COZY RECIPES - HOW TO ENJOY COOKING AFTER WORK

When working all day long, there is neither much time nor much motivation to cook dinner when coming home. However, self-made food is usually nicer, healthier and if done right tastier. So what can we do to avoid expensive delivery, junk food or unpleasant cooking?

Forget complexity, and stick to Improvising or EFT recipes!

Improvising

Most of the time, after a day at work and coming back after 7pm, we don't want to cook. Not so much because we are exhausted and can't leave the couch, but because it's... complicated. Or at least it requires to think and it doesn't sound fun. So what we do, is make it fun!

Improvising is the way we found to keep enjoying cooking at those moments. Forget the complex recipes in your books. They surely are delicious, but that's more to try during a free day or a week-end. We improvise, meaning we start cooking with a few ingredients we find in our cupboards and build a meal on the way (adding a bit of this, and then deciding to go for a bit of that, and finally completing with something of those because why not). We usually use vegetables, core (like rice, couscous, pasta...) and complements (herbs, cheese...).

Overall, what we are looking for here is Easy, Fast, and Tasty (EFT).

What does it mean to improvise EFT meals?

• Use simple ingredients that you always find in your cupboards and fridge (rice, pasta, vegetables, spices, herbs, eggs, cream, milk, cheese...) and don't bother with what you don't have (like those fancy coconut milk... who has that anyway?)

• Mix stuff that you feel go well together in a frying pan (zucchini, tomatoes, olive oil, spinach, cooked pasta, tomato sauce, provencal herbs and here you go)

• Whatever you improvise, it shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes cutting and preparing, and 30 minutes cooking (only if you go for potatoes or oven cooking)

• Don't hesitate to put herbs in your dish, because that's where tasty easily come from (provencal herbs with vegetables, aneth with fish, and so on)

• Don't be afraid to go vegetarian in your improvising (meat & fish are not mandatory to fill your belly with tastiness)

• Don't overdo: 5 ingredients are way enough (pasta, bacon, provencal hebs, cream, cheese, here you go)

EFT Recipes

To top on the improvising part, we have some Best Of EFT Recipes that we use to bring more variety in our cooking.

In the next weeks, we will share with you our very own Easy, Fast and Tasty recipes that we use whenever we want to cook dinner without thinking or putting much effort.

These recipes will all share the same characteristics:

• Take less than 15 minutes preparation

• Take less than 5 basic ingredients

• Take few dishes to prepare (less cleaning, yaaaaay!)

• ARE TASTY of course

If you want to learn it all, follow us to the next articles "Cozy Recipes"...