Cooking has become a rather tiresome activity, considering the number of hurdles one must now cross in order to be able to have a satisfying meal. This especially applies to those of us who genuinely enjoy cooking meals for our family.
Today, buying the absolute basics from a grocery store or supermarket makes a significant dent in one’s wallet, and with walking becoming one of the few ways of getting about one can be sure of, many have to choose between making multiple trips to the grocery store to buy a few items at a time or carrying multiple, heavy bags containing the week’s or month’s groceries in the hot sun.
Even if you manage to get your hands on some rice, vegetables, and meat, cooking has to be done with great planning, paying attention to gas usage as well as power cuts, when using electronic alternatives.
If you are busy, tired, or sick and find yourself unable to prepare a meal, food delivery services are no longer an easy and convenient option one can rely on. Even if riders are available in your area, the prices of dishes will leave you feeling faint.
Having to consider all of these factors makes cooking a nightmare, but these are a few, simple ways you can save time or spruce up a dish.
Store-bought soup mix works wonders
Making a mushroom quiche – or rather, something resembling a quiche given the cost of the ingredients needed to make one – recently, we used a packet of cream of mushroom soup mix or powder instead of making a sauce from scratch. While defenders of tradition will probably oppose this, the soup mix took less time and energy, as well as ingredients. It also cost less, and we were able to make a delicious meal without having to use expensive ingredients.
Since the soup is already seasoned, we didn’t have to add any extra spices or flavouring and instead boiled some chopped-up vegetables in the soup, before adding a few eggs and milk and baking it. Given the consistency and taste, we do see the cream of mushroom soup mix being used in other savoury pies as well as stews.
Herbs are a lifesaver
If you have a garden, you are likely to have basics like curry leaves, rampé or pandan, and lemongrass. These are great to add flavour to any curry. However, if you do cook the occasional pasta, for instance, growing some basil can be a lifesaver. Adding a few leaves of basil into pasta or even a savoury pie will elevate it immediately, and you can even make pesto with it.
Although not as common, the use of basil in fresh fruit juices is also great. Blending a few leaves with mango is a refreshing change from the usual mango juice, and we have also seen recipes for a basil and strawberry drink.
Mint is another great herb to have in your garden and can be added to lime, lemon, or naarang juice to give it more flavour. If you do have a naarang tree at home, remember to keep a bottle of soda water in your fridge so that you can make a refreshing drink to cool off on hot days. Using sugar syrup by boiling sugar in water instead of adding sugar directly into the drink is another useful tip.
A mint plant will also be of use if you want to make sambal.
Banana bread for a quick snack
For some reason, bananas are a fruit that we either don’t see much of for weeks or receive in abundance from neighbours. When the latter happens, it is unlikely that we can eat all of the fruit before they start to rot. Instead of letting this happen, we tend to freeze the bananas so that we can make banana bread later on. It’s easier to freeze them according to the quantity required by the recipe, so that you need not thaw the entire batch, when only a few are needed.
If you are in a baking mood and end up making more banana bread than is needed, you can always freeze it. Bakers suggest wrapping the banana bread in cling film or aluminium foil so that no part of the banana bread is exposed. You need to be mindful of the corners, which could escape the cling film.
Once it is properly sealed, freeze the loaf, and when you crave banana bread, simply let it thaw and enjoy!
