Prep Before You Cook

One of my favorite cooking websites is www.ichkoche.at which is an Austrian site featuring articles and recipes in German, so not very helpful to most of you but I’d like to share some prepping tips with you from their site. Looking at them now, maybe not all are before-cooking prep tips….

Also, I think I might have shared similar tips before but these thought even further ahead before the cooking starts so I thought it important to share.

1.    If you are a beginner or not very experienced in the kitchen, take your time. Don’t rush through your first cooking experiences as you will not be familiar with your surroundings and don’t want to invite accidents (fires, cuts, spills and very hot liquids).

2.    Think about what you want to cook and make sure you have all the ingredients at home. You don’t want to be halfway through a recipe only to have to run to the store for the remaining ingredients.

3.    Make sure you are dressed appropriately and your hair is where it should be. Yes, you read right. Are you cooking in your bikini, leaving plenty of skin available for oil splatters when you are frying chicken or is your hair hanging over your soup? Look in the mirror before you cook.

4.    Make room in the kitchen and wherever you will eat. You want to have plenty of room to cut meat or veggies in the kitchen and serve your meal when it’s hot and ready. You don’t want to have to clean the mail off the dining table as you are carrying the roast to it.

5.    Chop and prepare all your ingredients before you cook them. If you set them all aside in bowls or on plates and line them up, cooking them will be a cinch.

6.    Make sure you know where your bandaids are in case you do get a cut. Don’t panic. Turn off the stove, set down anything if necessary and sit down. Breathe, nurse your cut and get back to work.

7.    Presentation is always nice so deck the table in advance. You eat with your eyes first so a pretty table cloth (if you have one) along with the plates and utensils will look good.

8.    Think in advance what you want to drink. Orange juice with clam chowder? Do you have anything else other than orange juice in the fridge? No? Maybe you should have thought of that before starting dinner.

9.    As you are cooking, clean your work area. If you cut the ends off the veggies, throw them in the garbage right away. Don’t pile up trash and pots/pans because you’ll be overloaded after you eat.

10.  Ensure that all fires are put out – turn off the stove/oven when done cooking!