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DigsMagazine.com.
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12
kitchen
Timesavers
that don't sacrifice taste
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When you've had a hideously long day at
work, the last thing you'll feel like doing when you finally get home at
night -- starving and cranky -- is to spend another hour slaving over
the stove. A few simple shortcuts will help make it easier for you
to get a good dinner on the table with a minimum of time and
effort:
1 Forget
what the gourmets say: It really is okay to use canned and frozen goods.
Fresh veggies are great, when
available, but on those days when you just can’t muster the effort to
wash, peel, cut, slice or dice, canned/frozen goods are certainly a
reasonable and acceptable alternative. My must-haves: canned chicken
stock (low sodium), canned diced tomatoes (no salt added), canned black
olives, canned pinto + kidney beans, frozen green peas, frozen corn,
frozen edamame (soybeans in pod).
2
Condiments are key!
Such ready-made flavorings as
oyster sauce, chili bean paste, Thai green curry paste, and salsa are
super-convenient ways of adding instant taste to a dish. Ethnic food
markets are great places to go to un-earth cheap, unusual, tasty sauces.
3
Blanche before stir-frying/sautéing.
Cook slow-cooking vegetables
(cabbage, broccoli, green beans, etc.) briefly in boiling water before
stir-frying or sautéing to speed up the overall cooking time.
4
Make surplus …
Particularly when you’ve gone
to the effort of trying more complicated dishes. It won’t take any
more prep time to double/treble the recipes, and you’ll have yummy
leftovers/a quick-fix meal for the next day.
5
The amazingly versatile basic tomato sauce
…
Can be easily modified to produce an incredible array of dishes: use
straight up with pasta, add veggies/meat for more substantial pasta
sauces, add tomato paste to make pizza sauce, puree with chili powder,
cumin and green for enchilada sauce. Make large batches at a time, then
freeze in convenient serving size containers.
keep
reading ... more great tips!
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