Also don’t overlook sous vide. I’ve made some heavenly meals with cheap cuts of beef (e.g. shank) recently. Chuck it in a vacuum bag and wait - that’s it! Pull it out and give it a nice sear.
I usually do 2 bags and chuck one in the freezer for reheating at a later date.
If you don’t eat meat, no worries! Loads of veggies are great too, especially roots.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Watch some cooking competitions for inspiration and confidence building to give more challenging dishes a try.
Chef & My Fridge is a good one, though it’s a subtitled Korean show, but the great thing about it is that the challenges are 15 minutes long and take only ingredients from a Korean celeb’s fridge. I had already started trying some tougher dishes from watching Culinary Class Wars, but CMF (which has a bunch of the same chefs btw) really drove home how it doesn’t have to be a long affair with very specific ingredients to make a great dish.
I still for some reason take forever to get things prepped but once they are ready, I can have restaurant quality soup on the table from scratch in like 30 minutes. The secret is to sear the meats and saute the veggies in the pot before adding water/broth and they’ll quickly release their flavour and make a tasty broth, which then becomes rich when you add a bit of salt, sugar, lemon/lime juice, and soy sauce, like just a pinch or splash of each. Celery, onions, carrots, and poatoes, sliced, diced, and/or julienned. Even better if you start by rendering some bacon and then sauteing the veggies in the bacon grease, which acts as the base of the soup once it’s been tempered with all those flavours.
Anyways I’m rambling. Lol it’s a great thing to hyperfocus on, though not sure I’d say I’ve saved money because of it, what with the knives and other kitchen stuff I’ve gotten.