Ah, romance. Candlelight dinners and decadent desserts are all wonderful when you’re courting… When the honeymoon’s over, however, your finances may not be conducive to dining out every night. Horrified at the idea of cooking at the end of every long, hard day? Fear not –- there are all sorts of gadgets you can register for that are guaranteed to cut down on cooking without guaranteeing you’ll starve.
Electric Wok: Throwing together a stir-fry barely qualifies as cooking to begin with, but throw it together in a wok, and you’re really getting away with a lot. With heat distributed from the bottom of the pan and all the way up the sides, a wok maximizes your cooking surface so you can cook fast and light with just a few drops of oil. Chop up some vegetables, add some bits of meat if you want, and a healthy dinner is served in minutes.
Rice Cooker: Sometimes it’s not that you don’t want to cook, but that you’re culinarily challenged. If torching the bottom of your saucepans goes hand in hand with cooking batches of rice, a rice cooker could be the answer to your prayers (or your partner’s). Pre-programmed settings let you cook brown rice, white rice, sushi rice, and other soft grains to perfection without even needing to choose a cooking time, and a timer lets you pre-set your finish by up to 24-hours. How much easier can cooking be?
Slow Cooker: When you absolutely positively cannot (or hate to) cook when you get home, a slow cooker can do the cooking for you while you’re gone. Melt-in-your-mouth roasts and perfectly simmered stews cook over several hours, and then stay piping hot when their cooking time is up. Just drop your ingredients into the cooker and set the timer in the morning, then walk through the door the very same night to fantastic home cooking.
Convection Toaster Oven: Heating up food in the microwave is just that –- heating. If you’ve ever tried to “cook” in a microwave, then you know the sad results. A convection toaster oven crosses speediness with actual cooking, so you can bake, broil, roast, and defrost 30% faster than a regular oven without the soggy, half-cooked consequences of microwaving. You can also make a mean slice of toast.