I find that the thing that really helps me in cooking is preparation of all of my ingredients. Sometimes I prepare my ingredients the night before or the weekend in advance. Sometimes I take an hour before I cook the meal to do all of it as I personally find that time to be very creative and rewarding, to step away from the computer or media and just create something nice that has a fun reward of a meal that I would not be able to buy otherwise.
The things that I like to prepare first are my herbs and spices if I’m using any, and the smaller vegetables and when I say small vegetables, I mean things like spring onions I mean like bell peppers or garlic cloves. Sometimes I make jars of my herb mix before hand so that I can just use it when I need to.
When preparing my ingredients for my meals, I always tend to start out with an idea of what I would like to make by the end. So, the suggestions are for you to pre-plan what your meals are going to be but also to prepare your ingredients before you cook.
If you are planning to make a stew or a curry the day after this can be a really useful tip. especially when it comes to bigger carbs such as potatoes, pumpkin, marrow or squash. This is also very useful when it comes to lentils, beans, pulses and other legumes, as a lot of these ingredients need to be soaked overnight. If you have these pre-prepared it makes the cooking time a lot shorter.
It is also a good idea to have specific pots pans utensils that you will use for cooking with. This can also be very useful when it comes to washing up afterwards. Because you’re already preparing to cook before you do it.
These tips are easier for people who have bigger families. Or for somebody who has a heavy work life. I tend to do my preparation on the weekends and put things into the fridge ready to be used within the week.
Sometimes I purchased preprepared ingredients from the grocery store. This is what takes my cooking time down. Which is another alternative to save some time. I personally find it more cost effective to prepare my own by hand but can appreciate if someone it under time pressure and just wants something easy to put together.
These are just a handful of suggestions that I live by when I cook, which I believe might be helpful to someone who maybe new to cooking.
I hope that you the reader might also find these suggestions helpful.