Lazy cooking

Image by Mister Wilson, via flickr

I like food, I like it to be nice and tasty and healthy, but I do not like messing about for ages in the kitchen. You will never find me slaving over a hot stove; in fact you are far more likely to find me lounging on the couch while something is brewing in the kitchen.

So I’ve decided to share some of my favourite lazy cooking tips with you. Now a word of warning, some of my esteemed colleagues at Calm Your Beans are pretty amazing, artistic, skilled cooks. I am not. However, due to my sloth like natural aptitude for efficiency (laziness is a harsh word), voracious appetite and aversion to putting on too much weight I have evolved a style of cooking which requires minimal effort, is relatively healthy and does not taste too shabby.

Instead of going into great detail on a bunch of recipes I’m just going to explain my basic theories on cooking.

Avoid peeling where possible

Vegetables are, of course, healthy and have been known to be tasty on occasion. Unfortunately they can be a bit of a pain the beautocks (that’s not a typo, I just like to think of beautiful buns), especially when peeling enters the equation. This is why we avoid peeling at all costs. Vegetable skin is generally very nutritious and you can always disguise your, ahem, efficiency as healthy ‘rustic’ cooking. Just give your veggies a wee quick wash off with a stiff brush and you’re good to go, after all, when did a wee bit of earth in the teeth ever hurt anyone?

Just bung it all in

Lots of cooks will tell you that you need to add this, wait 5 mins then add that and after 42 seconds add a splash of this; most of the time it’s pernickety nonsense. Now I can’t argue that for some recipes it is necessary to space out the introduction of the ingredients, so just avoid those recipes.

If you are going to be cooking something on a low heat for a long time just whack it all in and go watch TV or something. My favourite example of this is beef or sausage casserole. I just get a casserole dish, chuck everything in it in uncooked and unpeeled chunks, and then pop it in the oven at 160 for about 3.5 hours. Then I eat it.

Buy readymade stuff and improve it

Another of my favourite cooking strategies is to just buy readymade pizzas or jars of sauces then add to them. In the case of a pizza, just chop up a couple of fresh tomatoes, add a little pepperoni or whatever then grate a bit of cheese on the top. In the space of about two minutes you’ve turned your depressing cheapo frozen pizza into a fresh, colourful triumph.

Do you have any lazy cooking tips you can be bothered to share? If so we’d love to hear about them in the comments box.

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