Resourceful Cooking
Posted on Friday, 19 May 2017
Resourceful Cooking
By Apolinario Villalobos
With the soaring prices of various food items that include
vegetables, fish, meat and spices, one must be resourceful to be able to scrimp
on these. Along with the effort, one must also use ingenuity in coming up with
recipes that make use of cheap ingredients and quick cooking to save on fuel,
such as gas, electricity, wood or charcoal. The following are some suggested
and simple recipes with cheap ingredients:
·
“Okoy” or fritter using strips of singkamas
(jicama, turnip), squash and monggo sprouts (toge), flavored with dried krill
or kalkag. This can be eaten as snacks or as viand (ulam).
·
Vegetable combo using all kinds of indigenous
vegetables – camote tops, alogbate, eggplant, saluyot, okra, tomatoes, onions and
ginger, especially, those wilting in the ref.
·
Pickled radish, eggplant, string beans, mustard
or cabbage using cheap old stock of the said vegetables, the prices of which
could be 50% less than the fresh ones. The mentioned vegetables can be pickled
separately using vinegar and salt. As a salad, they can be prepared with slices
of fresh tomatoes and onions.
·
Mashed eggplant using the old, hence, cheap
ones. Boil the eggplants into soft consistency, mash and sauté in oil, chopped tomatoes and
onions. This can be used as a bread filling or as appetizing main dish.
Other cheap ideas are:
·
Steaming vegetables by placing them on top of
about-to-be cooked steamed rice. Remove them when ready to be served. Dips or
sauce can be soy sauce mix with vinegar, chopped onions and tomatoes. This is
the cheapest way to cook steamed vegetables and is more nutritious than
boiling.
·
Flavoring vegetables or fried rice with the
sauce of canned sardines while saving the whole fish for pasta dishes or as a
separate dish sautéed in plenty of tomatoes and onions.
·
Preparing skinless tomatoes by freezing ripe
ones after which bringing them out, and as they start to thaw or soften, starting
to peel them. Skinless tomatoes can be frozen again to be used when preparing
salad or sauce for pasta dishes, or can be mashed and cooked in oil, little
vinegar and salt, to make tomato paste. The traditional way of peeling tomatoes
is by soaking them in boiling water for a few seconds, but could be messy.
·
Preparing ready-to-use tomato and onion sauce
using cheap old stock of the said vegetables. Cook the chopped vegetables in
oil after which, apportion in small container for freezing and bringing out
only the needed portion….this is a time and fuel saver.
·
Not continuously boiling monggo beans. Upon
boiling, remove from stove and allow a few minutes “rest” to give the beans
time to absorb the water, then return to the stove for another round of
boiling; remove again…and on the third time, cook over slow fire until the
beans become mashed in boiling water. This technique is best if only a single-burner
stove is being used, as other dishes can be cooked while the monggo pot is
“resting”.
The
problem with most Filipinos today is that they refuse to think of ways to live
on a tight budget, yet, they have the gall to waste food such as a spoonful or
two of rice left on the plate or throw the left-over instead of recycling them.
Also, they have the courage to blame the government for their travails due to
low wage and soaring prices of commodities but they do not exert effort to save!
They forgot the adage, “kung maikli ang kumot dapat ay mamaluktot” (one should
exert effort to be covered with a small-sized blanket by lying curled on his
side.)
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