Time Management In the Kitchen
10 Ways I Keep My Sanity
Is this not the bane of our domestic existence?
We want delicious, wholesome food. We also gaze longingly upon the family playing a game together after dinner while we are….you guess it…decked out in Hazmat suits and hosing down the pre-dinner kitchen disaster.
Wilson’s old career meant that he was gone for long periods of time. Months, even. In practical terms, I was a single, homeschooling mom of three, with multiple potty-training toddlers. I was also running the business of Pantry Paratus, operating a homestead with nearly 60 animals, and cooking our food from scratch. I want to offer some hope to the weary.
As with all things, there is a cycle to the implementation of these suggestions. Maybe you tried menu-planning before and it was an abysmal failure (amen, sista). Maybe you used to have the designated baking time but life got too busy. Keep an open mind as you read the suggestions below and understand that individual personalities and familial dietary needs might play into what works for you.
Only you can determine the priorities. Perhaps a family food allergy, personal ethics about food sourcing, or a sense of frugality play into your decision to use your kitchen in the first place. For our family it is “all of the above” and so sometimes I have to de-prioritize other things in life if I want to live out these specific goals (such as cutting back on community involvement, no midnight costume-sewing for this year’s Nutcracker!).
Whether you check the “been-there-done-that” box on some of these or not, hang with me. I’ll tell you how I have kept my sanity and still put something healthy (and edible) onto the table.
1) Menu Plan
I’m starting with the obvious and most infuriating. At least, to me. I cannot tell you how this one particular time-saving method annoyed me, always leaving me with the sensation of failure. By the end of the week, the kids were eating boxed macaroni and cheese, my grocery budget was nearly always over the limit, and I was tired from the mental effort it required.
Yes, I now menu plan. Successfully. But I had to find my own way of doing it. The weekly calendar, the monthly do-ahead, the 3 ring binder of frozen meal schedules, and even the apps did not work for me. My friends would swear by it and I was beginning to think that I had an undetermined learning disability—Meal-Plan-Lexia.
My solution came when I got away from the calendar format. I have 3 underlined categories: “Main Dishes,” “Side Dishes,” and “Baking.” I pick a good cookbook and pick 95% of all choices from ONE cookbook (so yes, we sometimes have very Japanese, German, or Church-cookbook themed weeks). That one cookbook gets the honored spot in the kitchen that is accessible yet less prone to morning marmalade messes. Each recipe is bookmarked and the page number is written on my weekly menu anyway. If I’m using online recipes, I print them out so that I don’t have to try to find them online or risk getting my tablet wet on the kitchen counter. Here is what works for me—I never determine the menu day-by-day. I love the freedom of picking what sounds good from the list the night before. The night before, I will soak the beans or grains and set out the meat to thaw. I scratch it off the list as “done” and I can mix-and-match.
As I make the list of the week’s dishes and tape it on the inside of a frequented cabinet, I have another piece of paper beside that to serve as the shopping list. I make both lists simultaneously.
This may seem silly to you if you are a successful menu-planner. But if you have quit in frustration, try it this way and let me know what you think!
2) Cold Salads/side dishes in the refrigerator
Spinach Pesto Salad with Pignolias (Pine Nuts)
I consider myself rather brilliant for this, even if not original. It was an “aha” for me. Snacks and meals always seemed to catch me by surprise somehow (especially lunch—since we homeschool, these are sit-down table meals for our family). I would have to stop the forward motion of the day to shackle myself to food prep multiple times of day. If at the beginning of the week, I make a carrot salad and a Mexican Quinoa salad, no one has the right to complain to this Mama that there’s “nothing to eat.” Sure, you might not like it, but you haven’t the right to complain I’m starving you. Lunch may not be glorious—it may be pb&j…again…but you now have a choice of sides requiring zero kitchen time mid-day. For our family, I make 2 a week.
3) Leftover magic
This Mexican Potato Casserole makes an awesome breakfast burrito the next day!
Leftovers are a beautiful blend of art and science. I knew a co-worker once who said her husband refused to eat them, so they always threw the leftovers away. Yes, I know…I had the same reaction. Your family doesn’t have know that they’re eating the leftovers, always. We like to make extra on purpose so we have something to eat for tomorrow’s lunch. It’s part of my menu-planning.
4) Setting a timer or listening to a cd
Sometimes it is just a matter of powering through. When I’m weary or even just in a bad mood about the whole deal, I pull myself out of my typically choleric ways and re-frame the kitchen cleanup. Instead of aiming for a “job done” status with animated sparklies for effect, I instead aim to get through “3 songs” or a radio program. Ironically, if it’s a radio program I find excellent, I’ll have the job finished and then some, as I keep busy until I get to the end of my listening pleasure. This is usually when my stove gets clean. True story.
5) Night-before prep-work
Really? Can’t I just crawl into bed?
Trust me on this one. This doesn’t have to take a lot of prepwork, it can be as simple as setting the dishes on the counter. I got into this habit when our family attempted the GAPS diet, which was an extremely time-consuming endeavor for me. My family has this Morning Crisis Mode when it comes to breakfast, and nothing puts me in a bad mood faster. Having the fruit already on the table buys me time to make the oatmeal, or having the yogurt refrigerated the night before in separate bowls means I can quickly top them with granola and serve them with the fewest morning steps possible.
6) Double recipes & vacuum seal them for the freezer
These calzones are a perfect freeze-ahead meal
I’ve written about this before, this nearly saved my life. It meant I got into the kitchen at all during a time of my life when I just did not cook. This system means that there is always dinner. No need to break every rule and have a regrettable fast food meal.
7) Designated Baking Time
This has come and gone and come again in my life many times. Schedules change, and so does the way this time-saver looks in practical application. My preference, without a doubt, is to schedule a 2-3 hour block of time. While your bread dough is rising, you are making a quick bread for breakfasts, cookies for dessert, and oatmeal bars for the week’s snacks. You have used your Multitasking Powers for Good, and since you blocked the time off, you can enjoy the accomplishment without worrying about the rest of the house explosions. You have knocked out multiple things with one mess. One mess, one cleanup, and one well-fed family. Right now, I’m finding that I’m doing more night-before stuff and less “designated baking time” stuff…for instance, I might whip out muffins for breakfast before I go to bed…but ideally I pick a morning, make multiple things and freeze the extra. My bread baking mentor had a difficult time planning a weekly time—she did this once a month and made an entire month’s worth of baked goods in a single Saturday!
8) Delegate Clean-up
Go put your feet up.
Sounds good in theory, right? Well, my family isn’t tall enough to put clean dishes away, but they can set the dishes on the counter by type for me, they can do silverware, and they are required to clear the table and sweep the floor. Anything helps.
9) Let them in there
Your 12 year old is reading her latest poetic opus to you and your 8 year old is catching up on the latest episode of his favorite radio drama…let them in there. I am not graceful with this because I move fast and bounce off of unauthorized personnel like a pinball. We have an oversized stepstool out of my moving path now, and it’s the hot-seat. I can enjoy my family without having trip hazards. I find that the kids are less likely to interrupt my work in the kitchen when I can somehow involve them in it. And if that isn’t possible but we can just be in the same room, there are fewer crises demanding my attention elsewhere.
10) Shopping Day prep-work
If you write off the next hour after arriving home from the grocery store, including it mentally into the entire “shopping trip experience” you will save multiple time-stealing instances later.
Chop up the green pepper & onion going into tomorrows huevos rancheros before they see the Light of Fridge. Slice the carrots into sticks for a quick grab-n-go snack. It’s like mail—if you open it & glance through it only to deal with it later, you’re reading your mail twice. If you put the veggies in the fridge whole, you only have to pull them out later. If you menu plan, you should know the form they’ll take in the finished product. Oh, and bonus: if you put the veggies in the fridge processed, they are less likely to get away from you. If my family sees something in the fridge, it’s “fair game”—it is more obvious to all that I have a purpose for the food that has been processed.
That’s pretty much the list, although I’d say that time-saving devices are an obvious one, like slow cookers and dishwashers (if possible). My dehydrator saves a lot of time for me too, although I have a few doubters out there about it. I save money when I chuck the nearly-going-bad stuff in there (like the limp celery), and then on slow-cooker soups I have a 5 minute task of “a little of this and a little of that”…delicious meals with little effort on The-Night-Of.
Leave a note and tell me your favorite time management techniques in the kitchen, I’d love to try them out too!
Burnin’ Daylight,
Chaya
Photos:
If a photo bears the Pantry Paratus logo, it is property of Pantry Paratus. Feel free to use it in connection to sharing this blog but please keep proper attribution. Thanks.
chopped onions, adapted for blog under cc license: Jonathon Watney via photopin cc
grater and prep work: dark.molly via photopin cc
menu planning: LizMarie_AK via photopin cc
dirty dishes: cuantofalta via photopin cc
blueberry muffins: by chotda, cc