by Michele Johanson

Created on: June 14, 2010

With the plethora of cooking shows, celebrity chefs, celebrity cookbooks flying off the shelves, one might think that food and cooking has never been more popular but the sad truth is that home cooking has suffered a rapid decline as we struggle against the ever-increasing demands on our time and energy.

Food manufacturers have been quick to spot an opportunity and have saturated the market with ready-meals, not to mention the ubiquitous ‘kits’ which supposedly allow on to cook an ‘authentic’ meal of fajitas, or curry, or beef stroganoff.  The list is endless and one can only have sympathy with the harried young couple who after a day’s work and a stressful commute and facing an evening faced of overseeing homework and school projects, not to mention tackling the laundry, ironing and other household chores, reached for several packages of frozen and packaged food and pop these into the microwave.  The result?  A meal of sorts which is often tasty enough to allow you to think you’re doing a reasonable job in keeping body and soul together.  If one doesn’t read the truly terrifying list of ingredients which make up these convenience foods, you may even delude yourself into thinking that you are providing a nutritious meal for your family.

I would place the decline of home cooking firmly at the respective doors of lack of time and the microwave.  No-one can deny that the microwave has revolutionised out eating habits.  Yet, even when one is dependent on the convenience of the microwave for weeknight meals there is no reason to be dependent on convenience foods.

By devoting a few weekend hours to planning a menu, shopping and organising a few basic meals, it is easy to throw off the yoke of the ready-meal.  It takes no more than a minute or two to chop and onion, add a large tablespoon of parsley (grown on the window sill) and beat up and egg or two.  Divide the mince (ground beef) you have purchased earlier in the day.  As you form hamburger patties with one half, start browning an onion or two in a saucepan and use the remaining half of the mince to make a spaghetti sauce rich in tomatoes and basil, and one has the basis for two meals later in the week.

Prepare fish parcels in aluminium foil.  A piece of fresh fish topped with a slice or two of onion, a sprinkling of salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon and a sprig of fennel or dill laid tenderly over the fish, and a drizzle of olive oil is all one needs.  Store in the freezer for a day or two.  Fish need not be thawed before cooking.  Serve with a few freshly boiled new potatoes and a salad.  Nothing could be easier.

As you’re in the kitchen anyway, pop a chicken into the roasting pan and use as the basis of chicken salad sandwiches, or chicken curry.  After that rope in the kids to help make brownies -  a large batch, which can serve as dessert for a meal or two.

A little time and ingenuity is all one needs to restore the balance between presenting healthy and delicious meals and those flabby, over-processed, additive and preservative-packed convenience meals.

  

Learn more about this author, Michele Johanson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.