For someone who advocated very actively about home-cooked meals and managing one's schedule to make healthy, simple, money-saving meals at home for the family, I sure failed miserably for the past 2 years since the pandemic hit.
To be honest, the years of the pandemic, getting groceries was tricky and there was just general anxiety about going out...even if it was to get groceries and anything from the stores.
So, for the initial 2 years, I hardly touched the precious utensils in the kitchen. Food from before the pandemic sat expiring on itself. Sauces went bad, and frozen meat simply became permanent residents in the freezer.
I swear, I touched nothing in there. Lunch and dinner were all delivered to the home via apps, so were groceries whenever possible.
I didn't like ordering meat I couldn't quickly eyeball and check online - everything else was OK - so, I still made trips to the grocery store wherever I felt brave enough.
But now that things have calmed down a little, I am beginning to change things around to the pre-pandemic norm.
I still struggle to make meals at home. Frankly, because multi-tasking work and the demands of maintaining a family is taxing.
But I've come to rely heavily on a few habits and my beloved kitchen equipment.
- Slow Cooker - This is simply heaven-sent. If I can pop something in before I go to bed, I would end up with food to eat for lunch
- Air Fryer - When I dial back on the pandemic strategy of ordering everything online, the air fryer was the first saviour to step in (so to speak). It's a simple enough process of marinating and air-fry. If I wanted vegetables, there's water, sauce (and more most of the time) that I can place at the bottom.
- Pressure cooker - The one that I have is not the best at predicting what I want to be done. But when I am running out of time, I can make stew and soups quite easily and quickly!
- Infra-red stove - With a normal stove, I would have to watch the fire and keep an alarm on my phone to let me know when to check on it and stop cooking. I always need to keep a close watch on it. But the infra-red electric stove has a timer and different types of cooking functions as well as quick heat adjustments. This way, I can pop things in, stir in seasoning and let it brew.
For now, I am going to focus on prepping intelligently, staying ahead of my work-home schedule, practice savvy planning to make the most of my equipment.
From now on, I am going to call myself Quick Cool Queen. LOL
I've not even contributed much to my CookPad journal.
Comments