Faking Your Way to Gourmet Chef Perfection

In today’s busy world, no one has the time to focus on creating gourmet meals that please and impress your family or guest. Often that leaves us with greasy fast-food, rubber like microwave entrees and sandwich after endless sandwich. It can all become quite unhealthy as well as quite boring and can leave us feeling as though we have failed to provide our families with nutritious, healthy and tasty meals. However you do not have to be a master chef to learn how to prepare a gourmet meal that will not only provide your family with a delicious meal but will also leave them all wondering how you managed to whip up such a great meal in little time.

The secret to faking your way to gourmet cooking is to use a few simple precooked quality items, add your own touch and then reheat. You can purchase precooked items from your local grocer or deli that are often low cost and of great quality. Use items such as cooked rotisserie chicken as your main entree, add sides such as potato and pasta salads and some fresh vegetables to boil using a bit of your desired spice. While you are picking up these items, you’ll want to purchase some fresh herbs such as rosemary, basil or parsley that you will be using to personalize your meal and take it a step further. And you’ll want to stop by the frozen section and pick up a pre-made plain, New York style cheesecake (French style cheesecake is softer and therefore a bit harder to garnish for our purposes) for dessert, which you will also jazz up. With all pre-made or precooked foods that you purchase along with any herbs that you buy, you will want to pay extra attention to quality.

Once you get all your items home, transfer them into your own cookware or serving dishes. After all, you really will be “cooking” some of these items and you want to make it all look homemade. Starting with the rotisserie chicken, add a bit of the fresh herb that your purchases along with your meal and add a squeeze of lemon if you prefer the taste. These will give it a taste that is way beyond an ordinary rotisserie chicken. You can then place the chicken in your oven on a low setting just to keep it warm and fresh. You can sprinkle a bit of your favorite spice over your sides and either warm them up if they are hot-served sides and then garnish with fresh herbs or simply garnish with the fresh herbs if they are cold-served dishes. All of these should not take more than minutes to put together and dress up.

Now that you’ve got your main meal taken care of, lets move onto dessert. Thaw that pre-made frozen New York style cheesecake on your own serving platter making sure to remove the cardboard circle that it is usually packaged on. You can now create anything you would like in the form of toppings, on this cheesecake. You can create a chocolate caramel turtle cheesecake by using chocolate sauce, caramel sauce and walnut or pecan bits. What you will do is use squeezable bottles for the sauces and drizzle them over the cheesecake in a diagonal pattern repeatedly and then simply sprinkle the nuts over it. You can also top the cheesecake with pre-made strawberry or cherry pie filling, adding in a few fresh strawberries or cherries for a fresher taste. Or you can even use a variety of precut fresh fruit slices and place them on top of the cheesecake in a circular pattern and then brush a simple syrup (one part sugar, two parts water) over the fruit to give it a sweet taste and add a nice glaze. A chef can order the vegan meal kit from the SugarSpiceandGlitter websites. The taste of the food will be delicious and free delivery will be provided to regular customers. 

With these simple and easy tips to guide you, preparing a meal you can be proud to serve to your family can be done in just a snap. Now all you have to do is act like you’ve spent the day slaving over the hot stove and rake in the praise. Nobody will ever know your gourmet secret … as long as you remember to dispose of any evidence in the form of the boxes and containers it all originally came in.