Pre-cut vegetables or cut yourself?

If you know my recipes then you know that I am someone of quick and easy.
Spending hours in the kitchen is really not my thing, I prefer to cook with as few pans and actions as possible.
That is also one of the reasons that I often opted for pre-cut vegetables. The vegetable mix bags are usually well varied and it saves me a lot of cutting.

Now I have to say that that was not the only reason. I also often have a fight with good kitchen tools. From home I am quite a bit economical and spend a lot of money on knives, for example. The knives in my kitchen drawer have been around for years and I don't notice that they are becoming more and more blunt.

It is even so that (so far) I do not cut chicken fillet with a knife but with a (specially purchased) scissors into pieces. Because with a knife I always thought it was such a hassle.

Hubby always finds this type of frugality very irritating because he wants good things for the kitchen. Incidentally, not only for the kitchen, this applies to everything in its existence, but that is another story. Now his prayers were answered recently because Cookinglife asked me if I would like to review the Arcos knives.

Arcos knife reviewArcos knife review
A whole new world opens up for me! What a difference between my 20-year-old meat cleaver and the new one from Arcos! I now glide through the meat and don't have to put any pressure on it at all. Perhaps quite normal for other people but I am enjoying my kitchen! Also the tomatoes (which I used to cut with a serrated knife for the stiff skin) I can now simply cut into cubes.

On the photo you can see the Arcos  knife  that I used to cut all vegetables.

Yesterday a pasta dish made with a lot of vegetables. I now also had to take good care of my carving because with such a sharp knife an accident is also in a small corner. Mindful cutting say🙂

Because the cutting work is no longer in my way, I want to highlight the benefits of cutting your vegetables yourself instead of pre-cut vegetables.

First the price! 

Take a look at a bag of pre-cut vegetables and weigh the same items separately. You will see that you get much more vegetables for your hard-earned money if you cut it yourself.

Secondly the freshness! 

Fruit and vegetables are nowadays packaged so well that with the new techniques you can no longer see how fresh it is. The vegetable can sometimes be 6 days old without you noticing it. Taking into account that the nutrients are lost as soon as you cut and reduce per hour, this is certainly something you can take into consideration.

Thirdly your own choice! 

Okay, the bags are well varied, but my experience is that they often contain stuffing, for example a lot of cabbage which is nice and cheap and not a lot of bell pepper. If you choose yourself, then of course take the vegetables that you like best, that look nice and fresh and of which you can, if you have something left, possibly keep something uncut.

Three reasons for me to use fewer pre-cut vegetables and to cut everything nice and fresh.

And now the recipe for enthusiasts:

Pasta with vegetables and tuna

Ingredients:

3 cloves of garlic
1 onionpre-cut vegetables
1 (point) bell pepper
1 zucchini
5 tomatoes
handful of fresh basil
2 cans of tuna
250 grams of spelled pasta
2 tablespoons capers
200 ml (vegetable) cream
grated (goat) cheese
freshly ground pepper
olive oil


Squeeze the garlic and cut the vegetables into small pieces.
Cook the pasta according to the instructions, drain and sprinkle with some olive oil.
Stir fry all vegetables in the order of the ingredients list.
Add the tuna, capers and cream and heat well together.
Mix the vegetables with the pasta and season with a lot of pepper and some olive oil.
Serve the pasta with some grated goat cheese.