Happiness in Minutes

Happiness in Minutes

Cereal and milk for breakfast, office dabba for lunch, Kurkure/Lays for those in between pangs and take away for dinner (or Maggi if you're in the mood for some "cooking"). If this seems extremely familiar, read on.

It doesn't take much to pack a lunch box or a snack and making dinner definitely won't kill you. Cooking, to many, is an art. To most, however, it is a chore best avoided. I also come across many others who believe that cooking is a time consuming affair. This group usually believes that working people (or couples) are left with no time to cook a decent meal and hence have to rely on home deliveries, takeaways, or at best, Maggi Noodles.

This series aims to disprove the myth that to eat good food, you have to let the food eat into your time first. A little planning, a little organization is usually all it takes to get started. Over time, you will find that with some amount of planning, all you need is 30 minutes to make breakfast and lunch and another 30 minutes to make dinner. A simple meal can be nutritious and filling, not to forget satisfying. It will beat the elaborate, but spicy and greasy, meal from a take away hands down.

To make your life simpler, here are a few tips to follow:

* Plan your meals for the coming week and buy your groceries accordingly

* When you buy vegetables, clean and chop them in different sizes depending on what you plan to make with them. Place these in different freezer bags and keep them in the freezer.

* Always keep a batch of boiled potatoes (with the jacket on) in the fridge.

* Make pastes of green chilli, ginger and garlic and store them in the refrigerator individually.

* Whenever you cook dal or lentils, make an extra batch or two that you can freeze.

* Keep a batch of mixed boiled vegetables (carrots, beans, peas, potatoes) in the freezer. You can throw these into any snack and make it a complete meal.

* Cook double batches of rice and store the extra rice in an airtight container in the fridge. This comes in handy while making stuff like fried rice, lemon rice etc.

* Invest in a good microwave and microwave cookware. These can be lifesavers when you want to cook vegetables in a jiffy.

Bon appetit!