14 / 60
12
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2015
M
ost summers, my sister Katherine and her family escape
the Louisiana heat and come up to New York to visit.
I was born and raised in New Orleans but married a
New Yorker. We live way north now — just a few hours from the
Canadian
border.Uphere, the seafood is expensive, but the summers
are sunny, cool and bug free — perfect for serving big family meals
out on the deck.
If you really want to save time in the kitchen, get a brother-in-
law who cooks for a living and invite him to stay all summer. Not
practical? No, but over the years my brother-in-law Stephen Huth,
a Metairie chef, has taught me some tricks of his trade (these days
called kitchen hacks) that have helped me get healthy, tasty meals
on the table faster:
Sharp edges mean better chopping:
More than once, Stephen
has walked into my kitchen, turned around and headed to the store
to buy some “decent” knives. There’s nothing more time consuming
than trying to prepare food with a bad, blunt knife. Using good
equipment in the kitchen
makes food prep easier and
safer. There are lots of videos
on the Internet about proper
chopping techniques and how
to keep your favorite kitchen
knife sharp.
Mise en place:
I’ve never actually heard
Stephen say this (it’s French for “putting in
place”), but if you hang around the kitchen,
you’ll see him set up his ingredients and
equipment before he gets going. I don’t tend
to be that organized, but when I do pull out
what I need, I find things move along more
quickly. Also, I now use a bowl to put all
the scraps in as I cook, making clean up a
little easier.
A
void meal prep bottlenecks:
If you’re entertaining a lot of
people, select dishes that can be made one to three days ahead so
you can work on the feast a little at a time. Combine those recipes
with a couple of easy-to-assemble dishes and a few prepared sides
(Rouses mini muffalettas or a custom-made platter of fruit or
vegetables) that you can pick up at the very last minute. Working
this way means you spend less time in the kitchen and are more
relaxed when folks ring the doorbell.
Like I said, with Stephen around, life in the kitchen is happy. But
what happens after the summer guests leave and you find yourself
schlepping home from work at 5:30pm without a vacationing chef
in the kitchen?
The first step is to redefine “cooking”. Instead of constructing
individual meals, it’s easier to make pots of things like beans, rice,
pasta. With those basics on hand, weeknight meal prep is just a
matter of assembling burritos or mixing a few ingredients into rice,
pasta or a baked potato. Salad-type meals are quick and healthy, and
can be made more interesting by adding some prepared ingredients,
such as hummus, pitted olives and feta or
tabouli. Rouses rotisserie chickens can
work magic in all sorts of meals (see
Quick
Fix
, page 14). Some other tips to save time
during the week:
Double up:
If you make a pot of red beans
or beef stew, double the recipe and freeze
the leftovers for another week.
Cut it up
: Even with a sharp knife, chopping
vegetables is time-consuming. On Saturday
K itchen Hacks
by
Suzette Norris
the
Savings
issue
HACK IT!
Sprinkle a bit of salt on
your cutting board before
chopping herbs. It will hold
them in place and make
the job easier.