Super Easy Way to Add Flavor to Meat/Fish/Poultry

There are two condiments that almost everyone has in their kitchens, catsup and mustard. Adding them to your cooking is the simplest, easiest way to add flavor to meat, fish, poultry and other foods.

I know that they all have additives, salt and sugar, but most recipes ask you to add those evils separately. There are times when even the most "natural health" cooks, like yours truly, need to cheat.

The other day when I was in a big rush to cook a couple of meals before leaving home, I put a couple of spoons of mustard and squirts of catsup on this chicken breast vegetable dish before putting it in the oven (covered) for baking. The result was stupendous, delicious, just perfect.

Sometimes we all need shortcuts. I draw the line at powdered soup mixes, jam and straight sugar. Even salt is rarely used for cooking in my kitchen. And when I use salt in soup and kugels, it's coarse, not table salt. What are your little cooking "cheats?" Please let me know in the comments, thanks.

Extra flavor

Yesterday, eating my lunch, some fish fillet, sauteed with onion, squash and then already cooked spaghetti, with some catsup, water and tomato concentrate, served on cut up cucumbers, I felt that it was still "missing something." At the same time, my body was suffering from the after effects of the late "dinner" from the night before.

There's a health-diet eating rule, which mandates no eating after 7pm or to have at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast. At most weddings here, which are 99% of the time, especially in the winter, in the evenings--ok, night--we're lucky to have the maincourse before 10pm, and that's after a first course which is more than most people have at home as an entire meal. And Israel is getting like the states, with a pre-Chuppah (ceremony) "Kabbalat Panin," "reception," in which you can eat a full meal plus. That means that without even "pigging out," you can easily eat three full meals at a wedding.

I'm not into salty foods at all, and something at the wedding we attended was salty, too salty. So I really didn't want to add any more salt to my lunch, which meant that I couldn't jazz up the food with Tamari Sauce. I checked the balsamic vinegar and discovered that it was full of salt, too.

So... I dressed my feast with olive oil and freshly ground pepper! it was great. I guess I should have put on fresh lemon juice too. OK, next time.

ps I only had "two meals," since I arrived too late for the reception, but I was so hungry, that I had lots of bread, which I usually skip.