoes, in which case you
may want to peel them first.
Other
Useful Tips:
As you look through the recipes, you may have some questions
about low-fat or other healthy substitutes you can use for listed
ingredients. Consider these ideas:
Feel free to use low-fat sour cream and imitation mayonnaise
when sour cream and mayonnaise are called for in a recipe.
When milk is an ingredient, you can use nonfat milk unless
otherwise noted. I have not had low-fat
or even 1 percent milk in the house for years and rely on nonfat milk as my
cooking ingredient with rare exceptions.
While a recipe may call for a tablespoon of oil in the pan
when browning onions and the like, I actually dispense with the oil when I
cook. I put the vegetables in a hot pan
and keep them moving until they are done.
Then I add my remaining ingredients.
You can use this dry pan method if you like or use a little oil or
butter in the pan when you brown vegetables.
Also, I never add any oil to the pan when I brown meat of any kind. If the pan is too dry, I add a bit of water
to keep it from scorching.
Simple
Recipes
The following recipes are set up to provide the basics:
ingredient listing, directions, and preparation time. Each recipe will serve a
family of 4. The recipe ingredient
quantities are identified as follows:
Cup c
Tablespoon T
Teaspoon t
Pound lb.
Ounce oz
Package pkg
Salmon
with Paprika Sauce, Prep:
less than 15 minutes
4 salmon
fillets
4 T butter
or margarine, melted
2 t
Worcestershire sauce
2 T chives,
chopped
1/4 t
paprika
Put 1 tablespoon butter in skillet and brown salmon over
medium low heat. Cover and cook for 4 to
5 minutes on each side. Melt remaining butter in microwave and mix with
Worcestershire sauce, chives and paprika.
Pour sauce over salmon when you turn it.
Side by Side: This dish is great with any number
of vegetables from steamed broccoli, asparagus or green beans to sautéed sweet
bell pepper and onions. Serve with white
rice.
Kind of
Sheer, Prep:
5 minutes
3/4 c
couscous
3/4 c water
1 c
evaporated milk
1/8 c brown
sugar, packed (2 T)
1/4 c
slivered almonds, toasted
1 t almond
flavoring
Make couscous according to package directions. Or, mix equal
parts boiling water and couscous, cover, and let stand for 3 to 5 minutes. While
couscous is cooking, toast the almonds in a dry pan for 1 to 2 minutes. Mix milk, sugar, almond flavoring and
almonds. Fluff couscous with fork and
pour milk mixture over it.
This dessert is a variation on Indian rice pudding called
kheer. You can add raisins to it if you
like things fruity. You can also make it
with leftover rice. Leftovers reheated in the microwave serve well for
breakfast. This is a good dessert for grandkids when you don't want to do
dessert because it satisfies that sweet tooth but is healthy and has only a
little sugar. And they love it – Bird
