Another Kitchen Tip for a busy woman

'Necessity is the mother of invention' - this is my favorite quote of all.
When I was pregnant with my second child, I was put on modified bed rest after the first 3 months of pregnancy. Let's not go into the painful details of my pregnancy here. I was allowed to move around in the house, was allowed to stand on my feet only for 30 minutes at a time and not too many of these 30 minute sessions were allowed per day.

Even when I had these restrictions, I still had to cook almost every day to feed the family. I started planning such that I would finish cooking in that 30 minutes. I never made rotis/flat breads my entire pregnancy. We used to eat rice, sambhar, vegetable kurma/Saagu and couple of kinds of kootu, stir fry, pulav, Upma that kind of stuff.

For those who know about Indian cooking only through these food network channels, Indian cooking is not that simple. It is very elaborate if you stick to the authentic recipes. I used to make masala (involves roasting and grinding the spices with coconut) for these above mentioned items and make more of it. For example I would double the ingredients that are to be roasted and ground to make sambhar and place half of the paste in a freezer safe container and freeze it. I would use the remaining half to make sambar that day. The next time I decide to make sambar, all I had to do was to boil dal/lentils and vegetables and add the paste and the remaining ingredients.

This is a tip for working women who might find it hard to manage their times. Double or triple the masala and grind and freeze in different containers. You have to make sure that you freeze enough just for one use. And I do not keep the ground masala for more than a month in the freezer even though they should be fine up to 3 months. I do not like to cook dal for the whole week and use it. It takes no effort and time to cook dal freshly if you have a pressure cooker.

If you wondered how I managed making breads with such physical restrictions, here is how.
I used the bread machine to make bread (even to bake) which doesn't involve my standing and kneading or monitoring the oven. I used to measure the amount of flour, sugar, salt, yeast, milk powder for each loaf and put them in ziploc bags. All I had to do was put oil, measure warm water and place them in the bread machine and dump the contents of one ziploc bag. My older one used to eat bread at her day care most of the days. See, 'Where there is a will, there is a way'. If you want healthier, home made bread but do not have time, all you have to do is stick to your favorite recipe, invest in a bread machine and do what I did.

I promise you that my next tip will be about a dish with a recipe and couple of pictures and not mind boggling tips.

Till then, take care.