Now the pace of life is accelerating, many people are already very tired when they get home, and it is very hard to prepare three meals a day, how can we reduce the time to cook every day? In fact, you can set aside a few minutes a day to think about the meals you want to make, and don't cook the same dish every day. In addition, you can cook together as a family and find different pleasures in cooking. Three meals a day is important for a person, so please save time more effectively from the way you cook, find a healthier way to cook, and overcome the burnout of cooking.
To restore the pleasure of cooking, the following preparation tips for cooking are provided.
1. Prepare meals in advance
How can meals prepared in advance be preserved and maintained in nutritional balance?
Sometimes you can use the weekend to prepare food for the next three days or a week and then share it, which can eliminate the stress of cooking every day. In this way, the food prepared for cooking should be separated from the prepared ingredients, and it is necessary not to wait until it is cold before putting it in the refrigerator, as long as it is slightly not hot, it should be frozen or refrigerated immediately. If the scheduled time of eating is less than 3 days, refrigeration is enough, it is recommended to freeze for more than 3 days, heat thoroughly before eating, heat to more than 85 degrees to ensure food safety.
If you are not used to cooking food in advance and prefer to cook fresh food at every meal, you can improve the following cooking preparation techniques to reduce the time and pressure of cooking at each meal.
2. Food in the refrigerator "first in, first out"
Pre-prepared ingredients must be on a first-in, first-out basis, that is, the food originally prepared should be placed where it was first used, so waste and forgetting to prepare can be avoided. A label on the crisper box showing the name of all the materials prepared inside and the date of storage can confirm whether the food is within the safe period.
3. How to save salads and sauces
The pre-prepared salad ingredients are stored in cans at home, first placing the salad dressing at the bottom of the jar and then sealing the mixed ingredients on top, so that the salad can maintain a moist and crisp taste. If the vacuum seal can be stored for about 5 days, mix before eating and eat. If you include soft ingredients and perishable protein foods (casein, tomatoes, boiled eggs, cooked chicken breast, etc.) in the salad, it is recommended to wait until the time to eat them.
4. Use a crisper box
Many people use glass jars to store pre-prepared food, but plastic crisper boxes are more efficient. Professional chefs use plastic crisper boxes to store soups, sauces, rice, etc. They are also suitable for preserving food when cooking at home, and the plastic crisper box is relatively light, even if it is placed in the refrigerator, it will not crack, so you can put pre-prepared protein foods in plastic containers. In addition, plastic containers are very cheap and there is no need to worry about losing or damaging them in the office. Plastic boxes of multiple sizes can be prepared at the same time, and pre-prepared ingredients such as sauces and roasted vegetables can be simply saved.
5. Disposable processing of ingredients
When learning to cook at chef school, the teacher will teach the students to use their brains instead of brute force, the same thing not to be repeated twice, and to be efficient when preparing meals in advance at home, and to complete the work in stages. For example, when preparing food a week ago, first check the menu, if two dishes use carrots at the same time, process two carrots at the same time, wash them, peel and cut them. So look for repeat preparations in recipes, all at once.
6. Avoid vegetables that are prone to spoilage
Some vegetables are not easy to spoil, such as cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, apples, cabbage, Indian pumpkins, beets, hydroponic vegetables and other ingredients can be prepared in advance, tomatoes and cucumbers and other vegetables will deteriorate immediately after cooking, so do not prepare in advance, when planning to prepare meals in advance, you must remember which ingredients are suitable and which are not.
7. Save time with tools
Cooking with the right tools can make life easier, and with a food cooker, it's easier to prepare meals in advance, install a slicer on the cooker, and slice the whole carrot into thin slices in a matter of minutes, not as long as it used to be.
The food conditioner can also make fruit and vegetable soups, garlic paste, mayonnaise, jam, dough, cut nuts, bread, biscuits, cheese, and crush whole grain grains into wheat flour. In addition, making meat with a cooking machine is cheap and safe, cutting the pork into pieces, freezing it until the edges harden, and squeezing it dry directly in the cooking machine, the food cooker can really save us time when preparing meals in advance.
8. Fun mixing materials
Prepare a variety of ingredients that can be mixed together, so that you will not eat the same dish for a week, and when preparing meals beforehand, the family can work together to share the preparation of different ingredients, making it easier to prepare a large amount of food.
9. Buy a lot of common ingredients
This is not only practical, but also economical, if you plan to use the same ingredients multiple times in your dishes, it is recommended to buy grains such as rice, seasonings and spices, canned beans, dried beans, canned tomatoes, chicken and vegetable soups, pasta, nuts, sugar and flour, etc. However, if you do not eat much pasta, flour is easy to rot, so it is best to buy small bags of flour. Some seasonal vegetables and fruits are cheap and fresh, and it is easy to preserve such as beets, potatoes, onions, garlic, apples, and other ingredients.
After the above methods, I believe that you can save a lot of time in cooking, to rest and chat with your family and play with your children.