SHORTCUT FOR JANUARY, 1999

Shortcuts to Great Food I:

At the Supermarket

It always amazes me that the one thing that stops many people from making great meals at home is that they're afraid to take shortcuts in their cooking. It's almost as if they expect to be ridiculed, tied and burned at the stake if every sauce, every vegetable dish, every bread roll is not slaved over for many hours in a marathon of scratch cooking.

The truth is, I don't know anyone today who has a lot of time to cook everything from scratch...especially me! To me, shortcuts are a great way to save time while still preparing easy, mouth-watering meals for my family and guests. I 've learned a lot of shortcuts, and they always seem to start at the supermarket.

As most of you know, supermarkets carry a much wider variety of foods today than ever before. A lot of these products can save you incredible amounts of time. Sauces, ethnic foods, frozen vegetable medleys, and soup stocks are all waiting for you, pre-made, so you can spend less time cooking the basics and more time creating incredible meals.

"Pre-made sauces!", you say. "BLASPHEMY!" Hey, chill out! I still make a lot of sauces from scratch. But that doesn't stop me from taking shortcuts when it makes sense.

For example, I must have dozens of barbeque sauce recipes in my cookbooks. I've even tried to make some of them. But, as hard as I try, I know that I can't make a barbeque sauce that matches the flavour and variety of the ones I can find in a supermarket (I like a lot of brands, but the Bullseye line of sauces really stand out in my mind). As far as I'm concerned, I'm not about about to waste time in the kitchen with $10 worth of ingredients to make a sauce that's completely inferior to the $2.50 bottle I could have bought at the store. It just doesn't make sense.

Spaghetti sauces I almost always make from scratch...simply because they always turn out great! But if I'm really up against the wall, I'll gladly use a pre-made spaghetti sauce as a base for something quick and delicious! Just saute some onions, mushrooms, green peppers and garlic, toss them in the sauce with a bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, oregano and basil...and voila! Pasta sauce that would make Chef Boyardee ashamed of his canned crap!

Most Asian and Mexican sauces can be time consuming affairs. Wherther it be Teriyaki, Hoi Sin or Mole, I just don't have the time to make something that won't be as good as the real thing. Luckily, I live in a city that has most of these sauces close at hand. And as supermarkets continue to seek new flavours for their customers, it shouldn't be long before they make their way to your neck of the woods.

Although I love fresh vegetables, I'd rather focus on my main dish than spend a lot of time cutting a side dish. Luckily, steaming frozen vegetables in water laced with lemon and basil will still create similar results to steaming fresh ones.

Shortcuts like these aren't cheating. They're just simple ways to make sure you spend more time enjoying your cooking, and less time worrying about the results.


Do you have a shortcut you'd like to share? Write me at amazingfood@canada.com , and I'll share it with our visitors next month!

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