Favourite Cooking Cheats

[megustaleer]

I haven't seen any of the new Delia TV series, but from the trailers, and the comments on BGO and elsewhere her 'Cheats' are a bit extreme for a 'proper' cook.

I'm sure we all 'cheat' in some ways, I certainly do. I have completed several cookery/catering courses in my time, and ran a kitchen catering for 45 adults for several years, as well as cooking for a family for over 30yrs. I can follow a recipe, and could prepare most meals from raw/basic ingredients - but don't always choose to do so, for various reasons.

Here is the menu I am preparing for Easter Sunday lunch (for 8) and the 'cheats' I am going to use:

Roast beef
Walnut and Green lentil roast (no cheats, made from scratch with dried lentils)
Roast potatoes
Roast root veg (cheat: baby carrots ready prepared -reduced for quick sale ;) )
Roast potatoes
Boiled new potatoes in their skins (cheat: ready washed)
Broccoli
Yorkshire puddings (cheat: Aunty Bessie's)
Two different gravies (cheat: Veggie gravy from a mix, but customised)

Lemon Surprise Pudding
Rhubarb and Custard Fool (cheat: Custard from a carton.


There are cakes for tea - a home-made chocolate 'Easter Eggs in Nest' cake ( ?cheat: Cadbury's Flake and Mini Eggs for decor?)
and
Flapjack Bites (cheat: Sainsbury's - yes I know, flapjacks are really easy to make, except that I just can't :o )

Tonight's dinner will be all cheating, as I will have spent most of today preparing food for tomorrow. We are having pasta bake made with a jar of pasta sauce and a Matteson's smoked sausage chopped into it. I will be grating the cheese for the topping myself, there are limits :rolleyes:

What 'cheats' do you use to make meal preparation easier and quicker?

[Hazel]

The only cheat I use that springs to mind is pre-cut chunks of chicken breast. As an ex-vegetarian, I still feel slightly queasy handling raw meat so anything that helps in that area is a blessing.

[lucyb]

Pasta sauce is my big cheat, I think. I love the tomato based ones like Arrabiata which don't have a huge amount of additives. I'm buying meat-based cheats less and less as I start thinking about where the meat may have come from and it takes the edge off things a bit. Chicken and bacon crispy pancakes were the hardest thing to kick - they tasted soooooo good but were wrong on so many levels.

I'm also a sucker for NCG Pea and Ham soup. Just the thing for lunch on a cold day. I made the bread rolls to go with it though... :o

[megustaleer]

Just to say that Mr meg has absolutely raved about tonight's pasta bake.

It's hardly worth the effort of preparing stuff from scratch when the recipients are so easily pleased with jars and cans :rolleyes:

[Minxminnie]

I did a cookery course on holiday in Thailand a few years ago.

A few of the participants were already keen cooks of Thai food, and they talked beforehand about what spices and seasonings they used - ginger, lemongrass, limes etc, all chopped up on the spot.

The course leader gave us spice blend and told us all home cooks in Thailand either make batches of their own or, more commonly, buy it ready made. So that's one of my cheats - red / green Thai curry paste.
Life's too short to chop up lemongrass!

[Boris the Cat]

Yorkshire puddings (cheat: Aunty Bessie's)
I have tried, at various points in my life, to make Yorkshire puddings, and have always failed, so I've decided to give in and go with Aunt Bessie all the way. I went through a phase of using her frozen roast pots, too, but they're so much nicer made fresh that the kids will no longer let me. If I need pastry now, I always use ready made, as making it stresses me out so badly. I consider myself a pretty experienced cook, having catered for at least nine people every day for many years, but there are still things I can't do and that no amount of experience can seem to help. Anybody have any clues as to why this is?

[Elfstar]

I have tried, at various points in my life, to make Yorkshire puddings, and have always failed, so I've decided to give in and go with Aunt Bessie all the way. I went through a phase of using her frozen roast pots, too, but they're so much nicer made fresh that the kids will no longer let me. If I need pastry now, I always use ready made, as making it stresses me out so badly. I consider myself a pretty experienced cook, having catered for at least nine people every day for many years, but there are still things I can't do and that no amount of experience can seem to help. Anybody have any clues as to why this is?


Absolutely none. I can't make pastry but I can make scones and bread. Cheats the usual I suppose, pasta sauces, ready washed salad (because i like the variety of leaves and to buy the individual lettuces is more wasteful as usually i'm the only one eating it.) Ready made pizzas. Occasional spice mixes and blends.

The thing is I CAN make most of these things from scratch and sometimes do but it's incredibly disheartening to spend half a day preparing something that disappears in 5 minutes and receives no more than a grunt of approval. I could have spent that time on the PC.......

I don't use much frozen food tho usually peas,prawns and ice cream. :rolleyes:

[lucyb]

I have tried, at various points in my life, to make Yorkshire puddings, and have always failed, so I've decided to give in and go with Aunt Bessie all the way. I went through a phase of using her frozen roast pots, too, but they're so much nicer made fresh that the kids will no longer let me. If I need pastry now, I always use ready made, as making it stresses me out so badly. I consider myself a pretty experienced cook, having catered for at least nine people every day for many years, but there are still things I can't do and that no amount of experience can seem to help. Anybody have any clues as to why this is?

When you make pastry, do you make sure your fat and the water you add to it is really cold? And once you've made it, before you roll it out, try covering it in cling film and putting it in the fridge for half an hour before rolling it out.(usually time enough for me to have a cup of tea and watch something mind numbing on the tv - no good trying to read a book as the pastry stays in the fridge for ever!).

This is why: http://shopping.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,909759,00.html

I knew it was something to do with gluten!

When you make your Yorkie batter, let it stand for about half an hour, then beat it again before you pour it onto really hot fat - that usually works for me. My sister always chucks an extra egg into her batter and her Yorkies are HUGE.

[lucyb]

ooh ... just realised that was a staggeringly inappropriate post to a thread for favourite cooking cheats. Just popping off to hide from the moderators... :cool:

[megustaleer]

Naughty, naughty, lucyb!
With a few exceptions the Cooking Cheats we choose to use are for things we can cook, but prefer not to for one reason or another.

I can make mayonnaise, but prefer to buy jars most of the time because I won't feed raw egg to the grandchildren.

I can make stock, but I have other things to do with my time, and the steam from long simmering strips the wallpaper off the kitchen walls. I use cubes - my palate isn't sensitive to notice the difference in most soups and stews anyway!

I can make Christmas pudding, but again I like the wallpaper on the walls not hanging off in damp strips, so I buy one and microwave it.

[Minxminnie]

I remember an episode of a Gordon Ramsay show where he challenged the TV presenter Dermot O'Leary to make Irish stew.
Gordon's followed his own method, all from scratch, obviously. Dermot made it the way his (Irish) mum does at home.
Halfway through, Dermot was panicking, as it wasn't flavourful enough. He phoned his mum a couple of times, and each time she just advised him - chcuck in another stock cube!
He did, and he won the challenge (where the diners had to say which one they would buy.)

I lawys use stock cubes or bottles of liquid stock. And, unlike you, Meg, I can't make it myself! I tried once, bit it was a greasy mess.I didn't perservere.

Another thing that affects my cooking is that I'm usually cooking for one. It's often just not economical to make everything from scratch, unless you want family-sized quantities which you'll eat forever. (And not everything freezes well.) If I'm cooking for friends / family, I'll go to more effort to make my own than I will if I'm cooking for myself.

[Boris the Cat]

...try covering it in cling film and putting it in the fridge for half an hour before rolling it out...When you make your Yorkie batter, let it stand for about half an hour, then beat it again before you pour it onto really hot fat - that usually works for me. My sister always chucks an extra egg into her batter and her Yorkies are HUGE.
ooh ... just realised that was a staggeringly inappropriate post to a thread for favourite cooking cheats. Just popping off to hide from the moderators...
Was going to try these tips, but in the light of your second post, I'm off to the shops to buy some ready-to-roll shortcrust and Auntie Bessies!!

[lucyb]

Nooooo!