Sugar and salt
In tomato based dishes, always add a dash of sugar with the salt. Tomato bleeds the flavour out of food so you need to boost it back up.
Peel gingerly
Peel ginger with a spoon to get the thinnest peel possible and reduce waste.
Hulling strawberries doesn’t have to suck
Well, it kind of does … especially if you use a straw. Put the end of the straw over the end of the strawberry and push and twust gently to force it through the strawberry and push the stalk out. Grab one of those wide straws from the bubble tea places or pick up a pack of them from your local variety store. You can reuse the straws several times, just make sure you wash them thoroughly. Plus, you can reduce wastage here by freezing the hulls to add to ice cream, make coulis or add to baking.
Make mega-fast wedges
Use an apple slicer to cut spuds into fast wedges. Depending on the size of your potato, you may need to halve the wedges again after you’ve cut them, but it does make producing a load of wedges faster. And you get the round middle bits, which make the most amazing fluffy fries.
Cook corn in the husk
Trust us on this one – it’s amazing. Cut the silks off the top of the ear of corn and loosen the top of the husks gently, but don’t peel them back. Soak the corn in water for a few minutes and then put directly in a moderate oven or on the BBQ for about 20 minutes. The outside husks will char and blacken and the corn inside will be steamed to a sweet, juicy perfection. You won’t even need butter, it’s that good.
Take it up a notch by sprinkling some liquid smoke into the husks before you cook them. Life. Changing.
Get your timing right
As a general rule, the harder a vegetable is the sooner you add it into the cooking process.
Reduce waste by freezing your veg
Freeze veggies that are on the edge of turning soft and soggy (like carrots, onions, zucchini) in a big bag labelled ‘stock veg’. Once the bag is full, use it to make a pot full of beautiful veggie stock, which you can then freeze in containers to use later. Or make stock ice cubes with one of these huge ice cube trays.
Up your herb game
Dry herbs and spices are added at the beginning of cooking as they need time to release their flavours. Fresh herbs are added at the end so that you don’t overcook them and lose their flavour. Unless you’re talking fresh ginger and lemongrass, which will sometimes need to be added at the start.