Avoid Shortcuts And Be Happy

Did you all watch the video? As Indians, we all may love the concept of Jugaad. We love to take shortcuts. But we often find that these solutions or hack only last in the short term and cannot guarantee lasting happiness. This is true everywhere. When we do a job properly, we get more happiness than the satisfaction we get when we apply some hack which lasts only for a small time.

Many people ask me how I manage my home, a full time software job, a kid and an active food blog. Even yesterday one lady asked my hubby how I manage everything so well. But I always tell them that there are no shortcuts in life. We can save more time and energy, if we do every little thing properly by not taking shortcuts.

Even at the office when developers code, if they do it in a hurry without proper testing, then the product delivered to the customer comes back. There will be no customer satisfaction and again they have to spend more time and more money to fix the hurried product. As a software tester, I always tell the developers to unit test properly before sending it for QA (Quality assurance).

Similarly in my kitchen, when I cook a dish I cook it patiently. When I bake a cake, I follow the proper steps. There are no shortcuts when cooking or baking.

Once I was frying paneer, the paneer turned dark like charcoal. Later I removed the burnt paneer from the oil. To the same hot oil I added fresh paneer to again cook the dish. But as soon as I added fresh paneer to the hot oil, the oil splashed over my hand and burnt it. All this happened because I was browsing Facebook and not giving it my full attention while cooking.

Ever since then I have decided that there are no shortcuts to cooking. I was very much new to cooking that time, but now when I cook, I cook the dish with all my love patiently. I follow the proper steps. Some people simply puree the tomatoes and chopped onions directly while making a gravy dish. But I always fry the onions and tomatoes and then make a puree instead of following a shortcut.

Even while making an omelette, I always break the eggs and pour it in a bowl and then whisk it instead of breaking it directly on top of frying pan. What if the shells fall directly in the prepared dish? While cooking fish, I take extra care to marinate the fish properly. Proper marination of fish ensures that the fish will not smell bad.

And yes, before cooking I always ensure that the utensils are clean. Specially while boiling milk, I re-clean the utensil with soap and then boil the milk. Because even if the utensil is slightly dirty the milk will spoil and again I will have to discard the milk and boil again. This leads to wasting more time and money.

The dishes I cook always turn out yummy as I follow a proper method. As I said, I don’t follow any shortcuts and due to this I can manage my work in office and my home very well. When my family or friends love the food I cooked, I gain happiness. With #NoMoreShortcuts to cooking a meal, we get lots of happiness and my family is happy. At times my daughter starts dancing after eating a certain dish. When she says that Mom cooks the best dishes in the world, my heart gets filled with happiness.