When you have limited time to cook, you need all the help you can get. These quick meal tips can help make your quick meals even quicker!

Put 3 or 4 onions in a food processor at a time. Chop them all up, then store them in a covered container in the fridge. They can last a very long time. When you need chopped onion, it is all ready.

1 small onion = 1/4 cup (60 mL); 1 medium onion = 1/2 cup (125 mL)

Buy multiple sets of measuring spoons and measuring cups. When I am racing through a recipe, I don’t want to stop to rinse or wash a measuring cup. Having several sets lets me grab what I need and keep cooking. (It doesn’t take any longer to wash two cups than to wash one!)

If, like me, you often find yourself cooking with a toddler on one hip, invest in a set of flat-bottomed measuring spoons. You’ll be able to measure and add your ingredient using only one hand!

Discard the little lid with holes in it on your spice jars – at least for those spices that you usually need to measure. I find that the only spice I regularly want to sprinkle is paprika – for all the other spice jars in my drawer, the holey thing just got in the way and slowed me down.

To cut homemade pizza, use kitchen shears! (You can also use regular scissors.) This is much quicker and easier than cutting pizza with a knife. It results in a neater piece of pizza, and doesn’t leave scratches on your pizza pan!

When making mashed potatoes, don’t peel them! Choose thin-skinned potatoes, scrub them well, and just leave the skins on when you boil and mash as usual. You won’t lose the fiber and the nutrients that are in the skin and you’ll save lots of time. The mashed potatoes will taste just as wonderful as ever, and you’ll get used to the brown flecks!

If you insist on peeling your potatoes, get out a large colander. Put it on your work surface and peel the potatoes over it. You’ll be able to carry the colander of peelings to the compost pail or the garbage can without having to first scoop them out of the drainhole on the sink!
Do you have a great time-saving idea to share?

This entry was posted on August 7, 2007 at 12:45 am and is filed under Quickly And Easy Meal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.