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One of the things that I love about cooking, besides the enjoyment of rocking to some tunes as I mix, stir and experiment and enjoy feeding family, friends and sharing recipes on this blog, is that with each cook I discover new things that not only unleash flavour bombs, but can also save time.

I’m sharing a few of my cooking tips that are tried and true that I utilize in my culinary adventures:

Bake don’t boil potatoes for mashing:

While boiling potatoes is a common method for making mashed potatoes, baking potatoes will enhance the texture and flavor and the result is a bowl of velvety-smooth, savory mashed potatoes.

I also bake the potatoes when making home-made gnochhi, less water content and baking provides a more even consistent potato.

Cut acidity in your tomato sauce:

Peel and add a whole carrot to your sauce, when done, simply remove the carrot, and enjoy a sauced up carrot. Or you can also add grated carrots to the tomato sauce. No need for sugar, as carrots contain natural sugar, which counteracts with the acid in the tomato sauce as it cooks. 

Roasted Garlic

If you follow my recipes, you’ve probably noticed that I prefer to use roasted garlic in my recipes. Of course you can use raw garlic and cook it in any recipe, but the reason I suggest roasted garlic are as follows:

Roasted garlic is a flavour enchancer, making the garlic sweeter, milder and more complex, as it carmelizes the natural sugars in garlic, resulting in a delicious, rich and nutty taste, adding depth to your dishes.Roasted garlic reduces its pungency, making it more subtle and pleasant to eat and digest.The soft and spreadable consistency of roasted garlic allows you to easily incorporate it into sauces, mashed potatoes, dressings and really any other dish where you want to enhance flavour.

Selecting The Best Pasta:

When using packaged pasta, choose a pasta that is light in colour.

The lighter the colour (pale yellow), the more pure and authentic the pasta as pasta doesn’t have many ingredients to begin with, therefore, the shorter the list of ingredients, the higher the quality, and if the noodles are almost white in colour, you have yourself great pasta.

When cooking pasta, ensure your water comes to a rolling boil, and then add salt. Good rule of thumb: taste the water before adding the pasta. If it tastes like the sea–too salty, if it tastes like soup–you’re good to go.

Peel Ginger with a Spoon:

Ginger can be tricky to peel, therefore, rather than using a paring knife or vegetable peeler, use a spoon by scraping the spoon against the skin and ginger skin will come right off.

Create your own salt-free herbs & aromatics.

To reduce salt intake and to add depth and complexity to your dishes, experiment with herbs, spices, citrus fruits, different vinegars, and allium such as onions, garlic, shallots and leeks. All these bring a savory, aromatic base for any dish.

Feel free to experiment with different combinations of the many fresh herbs, and spices, to find the ones that suit your palate. You will find that you will not only add so much depth of flavour to your dishes, but you will also gradually reduce your reliance on salt to create delicious and low-sodium meals.

Adding spices in a skillet over medium heat, stirring for one to three minutes, until you can smell the spices giving off a strong aroma will enhance those spices even more.

Make your own Cooking Spray:

Making your own cooking spray is not only simple with ingredients you have on hand, but also healthier and cost-effective.

Use a mister bottle, thoroughly washed and dried.Measure out 1 1/4 cup of water into a glass measuring cup.Add 1/4 cup of oil (your choice: olive, avocado, flaxseed, canola). Do not use coconut oil as it will solidify and won’t work as well.Add into your mister bottle, and before you use it, give it a quick shake.

There you have it, your own cooking spray.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about these tips, or if you have any tips that have helped you save time in the kitchen, feel free to drop them in the comments.