The Cursing Gourmet Tip of the Day:
Think outside the box.
A while back, I realized that I make four different meals with the same base ingredients of shredded chicken, onions, carrots, and celery. I never noticed at first, because all the dishes were quite different from each other, tastewise: I make a Spicy “Asian-style” Chicken Noodle Soup, I make Mulligatawny (a spicy Indian soup with rice and a sweet kick from apples), Shepherd’s Pie (with chicken, obviously, and a Peanut Chicken Curry that I serve over rice.
Each of these recipes have additional veggies/etc. but they all require 2 chicken breasts cooked and shredded, 4-5 diced carrots, 3-4 diced celery stalks, and 1 diced onion, all sautéed.
So one day, I cooked 4X the amount of all of the above. I used 1/4 of it for that night’s meal, and divided the rest into three containers. I then covered the saved portions with chicken broth, puts the lids on, and threw the containers into my freezer.
Sure, cooking/shredding 8 chicken breasts, 18 diced carrots, 14 diced celery stalks, and 4 diced onions takes longer than one meal’s portion, but it certainly doesn’t take 4X as long.
And now I’m only cleaning that pot ONCE rather than four times! So not only am I saving myself future cooking time, I’m also saving myself future clean-up time!!
When you hate cooking, ya gotta get creative in order to save your sanity. Ya gotta think outside the box of ziti.
So how about YOU? Are there any ways you “think outside the box”? What are some of your brilliant, time-savings tactics when it comes to cooking/all-things-related?