Fifteen Ways to Save Time in the Kitchen.
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- Always Keep Your Counter Tops Free of Clutter: making meals can be hectic enough without having to tidy up first.
- Clean as You Cook: After all of your prep work is done, and your meal is cooking, make sure to wash and put away any knives, spoons, cutting boards etc…that you have used. There will be less to wash after dinner, and you will have a clean, uncluttered space for serving your meal.
- Keep Your Kitchen Well Stocked: Nothing makes cooking more of a hassle than getting started and having to run to the store for a key ingredient. Always keep your pantry well stocked with frequently used items such as spices, rice, pasta, beans, canned tomatoes/sauce. Your refrigerator should also be kept stocked with things like onions, cheeses, condiments and salad items. Buy Bagged Salad Greens: Take advantage of all of the washed, pre-cut salads that are available today. Add some tomato and cucumber slices and some bottled dressing, along with some roast chicken from last nights dinner, and Voila! you have a salad that is also a meal by itself.
- Use Small Appliances: Dig out the bread maker and crock pot that have been collecting dust since you got them. Before you leave for work, toss the ingredients for a soup, stew or chili into the slow cooker and come home to a delicious home cooked meal. And remember that you do not have to bake bread in the bread maker. I use it to kneed enough dough for several loaves at a time and freeze it in loaf size portions. When I want fresh bread, I let it thaw, rise and cook it in the oven. Nothing makes your home smell better than baking bread.
- Multi-Task: Make lunches for the next day while dinner cooks.
- Get Your Family Involved: Set aside some time on the week-ends when everyone will be home. Work together to prepare freezable meals that can be defrosted and re-heated later in the week.
- Make Extra: When making meatloaf, always make a double batch so that you can freeze half to use another night. You can freeze it cooked or raw. You can make double batches of home made burgers and meatballs as well.
- Snip It: Instead of a knife, try using kitchen shears for things such as snipping herbs, green beans, bacon, and trimming excess dough.
- Measure Ahead: If you are preparing a recipe that requires several spices, like pasta sauce: measure out all of the spices into a small bowl while your meat is browning. When the meat is browned, all of your spices can then be put in at once.
- Pre Cook Pasta: While you are getting ready for work in the morning, cook the pasta that you will use for dinner that evening. Drain and cover in plastic wrap or put into an air tight container in the fridge. At dinner time toss the pasta into the hot sauce, stir to separate and let stand a few minutes to heat through. It is ready to serve.
- Buy Garlic In Bulk: Buy several heads of garlic at the same time. Chop garlic in a food processor, mix with olive oil and refrigerate in a glass jar. When a recipe calls for garlic , there is no need to peel and chop it: you just scoop some out of the jar.
- Dice Extra Onions: Because onions, unlike spilled milk ARE worth crying over, dice up a few at a time. Refrigerate them in an airtight container and use them as they are needed. This cuts down on mess as well as tears.
- Soak while You eat: Soak sticky pots and pans in hot water and a little baking soda while you eat. When you are finished eating the stuck on foods should wipe right off.
- Get Shredding: Keep Zip-Locks bags or containers of different shredded cheeses at hand. There will be no need to shred it every time a recipe calls for it and it is perfect for sandwiches too. (shredding it yourself is far less expensive than buying them already shredded)
Have you ever wondered how a restaurant can get a dish of pasta to your table in about four minutes when you know it takes ten minutes just to cook the pasta? Does the water on their stoves boil at a higher temperature than the water on yours? Do they know a trick that you don’t? As a matter of fact, they do. They parboil, or partially pre-cook their pasta; so when an order comes in to the kitchen, a cook can turn out a dish of perfectly ‘al dente’ pasta in a minute or two. Pre-cooking is a worthwhile technique for home cooks, because it enables them to pull together a great sit-down meal in practically no time, no matter how busy their day may have been.
It’s also a great method to use when you plan to serve pasta for a crowd. I once catered a party for fifty, where I had a “pasta bar.” With the assistance of one helper, and two propane burners, I served fifty portions of freshly cooked pasta (al dente) without holding anyone up in the buffet line. To parboil pasta at home, bring a large pot of salted water (at least six quarts) to the boil. Add one pound of pasta and stir until the pasta wilts (in the case of spaghetti or linguine) and becomes submerged. When the water returns to a full, rolling boil, cook the pasta for exactly two minutes, then drain, shock in ice water, and drain again. Note: Strand pasta like spaghetti or linguine will be brittle, so handle them with care.
Place the pasta in a container large enough to hold it, then add enough olive oil to just coat each strand. Cover and refrigerate until needed. Parboiled pasta will keep, refrigerated, for four to six hours.
Note: Coating pasta with olive oil flies in the face of conventional wisdom that says, “Never coat pasta with olive oil. The sauce won’t adhere to the pasta.” Well, conventional wisdom aside, sauce sticks to parboiled pasta like glue. What else can I say? When it’s time to cook dinner, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil, add the pasta (You’ll note that the pasta has softened over the time you’ve had it refrigerated. This is perfectly fine.), cook for one or two minutes, then drain in a colander. Be sure to taste after a minute or so. The pasta cooks quickly. Serve as you would any pasta that you had cooked for eight to ten minutes.
Again, this is a great, worthwhile technique to use at home, because you can parboil the pasta at a time of day when you’re not juggling three or four other tasks, like preparing a sauce, or a salad. And when it’s time to prepare the rest of dinner, you’ll feel more confident in the outcome, because you can focus more of your attention on the other parts of the meal.
Try this technique once, and you could be hooked. You may not be serving fifty or sixty people per night, but you’ll be cooking just like a chef in a neighborhood Italian restaurant… [read more]
Source: www.gomestic.com
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