Kitchen Resolutions and How to Stick to Them
New Year’s resolutions – love ’em or hate ‘em, you can’t deny that they give you the kick up the rear you need to finally start what you’ve been putting off! A lot of resolutions tend to focus on fitness and health, so why not aim for some kitchen resolutions this year? You don’t need to pay for a gym membership for this resolution! Read on for manageable kitchen goals you can hit in 2019…
Meal Planning
How many times have you been so pushed for time that your ordered fast food or whipped up something not so nutritional? Who has time to cook a nutritional meal when it’s so much easier to grab the instant noodles and the crisps…eh?
Wrong! Set aside a chunk of time at the weekend to batch-prep breakfast, lunch, tea and snacks to last you the entire week. Besides looking incredibly eye-catching in photos, meal prepping saves you a lot of time (and perhaps an inch from your waistline over time). You can choose to eat the same meals all week, or you can select different meals for different days. Once everything is cooked up, portion everything out into containers so you need only heat up what needs to be heated instead of cooking from scratch.
If preparing huge batches of food for the whole week seems intimidating, try preparing food for a couple of days first to get a feel for it.
Waste Not, Want Not
Avoid the shock of finding a mould-covered dish shoved in the back of your fridge by using your leftovers smartly. Get your money’s worth for the food you buy by making sure none of it goes to waste.
Put on both your creative cap and your chef’s hat to treat leftovers as ingredients. Extra meat? Make burritos or a pie. More pasta than you know what to do with? Whip them up with eggs to make a hearty frittata. Fridge bursting with vegetables? Stir-fry them or make pasta sauce out of them. And if you really get creative, anything can be a pizza or a soup!
While preparing your meals, think about your ingredient usage to prevent against excess leftovers. You can even prepare all your meals beforehand to prevent waste.
Around the World in Eighty Dishes
It may be comforting to whip up familiar foods all the time, but why not challenge yourself to try food from different parts of the world? We don’t mean ordering Chinese takeout or buying pizza either – expand your skills by learning how to cook these new dishes!
If you’re lucky enough to live near a speciality ethnic food market, you can easily buy ingredients you won’t find in regular shops, but many cultural dishes can be made with the ingredients found in any major supermarket. These include noodles, tofu, lentils and beans, all of which are featured in many ethnic dishes.
Every culture has their own delicious recipes, from Greek gyros and Japanese sushi to Mexican enchiladas and Egyptian koshary. So step out of your comfort zone and explore the world on your plate this year. Your taste buds will thank you!
Eat Locally-Sourced Foods
Yes, technically your local fish and chips joint can be considered ‘locally-sourced’ but we’re talking about local farmers here. Support your neighbours by buying their fresh produce, meats, grains and dairy, which will likely have considerably less hormones and added chemicals than their supermarket counterparts. Plus, you’ll know exactly where your food came from, which can be important if you want to be more conscious of the environment.
The best place to find locally sourced ingredients is, of course, a farmer’s market, but if you can’t find one near you, worry not. Some supermarkets team up with local farms to sell their goods, so be sure to ask about the source of the produce and other ingredients you find in the aisles.
Eating locally-sourced foods doesn’t have to be expensive, either. If the idea of going into it cold turkey doesn’t sound doable, change your diet in increments. Perhaps start buying your lettuce locally first, and then move on to adding more items to your locally sourced shopping list (which you should definitely make!).
Until next time…