When it comes up in conversation that I make everything from scratch, including butter, bread, pasta, etc, I often hear, “Oh, well, if I had time for that I would, but I’m so busy.” I must admit, it’s not that I have more hours in the day than everyone else, I have two almost full-time jobs (that’s 2 full-time jobs not 2 jobs that equal 1 full-time job) and write for 4 blogs. I grow some food, can & freeze food in the summer, we sugar our maple trees and keep bees. We don’t have kids running around which saves us time, but I still have to make the best use of my time in order to get things done. Mr Chiots helps out a great deal as well, although since we own a business he spends between 60-80 hours a week working as well. We both work from home, which saves us time commuting and allows us to monitor certain projects during the work day.
I must admit, I love to cook, always have. I enjoy spending time in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, kneading bread, churning butter. Being in the kitchen is usually relaxing for me and it’s a great creative outlet. It’s kind of like gardening, you can let your mind wander while you’re hands do the work. That being said, I don’t have time to spend hours in the kitchen each night, I have to get my blog posts written! Over the years I’ve developed ways to make the most of my time in the kitchen, today I’ll share what works for me. After spending some time cooking you’ll start to develop your own techniques that work well for you.
Cooking from scratch doesn’t mean being a “foodie” and having sun-dried tomatoes, capers, truffles, white wine sauce and pancetta in the pantry. It’s no wonder people buy canned or pre-made items, if they feel “cooking from scratch” equals gourmet meals with all kinds of dishes. There are times when I make gourmet meals with exotic ingredients and many components. Most of the time, in day-to-day life, we focus on eating good quality simple meals consisting of a few ingredients, often all in one dish.
The best way I’ve found to save time in the kitchen is to “Keep it Simple”. Forget what you’ve learned about meal components and what makes a “healthy” meal. Cooking from scratch can be overwhelming if you feel you need to have a meat, a few veggies and a fruit for each meal. When you make meals from scratch you can focus on making nutrient dense foods so you don’t have to be cooking/eating as many different dishes. For example, when I make tomato soup I use my home canned soup (made with tomatoes, celery, onions, parsley) and I add equal parts chicken stock and some butter to the soup (bones stocks add loads of vitamins, minerals, trace elements & nutrients and butter, especially pastured milk butter, adds lots of healthful fats to your meals). I also add spices & herbs, often Italian spices, fresh basil, dried oregano, parsley (herbs also add vitamins, minerals and trace elements). Often I’ll top the soup with some grated raw milk cheese and a side of crusty sourdough bread topped with lots of butter. Because I’m getting so many vitamins & minerals from what’s in the soup (spices, herbs, bone broth, butter, vegetables), I don’t need to add anything to this meal, I’m getting tons of nutrition from one hearty bowlful.
Learning to cook good simple food is a beautiful thing. Realizing that you don’t have to have a meat, two vegetables, a fruit and bread to have a “complete” meal is liberating. It opens the door to creative casseroles, stews loaded with all kinds of goodness or meatless meals that are surprisingly filling and delicious. Learning to put your vegetables/fruits into the main dish saves tons of time. Instead of having chicken with side of rice, peas and carrots, how about making a pot of chicken and rice, with everything in one dish. You save time by cooking everything together, you can add broth and extra spices that add extra nutrients to your food. Not only do you save time by not cooking 4-5 different things and having 4 pots on the stove, you also save money and so much time washing pots! Double or triple that recipe and you’ll save even more time.
“Doubling the Recipe” is another technique I often employ to save time. It doesn’t take much longer to double a batch of soup, to make an extra pan of lasagna, or to double a batch of bread. You can freeze the extras in meal sized portions for your family and have quick meals ready to go on busy days. Spend a lazy Sunday afternoon making 2-3 pots of different kinds of soup and you’ll have a couple weeks worth of lunches or dinners out of the way. Not only will you save time by not having to cook every night, you’ll have quick meals in the freezer ready to go. I often quadruple my bread recipes (generally making 2 double batches) so I have a nice stockpile of bread in the freezer for the summer months when I don’t feel like baking.
Learning to “Creatively Turn Leftovers Into New Dishes” is another great way to save time in the kitchen. If you don’t mind leftovers you could just make up big batches of things and eat on them all week, which we often do for lunches. Dinners often call for something different though, so I try to find ways to be creative with our leftovers. For example, if I decided this week I want roasted chicken and potatoes on Sunday evening, I’ll roast an extra chicken and extra potatoes that evening. I can make a big batch caramelized onions to use with the leftover chicken all week while it’s roasting. I now have a whole chicken, extra potatoes and a big container of caramelized onions to use for future meals during the week. Monday we can have chicken quesadillas, filled with roasted chicken, onions, greens, salsa. Tuesday we can have chicken pizza, pizza topped with chicken, sun dried tomatoes, olives, peppers and onions. Wednesday we can have BBQ chicken sandwiches, topped with onions and cheese with a side of baked potato fries (made from those roasted potatoes). Thursday evening we can have we can enjoy omelets with chopped with potatoes, onions, and cheese. Friday a hearty chicken vegetable soup made from the bones and extra leftover chicken (you can make this any night of the week after you pick the chicken off the bones and freeze it).
Make sure you “Have Fun with Your Food”. Let your kids pick out a new fruit or veggie at the grocery store. Have one night a week called “smorgasboard” make it a meal of all the leftovers in the fridge that need eaten up. We have at times had meals like this made up of: baked beans, fried plantains, pizza, salad, green beans, etc. Make “leftover” pizza, topping your pizza with whatever leftovers you find in the fridge (we’ve had some surprisingly good pizzas topped with odd items). Make it a game and your family with love it.
“Learn to Make Some Quick or On The Go Meals”. When we’re out late and are hungry having a quick meal you can make within 15 minutes of getting home will save you from eating out (plus carrying a few snack whenever you leave home helps as well). Eggs make the perfect quick meal, they’re healthy and they cook up in a flash. Fried or scrambled eggs with some homemade ketchup & toast topped with preserves. How about an English muffin egg sandwiches when you need a portable meal to take with you as you run out the door. And don’t forget about the humble peanut butter & jelly, very delicious, nutritious and portable! We often have tomato soup as a quick meal, or something from the freezer.
Do you have any great time-saving tips to share? How about some creative ways to use up leftovers?
I can also be found over at Chiot’s Run where I blog about organic gardening, local eating, and other weird stuff we do like sugaring maples and keeping bees.
I am glad that I read your post today. I find that I make big meals on the weekends so that one, I can send those leftovers with the hubby because he is gone all week and does not like to eat out. Which leaves some for us also, so that I don’t have to make a big meal during the week after I have worked all day and want to get other things done. But you have given me some more great ideas.
I often pile leftover veggies, soups, etc. into one big container in my freezer. (Just be sure the meat base is the same, chicken and elk broth together aren’t very tasty.) Once the container is full I take it out, add more broth, and we call it soup. Most of the time, it’s pretty darn tasty.
Making big batches is my biggest thing – if I can freeze something for later use, I do. Keeps us from eating junk on nights when we’re out late.
My crock pot is a life saver – I use it to make broth, which would otherwise take hours of watching it simmer on the stove, I use it for cooking dried beans, and I use it for all kinds of meals during the week.
There’s something to be said too for just figuring out what will work. The first time you do something, it’s bound to take a little longer. But once you really get it down, you figure out “your system”, and it becomes much easier.
Great post! Definitely chock full of some great information.
A lot of times I put all of our leftovers out on the kitchen cabinets buffet style. I invite our parents over and have them help us eat them up! It’s a great way to host a lunch or dinner without lots of work, and our parents love being able to pick and choose what they enjoy.
Wonderful post. A roasted chicken is fabulous, I can make easily 3-4 meals from it. Another thing I’ve started doing is if I buy some veggies for a recipe and I don’t use them all, I immediately dice them up and freeze them, they are then ready for soups, casseroles, whatever.
It’s one of my faves for reworking into leftovers, chicken is so versatile!
I think you’ve done a fantastic job of summing up my approach to eating well and cooking from scratch. I’m single, so for me the two most important are “doubling the recipe” and “reinventing leftovers,” since it is rarely cost- or time-effective to cook one-off meals for one person.
If there is one thing I would add, it is “multitasking.” For instance, making a stock from a leftover roast can be done while watching a little tv in the evening, since it can be left to simmer by itself for a while. And I often make the Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread (you can find it at the NYT), which takes a few minutes to start the night before I want it, and then a few minutes right when I start dinner then next day.
Thanks so much for a great post! There are lots of helpful hints here for a kitchen newbie, and reminders for those of us who’ve been at it for awhile. :)
Very true, I’m often making bread, making jam, cooking soup and making yogurt at the same time. It’s especially easy to multitask with bread making since it only takes a few minutes of actual work and several hours or days of fermentation.
We do a “big” cooking day once a month. We plan out main dishes we all like, gather the ingredients (usually the day before we check our stock and gather what we will need), and spend a whole day cooking, prepping, packaging in meal size freezer containers, labeling, and freezing. We save time by combining some of the ingredient prep. For example if we have several dishes that call fro browned hamburger we combine the hamburger from all of those, brown it all at once and then seperate it into the various dishes. Same with chopped onions, etc. That saves a ton of time. This process usually gives us 3 or 4 meals a week that we pull from the freezer in the morning, thaw during the day, and spend 20 minutes warming/final cooking while we set the table, slice the bread, make the salad, etc. It is well worth the time once a month. Lets us have a made from scratch, sit down together, family meal even on days we are totally busy.
Good point about homemade food not having to be gourmet – I think that’s why people think it’s so expensive. Too much Food Network! I do meal planning on the weekends, and try to make roasts or soups or things that would make good leftovers for lunch. Then I look for quick or crock pot recipes to make during the week.
I’ve read about investment cooking / once a month cooking / feeding the freezer but just haven’t done anything with it. Maybe because if I have to thaw something and reheat it I might as well throw together a stir fry?
Great post!
When I roast a chicken, sometimes I will:
-freeze little bits to add to enchiladas, soups, stews, etc
-make my stock overnight, on the lowest setting possible with plenty of water (the French say that you should see barely a rumble in your stock) and then, in the morning pick through all the little bits and bones. I give some chicken to the cats and give the vegetables and the rest of the meat to the dogs as supplemental feed. They love it.
Lasagnes are great: generally I make two batches and freeze one in a pyrex glass dish and it is all ready to go when I am ready to cook.
I’ve found that when I make muffins or rolls, I can freeze them individually in syran wrap, then when I want to eat them I just pop them in the microwave for about 30 seconds with the syran wrap on. Or, you can just leave them out at room temp for a little while, especially in the summer.
I make granola bars and freeze them individually in the parchment paper I cooked them on.
I also make granola instead of boxed cereal. Frequently I will put a serving size in a pint size mason jar and put them in the refrigerator or the freezer for later use. That way my cereal is all ready in a dish to go for me.
I find that making noodles and cheese is simpler than any boxed version. I think the trick is to get the salt in the boiling water right. There is a tutorial on my blog at: http://amysoddities.blogspot.com/2010/01/some-noodles-please-and-what-is-oxalic.html
Awesome post! This is what I strive for in the kitchen.
I never cook just one meal. I cook for 8, with 4 boys. There is rarely enough roast chicken left to make all those yummy dishes! If I am making a dinner, I am always doubling or making another meal. Normally, I will have a crockpot loaded and a batch of soup on the stove or loading the rice cooker with oatmeal for the next breakfast. The Dishes Boy also really likes that the dishes are done in one batch this way!
Your food looks so good!
I do the same things as you do. I find that doing my own canning and freezing ahead of time helps.
These are all the techniques I employ as well – cook large (roast 2 chickens at a time), freeze in smaller containers, I use build upon meals from the roast meat earlier in the week (chicken & pasta, chicken pot pie, chicken burritos, chicken soup, or if it’s roast beef it’s stroganoff and noodles, burritos, shephard’s pie, pho soup. I cook large pots of beans and grains and freeze them in ziplocks so that I can break out what I want for quick burritos or bean dips or soups or pilafs or risottos. We also do make up large batches of pizza dough and freeze so that we can have quick pizzas once or twice a week. I can’t wait for salad season again though! A quick run-through the garden and homemade bread from the freezer and we are set for dinner with a cheese platter.
Great post!
As a vegetarian it’s harder for me to re-use proteins like a roast chicken can be used. However, I do often make extra rice or quinoa to use another day. When prepping veggies I will often peel/chop/slice extras and have pre-diced onion in the fridge for later. Having a bowl of already-caramelized onions can also be a huge time-saver the next day. I also make several pizza crusts at once and freeze the extra dough.
Yes, we eat a lot of vegetarian food and I cook extra beans whenever I make them, then they’re ready to be thrown into soups for extra nutrition and protein and for quesadillas or omelets.
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[…] love to cook and I find that I do pretty well on maximizing my time in the kitchen; but I always enjoy reading how others do it […]
Exactly! Endless delicious meals from what’s on hand and available– you don’t need to “know how to cook” to be a good cook!
Using leftovers is key. Almost anything, including meatless side dishes can be put into a rolled tortilla and used for lunches. Served with a piece of fruit, it is a great timesaver meal.
I also make shepherd’s pie out of all sorts of combinations of proteins and veggies. Basically, put it in a pie crust with mashed potatoes on top and they will eat it!
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