Sharing entry #2: Cooking & related disciplines

[yvi]

Second verse, same as the first:

Over the next few days, I will be trying to post one entry per day where people can share general tips and tricks they think could be valuable to others. No matter how basic they are or how few people you think would profit from them. Just think about how you do things and share this with others.

This entry is all about cooking, baking and related disciplines.

Other entries:
Cleaning

Comments

[puzzlement]

If you want to largely cook at home for any of ingredient control/health, taste, custom, but you're a busy person, it helps to have a mental list of 5 to 10 meals that really do take under 15 minutes to prepare.

Here's some that work for us. Most involve some pre-prepared food, I've marked where this is so. Also, we are omnivores and these involve meat.

Coucous. Boil 1 cup water. Take off heat. Add 1 cup couscous and a small amount of oil or butter (1 teaspoon to tablespoon, say). Cover for 2 minutes ish (see packet). Done! You can stir through sundried tomatoes and olives for couscous salad and it's an entire meal.

Take a barbecue chicken (pre-prepared) and place in a saucepan. Empty a can of cream of mushroom soup (pre-prepared) over it. Add some olives. Heat through. Serve.

Cream of mushroom soup from scratch. Fry mushrooms, add cream/sour cream/milk/..., reduce, serve. (There's various recipes online, we tend to just google and go for it.)

Wraps. Buy pre-prepared tortillas. Fry mince with onion. Place mince on tortilla with some combination of chopped tomato, lettuce, salsa (pre-prepared) and yoghurt. Fold wrap up and eat.

We also do a lot of stir-fries, usually red meat, purple onion, carrot, capsicum and baby bok choy. Flavour added with either coriander+lime+fish sauce (so, Thai-style) or coriander+kecap manis.