If you have only recently started to cook for yourself in an attempt to reduce the amount of money that you spend on things like takeout and fast food, you might be facing a bit of difficulty in terms of keeping cooking times as low as they need to be. This might be a byproduct of your lack of experience with respect to optimal cooking methods, and chances are that your choice of knife is the single biggest source of your misery at this current point in time.
You see, a dull knife is going to make it extremely difficult to chop up vegetables. Not only would your chopping take up a lot more time than you would prefer, you’d need to exert a lot more effort into each slice as well which would tire you out before the dish is ready. As a result of the fact that this is the case, you should really try your level best to sharpen your damascus kitchen knife before you use it. Sharpening your knife at least once a month is mandatory, especially if you are chopping up some onions since blunt knives end up releasing more of the tear causing odors into the air around you.
The good news here is that sharpening a knife has become rather easy since you can buy all kinds of sharpening tools online without a shadow of a doubt. These tools come with two rounded structures that resemble a series of wheels. Running your blade through these opposing wheel like metal bits will remove the grit from the edge and hone it so that it reaches peak sharpness and becomes better able to meet your needs.