Laura from Plummelo sent me a few great ideas for taking shortcuts in the kitchen to complimentary up time and sanity. how could I refuse? As the woman who declared a weekly Crock Pot night as an excuse to make dinner when I had time (during morning nap!), I love the short cuts. I hope they make you delighted too.
Let me know (in the comments) if you want a lot more details about setting up a cooking group or any of the other stealthy ninja prep tips.
We’re food people… putting together meals, exploring recipes, figuring out how to use new ingredients is our idea of fun. before kids, we didn’t think twice about spending a full weekend afternoon in the kitchen.
But now.
Between feeding, burping, diaper-changing, planning nap time, and just spending good old baby quality time, there’s little time left to whip up a respectable meal. Now, rather than succumb to the temptation of slapping some pieces of bread together and calling it a meal, we’ve developed some ideas we use that still let us show off our cooking chops:
1. choose Recipes that improve with cooking Time: once you hear crying, you know you’re going to have to step away from the kitchen. So, instead of choosing recipes that require precision timing, choose recipes that improve with a lot more time on the stove or in the oven. We like stews, hearty soups, pasta sauces, and braised meats.
2. Prep Ahead: lots of recipes call for lots of chopping, and then throwing everything into a pan. rather than doing all of that chopping at the same time, take a spare 5-10 minutes when you can (while the kids eat lunch?) to prep just a few ingredients. even if it takes a day or two to complete, you’ll now be able to actually cook the meal when you can.
3. join a cooking Group: imagine making five meals in the time it would take you to make one (a cooking group allows you to do just that). By getting together a bunch of friends and a few basic recipes, you have an entire team of prep cooks ready to create and package freezer-friendly meals. And, because you can get in bulk, your food costs go way down.
4. get Organized: forgetting to get that one crucial recipe ingredient can derail any home cook. So instead of grocery shopping on a whim, keep a running list of the items you need to pick up. By planning in development the meals you want to cook, and making sure to jot down the needed ingredients, you drastically minimize the number of shopping trips you have to make in a week.
Plummelo.com is a web site that allows users to automatically collect recipes from the top online recipe sites, publish recipes to a personal recipe box, and begin planning meals and developing shopping lists. Plummelo’s complimentary service makes it easy for busy cooks to get organized and simplify food shopping. The Plummelo team includes a rookie mommy and a slightly-seasoned daddy so they know what we go through.