A delicious meal does not have to take you hours to prepare. For you and many others, the idea that a delicious meal must take a long time to prepare is a deterrent to cooking. But mealtime does not have to be overly complicated in order to be appetizing. Follow these guidelines when you are looking for recipes that are not overly complicated and still tasty.
Check the Time
The best way to save yourselves time in the kitchen is before you even start cooking. When you are looking at recipes read how long the preparation and cooking time is estimated to make the recipe. Most recipes include this information at the top of the recipe along with the serving size of the meal. If a recipe takes an hour of preparation and another hour to cook, skip that recipe and save it for a day when you are feeling adventurous in the kitchen. There are plenty of recipes that take fifteen minutes of preparation and thirty to forty to cook that are delicious, so pay attention to those times on the recipes.
Check the Ingredients
Another area of the recipe to look at prior to choosing it is the ingredients list. Perhaps a recipe says the preparation and cook time are relatively short but the ingredient list is a mile long. Skip this recipe. Five ingredients can make a delicious meal, so do not fall for the idea that more is necessarily better. A meal does not have to include everything and the kitchen sink in order to be delicious.
Be Prepared
Another way to make mealtime simpler is during the preparation portion of cooking. Planning is clearly important to keeping mealtime simple and that is also true for the preparation of the meal. It will make cooking the meal much simpler if you have all your ingredients on the counter ready to use for the recipe. Trips to the refrigerator and pantry take up much more time than you may realize. Do yourself a favor and look at the ingredients list on the recipe and gather all your ingredients before you start preparing the meal. It will save you valuable time.
Keep the Sweets Simple
The simplicity of mealtime can extend to dessert as well. Look for recipes for easy desserts. The same principles for the recipes for the meal should be followed for dessert. Do not pick a recipe that is lengthy or has a long list of ingredients. Remember that delicious can be simple.
A lot of things a complex but not everything has to be. There are delicious meals that you should eat that take a long time to prepare and cook, and there is a time and place for such meals (usually on the weekends), but simple and quick can be delicious as well. Do not unnecessarily overwork yourself in the kitchen because you have convinced yourself that the only meal worth eating is the one that takes hours to prepare. Simple does not mean lacking in creativity, so go find a recipe that excited you but gets you to the dinner table quickly and with little fuss.
