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Change the way you cook with our kitchen shortcuts

Words by Molly

11 February 2020 | 

5 mins

Home-cooked food and eating together has undeniable benefits. But when the commute is long and the patience is low (no thanks to the person who wouldn’t remove their backpack on a busy train) cooking from scratch can seem like a laughable offense – one we’d much rather swap for a packet of crisps and a large bar of chocolate.

So how do we get around this? We know that cooking from scratch can benefit our health, it will probably cost us less and it’s likely to reduce our food waste and consumption of unnecessary plastic packaging, but in spite of this, we still don’t have the time for it.

For anyone familiar with this head-heart situation, when the heart is saying sofa but the head is saying nutrition, we’ve put together a list of our top 10 kitchen short-cuts. Cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be an endless chore, it just takes a little bit of know-how.

1. Make sous-vide your new best friend

Sous-vide is a method of slow-cooking. Food is vacuum packed and heated very slowly in a water bath until cooked through, retaining the natural moisture and resulting in incredibly tender meat.

Our sous-vide range (pre-cooked by our Somerset chefs) takes the hard work out of slow-cooking. The cut delivered to your door can be cooked at home in virtually no time at all, with exactly the same melting texture and unbeatable taste. Choose between Confit Duck Legs, Crispy Pork Belly, Harissa Pulled Pork Shoulder & Half Roast Chicken with Lemon, Garlic & Thyme. All of our sous-vide cuts are hand-prepared by expertly trained chefs using our high-welfare, free-range meat and natural ingredients, so you can have restaurant quality food in just a fraction of the time.

2. Browse our range of pre-marinated cuts

If we hadn’t convinced you already, pre-prepared doesn’t have to mean low-quality. We also offer a range of pre-marinated cuts courtesy of our friends at Lucy’s Dressing, combining convenience with quality. You’ll find Chipotle Marinated Ranch Steak, Harissa Marinated Bavette and Chipotle Marinated Chicken Mini Fillets, to name a few. 3. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail

Heading to the supermarket when hungry (and without a plan) is a disaster waiting to happen. Before you know it you’ve ended up with a grab-bag of chocolate buttons, a triple ham sandwich, a quiche from the reduced section and a pot garlic stuffed olives.

The easiest way to stay on track and speed things up in the evening? Plan your meals week-by-week. Not only will this avoid aimless wandering around the supermarket for inspiration, but you also minimise those time-wasting moments staring blankly into the fridge, hoping something will magically appear for dinner.

4. Cook once, eat twice

Batch-cooking is a must for the time-poor. You have to put the effort in once, but if you’re clever with it you can make it last (and then you’ve got a healthy home-cooked ready meal at your fingertips). Try cooking up a big curry at the beginning of the week with tender diced chicken and creamy lentils, your future self with thank you for it.

5. Embrace the one pot wonders

If you’re cooking from scratch after a hectic day at work, the last thing you want is a recipe that calls for just about every kitchen utensil you own (including the once-used potato ricer you received for a birthday many moons ago). Lucky for us, one pot meals are everywhere on recipes sites these days, and they’re essential to have up your sleeve for time-saving. Filled with flavour, brimming with nutrition and cooked in a single pot, have a try of our Chicken & Chorizo Jambalaya to get the mid-week dinner inspiration flowing.

6. Make it spicy

We’re cold, we’re tired, we’re hungry. We want something that’s going to satisfy our taste buds in the evenings, but we want it fast. For those of us looking to save time (but don’t want to lose flavour) a good quality spice paste is a must-have in your store cupboard. Think smoky chipotle and fiery harissa – all you need to do is spoon a teaspoon onto a salmon fillet and roast together with chopped veggies. It couldn’t be easier and yet it absolutely delivers on the flavour front.

7. A cheat’s guide to sides

So you’ve psyched yourself up to batch cook a one-pot curry with diced chicken and harissa paste. You’ve opted for the healthy option and grabbed the wholegrain rice, but when you check the packet, to your utter dismay, it takes 25 minutes to cook. Watching rice boil when hungry is a torturous process, but a necessary evil, because a rice-less curry isn’t a curry worth having.

Someone must have felt our pain because in recent years the market for pre-cooked grains has exploded. Gone are the days when all that’s on offer is white rice, you can find freekeh, wild rice, brown rice, quinoa and just about any other starchy carbohydrate you can think of. Cooked in the microwave in 2 minutes, bliss.

8. Take a trip to the frozen veg aisle

A common misconception is that frozen fruit and vegetables aren’t as nutritious as fresh. This isn’t true, in fact it’s often the opposite. If fruit and veg is frozen close to source the nutrients are locked in, whereas fresh produce that gets transported will suffer nutrient losses.

Frozen veggies like broccoli and spinach are ready-prepared, making a handy time-saving hack. The texture can be a little different, but stirred into a curry you wouldn’t know the difference.

9. Invest in a slow-cooker

This might seem counter-intuitive when we’re trying to save time, but hands-on-time actually makes the slow cooker an incredibly efficient kitchen tool. Chuck everything in and leave it to slowly simmer, freeing up your own time and filling the house with delicious smells too.

10. Get flavour in fast

If you make something that tastes great, you might not be so tempted by the microwave meal in the first place. We’ve already chatted about spice pastes, but there are a few other key ingredients for packing in flavour. Think garlic (and plenty of it), a pinch of sea salt (a little will go a long way), black pepper, fresh herbs (roughly chopped, don’t waste time making it fancy) and lemon juice. Don’t be scared of tasting your food as you cook, you’ll soon find out what works for your taste buds.

Let’s change the way we think about food. Cooking doesn’t have to be a chore if you’re savvy with it, so browse our recipes, save your favourites and get cooking.