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As a busy mom, I find cooking from scratch is not always
easy to do. Sometimes life
gets in the way and can impact your ability to prepare healthy and
nutritious homemade meals
for you
and your family despite your good intentions.
The good news is that when it comes to cooking from scratch, there are
plenty of hacks that you can use to make it easier to prepare healthy
homemade meals. Cooking delicious dishes for your family doesn’t have to be
a struggle, it just depends on how you approach home cooking.
Invest in a slow cooker (if you don’t already have one)
You know those days where time seems to pass at a million miles an hour?
These are the days when it can seem almost impossible to prepare a healthy
and nutritious meal for you and your family. However, if you are smart
about it and
use a slow cooker (a must-have investment if you don’t already have one), you can make it
much easier to put a healthy meal on the table at dinner
time. All you need to do is throw some meat, stock, and a sauce base -
we’ll discuss these more in a minute - into your slow cooker, and in no time, you will have a delicious meal ready to serve.You may need to cook some rice, pasta or potatoes to go with it, but that is it. The great thing about slow cookers is how versatile they are; you can cook anything in them, from curries and stews to soups and pasta dishes, not to mention desserts!
Freeze, freeze, freeze
If you have a freezer, take advantage of it. On days when you have some
spare time, prepare batches of tomato sauce bases - a.k.a. chopped tomatoes, salt, pepper, and a little oil - that can be frozen and defrosted and used for dishes as
and when you need them. As well as making up sauce bases, consider filling
an ice cube tray with your cooking oil of choice and adding herbs and
garlic to the oil, before freezing it, so that you have some handy flavor
cubes on hand for when you need them. I love to do this with pesto. You could also place freshly chopped
herbs in sandwich bags and freeze them so that you can grab a sprinkle of
these whenever you need them. From coriander and basil to rosemary and
thyme, there isn’t one herb that you can’t freeze. This is a great way to use of herbs from your garden at the end of the summer growing season.
Opt for non-stick cookware
You may want to add a little oil to your meals, such as to sauce bases, but
you don’t want to have to cook all of your food soaked in oil. That is why
it’s so important to opt for non-stick cookware in your kitchen, such as
the
stone frying pans that make cooking without oil much easier. If you are
going to invest in non-stick pans, it’s best to opt for Teflon-free ones,
as Teflon is actually detrimental to your health when heated up, so it’s
best to opt for non-stick pans that do not have Teflon on them.
Make one-pot meals your go-to
Family life can be hectic, which is why cooking can sometimes be a real
struggle. The answer to making preparing healthy and delicious meals easier
is to
cook one-pot meals
. These are simple to make and can be wonderfully delicious. From risottos
and paellas to stews and spaghetti dishes, one-pot meals can be a great way
to make cooking family meals easier, because you literally just throw
everything in the pan together and let it bubble away. Admittedly, you may
need to stir the pot once every so often, but apart from that, these meals
practically make themselves.
There you have it, a few hacks for helping to make preparing healthy family
meals that the whole family will love, that little bit easier and less
stressful. Family life doesn’t always give you the time that you need to
prepare and cook meals, which is why the hacks above can come in so useful,
as they can make cooking that little bit easier, even when time is tight.
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