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04.20.2006

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12 kitchen
Time
savers  
that don't sacrifice taste
|
  1 2  

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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