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Even if you’re an experienced cook, the great thing about preparing meals is that there are always more shortcuts to learn. Cooking can be quite an intensive task, and let’s be honest, life is busy and we’re all quite short of time these days. That goes double for the parents amongst us! Here at Savoy Timber, our motto is DIY Made Easy – and we like the idea of applying that to cooking, too! Not only will these cooking tips save you a lot of time and effort in the kitchen, but with any luck, they’ll make life a bit easier on your laminate kitchen worktops, too!
Everyone starts with that one sauce they learned to make immediately as a budding chef. It’s a brilliant fall-back if you’re short on time. For us, it was the sweet but somehow spicy sauce made from water, soy sauce, a touch of honey and a bit of flour (works wonders, honestly). Tomatoes is another common ingredient in these sorts of base sauces, which can then be used for Spanish-style stews, enchiladas, casseroles, Bolognese and chilli con carne, amongst others.
Plus, if there are any spills, laminate kitchen worktops are fantastically easy to clean. Worktops like this Grey Wood Grain 40mm worktop have a beautifully natural look, but it only takes a quick wipe to get rid of any food or sauces. It’s a great low-cost, low-effort option.
You don’t even have to be a good cook to know that the best meals often come from the simplest of ingredients. That means having pasta, rice, tomatoes and potatoes (for example) on hand is a quick way to give yourself a great head-start when you’re tackling a new recipe.
This applies to your seasoning, too. We’re not just talking your average salt and pepper, here, but also your oregano, your basil, your chilli powder, your Cajun pepper, your thyme, your mixed herbs… we could be here forever! Seriously, the power of spices is not to be underestimated, and it can help you make an amazing dish, on a budget, in basically no time at all. Handy if you need to your evening class in half an hour or so, or get the kids fed in a hurry!
This is one that’s often underestimated. After all, if the job gets done, it gets done, right? Well, we suppose, but you could save yourself a lot of time and effort by learning the chop properly. Knowing the difference between your dicing and your chiffonade can help you to speed up some cooking time. As a bonus, certain techniques can help you use a little less brute force, which can make things easier on your worktops. (A particular advantage if it’s something as beautiful as our Rouille Zenith Compact laminate worktop.) For example, you can crush garlic with the flat of your knife when you chop it, which then makes it easier to slice, so you don’t have to cut it quite as roughly. In fact, speaking of which…
This is one of those endless challenges, and sometimes it takes a lot of willpower to fight! There’s all sorts of kitchen gadgetry we see every day, advertised to us on TV or gleaming at us from home-store shelves. They all claim to make our lives easier, and many of them often do, but sometimes with only one very specific task.
The rest of the time, they just sit there at the back of the cupboard, cluttering up our kitchen storage space. The best way to avoid this is as simple as it is difficult. Essentially, when you find yourself tempted by a new kitchen implement, really think about how you’re going to use it, and how often you can envision doing so. Can its job be done by something else you already own, even if that thing isn’t as shiny? If so, resist the urge! It’ll allow you to save that cupboard space for the stuff you actually do need. That’s probably a particularly pressing need if you have a galley kitchen, or any other kind of kitchen where space is at a premium.
Before you rush off to start practicing your newfound kitchen skills, or re-evaluating your cupboard space, why not hang around for a moment more to check out our amazing range of best selling kitchen worktops? Don’t forget, you can always stop by any of our DIY stores in Preston, Wigan or Blackpool to see these worktops in person, where our friendly members of staff will be only too happy to help out!
