Cooking Up Some Grub

These days it is hard to find time to sit down and create something delicious. We all fight for time with our busy schedules and it seems this battle never ends. When you come home from a long, exhausting work day, the last thing you want to do is jump into the kitchen. Finding that my time has increasingly become scarce, I have started to get smarter with my cooking. Here are a few tips to help you save time in the kitchen: 1. Dice up a large batch of onions and place them in a good container with a paper towel at the bottom. Make sure to change the paper towel out when it becomes very moist. Use up your onions within a weeks time. 2. Cut up all your vegetables that you will use for the next few days. Make sure to rinse all fresh produce well and pat dry as best as you can. 3. Pull your chicken, beef, pork, etc out of the freezer the night before and put it in your refrigerator. When you wake up pull it out and let it thaw until you are ready to use it. Just make sure you have all proteins thawed beforehand. 4. When you buy proteins that are fresh, make sure to prep them as you want before they go into the freeze. I will buy a whole pork loin and cut it into chops, roasts, cubes for stewing etc. 5. Double check your recipes and ingredients the day before so that you do not have to make a last minute store run. I will post more tips later on but for now try these out. Faster prep times are not the only subject on my mind. I have been striving to cut down on food cost, reduce our animal protein intake, and be creative with ingredients that are already in my pantry. I have noticed that most people stock up on items and never use them. Why buy them, unless they are for food storage, if you are not going to use what you spent your hard earned money on? Food cost has been something that we have challenged ourselves with and to our amazement we have accomplished some awesome dishes with just a few humble ingredients. A little tip for saving money at the local market is buy more produce. Produce can be expensive but not as much as animal protein prices. Everyone wants beef, chicken, pork, premium seafood, however to cut cost cut your consumption of these products. If you can not live without eating some sort of animal daily then buy the cheaper cuts and learn how to cook with them. Most people will not touch brisket because it is tough and takes a long time to cook in large quantities. It is a great cut of beef and usually very cheap comparatively. Prepping it and cooking with it is not a hard task. Later on if I get the chance I will do a simple recipe with brisket to show you how easy it is. If you are chicken fan, stop buying boneless chicken breasts. They fetch a much higher premium than do cuts with rib still attached. Better yet, buy a whole chicken and quarter it yourself. YouTube is a great tool to use if you do not know how to do something in the kitchen. Once you learn to quarter a chicken you can do it with any foul. I buy whole chickens and either roast them or quarter them and the money I save is substantial. I can buy two whole chickens for $9.00 at my local bulk retailer and use it in 4-6 different meals. Make your animal proteins stretch and remember you only need a 3oz portion with each meal. This brings me to the next topic of reducing animal protein consumption. It has been a blessing both to our bank account and to our health. We very rarely get sick these days and when we do it passes without any hiccups. I do not think I will ever eliminate beef, pork, or chicken from my meals, however it is a good move to reduce intake of these items. When you fill your diet with fresh fruits and vegetables, amazing things happen. Your body and its immune system take care of you. Do not not quot me saying that you should not go see a health care professional because they do have their place. However, the less frequent your doctor visits are the better. It is true that you are what you eat! So reducing animal protein consumption is not as hard as you might think. If you like salads, fruits, vegetables, consume them more than animal flesh! You will save money on your health care costs, you will have more energy to play with your family, and you help yourself out by reducing your risk of hear disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, point pain, obesity, and so on. The last thing I would like to talk about, before I get to posting some things about a couple of easy new dishes I created, is using what you already have in your pantry to cook with. I will not go into this much but honestly use those items for something. If you can not come up with any ideas ask someone or go online and see what others have made. If you feel you can not make it move onto the next recipe. One of the beautiful things about the culinary world is that there is a dish for everyone's tastes. Use up groceries you buy and do not let them go to waste and I promise your food budget will open up new possibilities. You would be surprised if you sat down and took inventory at how much you toss away in dollar amounts!