My tips, tricks, and strategies for cooking faster and better. with
I m excited you want to try cooking like a Personal Chef for your family this week! I know you re a great cook (or you wouldn t be reading this!) so this process will be pretty easy for you. You just need a little direction and some strategies to show you how you can get a mini service done in no time. Then you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor during the week! I call this a mini service because you ll be working with three entrees instead of the usual five that I do for a weekly client. If you breeze right through this, do five entrees next week and you ll be set with an entire weeknight s worth of dinners! Let s get cookin! Chef Shelley
1. Choose three entrees you want to have for dinner this week. Now is not the time to spend hours scouring Pinterest or your new French Laundry cookbook. For your first time, you should choose recipes you know well, so you can focus on multitasking and moving quickly. 2. In order to cook as quickly as possible, choose recipes that will use different appliances like one for the stove, one for the oven and one for the slow cooker. This way you won t be waiting on the dish in the oven to finish before you can put your next one in. As an example, I m going to use the following recipes: Spice Rubbed Pork Chops with Sweet Corn Relish stovetop Roast Chicken with Lemon Parmesan Sauce oven Better Than Takeout ~ Chipotle s Barbacoa Beef slow cooker ( I ve included these recipes for you at the end of the guide. ) From what I ve chosen I know I will start the oven heating and get the chicken ready to go in, then load the slow cooker, and then cook the pork chops which will make the most of my time. I m estimating it will take about an hour for me to be finished with active cooking. The beef will be in the slow cooker all day.
As a Personal Chef, time is, as they say, money. The more efficient you are, the more quickly you are finished, the more you are making per hour. Who wants to spend a bunch of time in the grocery store anyway? The best way to write a shopping list is in order of the departments as you go through the store. WARNING: Make sure you add EVERYTHING to your list. There s nothing worse than being halfway through cooking and realizing you forgot a key ingredient. Like chicken. (yes, I ve really) This would be my list for the three example recipes: This is what I already have in my pantry: Oil, butter, salt, pepper, cumin, oregano, cloves, chile powder, bay leaves, broth, vinegar, flour, paprika, garlic powder, coriander, sugar. I hit the grocery store as soon as I drop the kids off at school. If you ve never shopped for groceries first thing in the morning, you re in for a real treat. Not only is the store nearly empty of people, but personally, I m still in coffee mode so I m much less likely to impulse buy or dawdle. If you re not a morning person, late at night is also a good time to go. The worst times are evenings during the week and afternoons on the weekend. Everyone is wandering around trying to pick up something for dinner or have just come down from the mountain and are doing six months worth of shopping. Either way it s crowded, slow, and the staff is harried
You ve chosen your recipes, gotten your groceries and now it s time for the good part; the cooking! If you ve just gotten your groceries, you can unpack them onto a countertop since you ll be using them soon. If you shopped earlier and put everything away, get out most of what you need from the fridge and pantry. The less trips to the pantry and digging through the fridge, the faster your cooking will go. 1. First things first; I get that oven preheating! Then I get the chicken prepped for the oven. 2. I get out the slow cooker, then prep the beef and put all ingredients into cooker and set it. This will be tonight s dinner. After cooking all day, sometimes even I don t want to make dinner! By now the oven is hot and the chicken goes in 4. The pork is the recipe that has the most prep (although it s not much). Here s how I would prepare it: Get the oil heating in the pan. Prep the pork to go in the pan while oil is heating. Make relish while pork cooks. Remove pork and set aside to cool. Cook relish and set aside to cool. While the pork is cooling and the chicken is finishing I make the Lemon Parmesan sauce, package and put in fridge. Put cooled pork into Glad Ware, top with cooled relish and put into fridge. While the chicken finishes cooking and cools, I clean the kitchen then put the cooled chicken into a large container and put in fridge. Notice what I didn t do? I did not prep and measure out all the ingredients before I started cooking. That s great for restaurants, stir fries, and baking, but it s usually faster to use down time while cooking than to prep it all ahead.
You re now set with at least three nights worth of delicious dinners with no muss and no fuss during the week! I know this was a lot of work, and you ve really accomplished a lot. The rewards of doing the work upfront are plenty, especially if you have a busy week. And don t we always? And if this was a layup for you, I challenge you to do four, or even FIVE at a time! This is what the average Personal Chef does every day and you can too. Cheers! Chef Shelley
weeknight fast under 20 minutes stove top one pan dinner If using fresh corn, taste it. You may want to increase cooking time to 5-7 minutes or until you re happy with the texture. Serves: 4 Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 15 DIRECTIONS Heat oil or butter in a 12 inch non-stick pan. Combine flour through pepper and coat both sides of pork chops. Add pork to pan and cook until golden brown about three minutes each side. INGREDIENTS 1 tablespoon oil or butter 4 boneless thin/wafer cut pork loin chops 2 tablespoons flour 2 teaspoons paprika 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon ground coriander ¼ teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon ground pepper 2 cups frozen corn, defrosted ½ cup diced bell pepper, any color ¼ cup diced red onion ½ tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar ½ teaspoon salt chef s tip While pork cooks, combine corn through salt. Remove pork to plate and cover to keep warm. Add corn mixture to pan and sauté until sugar is dissolved and corn is hot, about 2-3 minutes. Taste and adjust sugar or vinegar if desired. Top pork with corn relish. Beware of enhanced pork. Anything that has labels screaming MOIST AND TENDER or GUARANTEED TENDER has been enhanced with a sodium and chemical solution which has weird ingredients and the meat ends up with an odd spongy texture. Look for pork labeled natural or with an ingredient list that only includes wait for it pork. Pork loin isn t flavorful enough to stand up to red wine, unless it has a heavily flavored sauce. For this dish, stick with a white that has good acidity like torrontes or a dry rose. wine note To keep this dish sweet and southern, you can sauté apple slices in butter with a little sugar. Or keep it healthier and sauté some greens like spinach or Swiss chard.
weeknight fast double duty oven one pan dinner For a seriously quick dinner, pickup a rotisserie chicken and pour this sauce over to instantly elevate the chicken to a delicious dinner. Serves: 6 Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 60 minutes DIRECTIONS Put an oven safe 12 inch skillet in the oven and preheat to 450. INGREDIENTS 1 whole chicken, no giblets 1 tablespoon oil or melted butter 1 tablespoon salt 1 ½ teaspoon pepper Lemon Parmesan Sauce 2 cloves garlic, minced ½ cup finely chopped parsley 1/3 cup olive oil 1 lemon, zested and juiced ½ cup parmesan ¼ teaspoon Aleppo pepper 6 scallions, very finely chopped Pat chicken dry with paper towels, rub down with oil and then salt and pepper it thoroughly. Tie drumsticks together and clip wing tips if desired. Carefully set chicken in hot skillet in the oven with the breast side up. Roast until breast temperature reaches 130 degrees, about 40 minutes. Turn off the oven with the chicken still in it until breast temperature reaches 160 degrees, about 20 minutes. In a small bowl, mix the sauce ingredients. Pour half of the sauce over chicken. Serve remaining sauce on the side, or store in the fridge for another use. chef s tip If you have sauce leftover, put a dab on eggs, mix with cream cheese for a dip, add white wine vinegar for a salad dressing, or top cooked veggies for a fantastic side dish. wine note This flavorful sauce stands up nicely to a full flavored pouilly fuisse or something lighter with citrus notes like and albarino or Reisling. For a one pan side dish, quarter a pound or two of baby red potatoes and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Add to the hot pan with the chicken.
weeknight fast pressure cooker slow cooker freezer friendly Serve over rice for a burrito bowl or with tortillas as tacos. Chipotle chiles add a huge amount of flavor to this dish. They come in a four ounce can packed in sauce. Freeze remaining chiles and sauce to use at another time. You can use a pressure cooker, slow cooker (6 hours on high or 9 hours on low) or oven (325 degrees for 4 hours and use 3 cups broth). Serves: 4 + Thursday s dinner Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 45 minutes INGREDIENTS 5 pounds chuck eye roast, cut into four pieces 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon pepper 2 teaspoons cumin 2 teaspoons Mexican oregano ¼ teaspoon ground cloves 1 teaspoon chile powder, preferably ancho chile 1 small to medium onion, diced 6 cloves garlic, minced 2 bay leaves 2 chipotle chiles, minced and 2 tablespoons sauce ½ cup broth or beer ¼ cup apple cider vinegar 2 teaspoons fish sauce (optional) DIRECTIONS Put chuck in pressure cooker. Mix salt through chile powder and rub all over beef. Add remaining ingredients. Lock pressure cooker and set to manual cook for 45 minutes. Quick release pressure and carefully remove beef to large mixing bowl. If you have more than two cups of sauce, flip pressure cooker to sauté or turn heat up to high and let sauce reduce while you shred the beef with two forks. Divide beef in half. Sauce half of the beef and serve over rice. Let other half cool, put in a lidded container or ziplock and refrigerate for Thursday s dinner. 1 2 cups rice Optional for serving ~ add to grocery list: lime wedges, cilantro, sour cream, shredded cheese or a Mexican queso fresco, avocado, tomato, salsa, pico wine note A fruity red like zinfandel or if you like sweet wine a red moscato. An ice cold cerveza like Corona or Tecate with lime chef s tip The fish sauce will add extra depth of flavor, not fishiness. If you don t have it, you can also brown the beef first to get extra flavor. Saute or steam some vegetables, or make a green salad with tomatoes, shredded cheese and a creamy dressing like ranch.