Cooking Tips
There are some ways to make cooking quicker and less fussy. Here are some of our favourite hints to speed you along.
Some things that make life easier if you're going to cook often: good knives, more than one chopping board (I have a large one and a small one), a flat citrus zester (see chopping garlic, below), an electric kettle, a microwave, a blender, and several sets of measuring implements.
Chopping garlic
Since I use so much garlic in my cooking, the fussiness of chopping or crushing garlic used to be a major factor in why I didn't cook much. But then I discovered a flat citrus zester like this one. Take a garlic clove and press it with the flat of a knife until you hear a crack. Then cut off each end of it and slide the rest of the skin off easily. Place the zester directly over the cooking pot and grate the garlic in. You can choose to chop the tiny amount left at the end or simply throw it away. If you are exceptionally lazy or have had a hard day, a jar of chopped garlic from the grocery store can make cooking painless.
Chopping onions
Since a lot of vegetarian dishes start with this ingredient, it is useful to learn a quick way to chop onions. My cooking time decreased after reading these tips from a Rose Elliot book: Cut the ends off of the onion and make a light slit down one side. The skin should peel off easily. Next chop the onion in half from root to stalk. Then cut each half along it's markings. Turn it and cut it now at a right angle to the previous cuts. Sorry, I can't help you with the tear-inducing fumes.
Cooking vegetables
Veggies can be cooked one of three ways - steamed, boiled or half steamed/half boiled. They are all easy. Simply buy a metal steamer basket that fits on top of a saucepan, pour about a cup of water in the saucepan under the basket and boil the water to steam the vegetables. This keeps the most nutrients in the vegetables intact and is the most flavourful technique. However, faster and almost as good is the half steam/half boil method which involves placing veggies in the saucepan and covering only half of their height in water. Boil the water with a lid on the pot. This takes mere minutes!
Cleaning leeks
Since leeks grow in sandy soil, they often have sand in the folds. To clean them quickly before cooking, first cut off the excess you won't use. Then make a slit the entire length of the leek. Run it under the tap, giving every layer a quick rub/rinse.
Faster roast potatoes
Roast potato with veggies and cheese on top can be a very easy, cheap and filling dinner. But roasting a potato the traditional way can make one impatient. So wash the potato, stab it many times with a fork and pop it in the microwave for about 3 minutes on high. Meanwhile heat the oven up. Then put the potato into a hot oven for 20 minutes to retain the fluffy/crisp texture of an oven-baked roast potato.
Shop Less
It makes your life a lot easier if you stock up your cupboards with long-lasting staples. You will have to dash to the grocery store for an ingredient less, which makes life that little bit less irritating. Some things you might want to consider stocking up on: canned chopped tomatos in juice, canned beans of every description, dried beans, rice, wok-ready noodles, dried noodles, pasta, spices (most notably coriander, cumin, tumeric, sea salt, good black peppercorns, mustard seed, and powdered hot chilli), flour, a good quality balsamic vinegar, frozen vegetables, frozen pastry and these less long-lasting but essential staples: cooking oil, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic bulbs, onions, and a bottle of lemon juice and a jar of pre-chopped chillis (in case you don't feel like picking up fresh lemons or chillis or you run out).