Saving Time in the Kitchen

[TheCoachPotatoes]

When we go away in the Monty, I like to find ways to save time and make things a little easier when preparing meals. Sometimes, it takes a little extra preparation before we leave home. For instance, I'll make something like Spagetti and meatballs that week and take the leftovers. Or, I try making recipes that I can cook all in one pot. Oven meals are good also. Letting the oven do all the work.

Does anyone have any tips they can share?

Of course, having a husband that does the dishes is a great help also.

Nita

[NewFlyLady]

It is not truely a one pot meal. Since I am on my own working in Canada 2 weeks a month I try to simplify especially since I leave for work at 7 am and usually get home at 7 pm. One of the things I do is buy a whole roasted chicken. I have 2 chicken breasts to throw together a couple of meals. I then strip the rest of the chicken and use it to combine with parmesan couscous and asorted veges. I just fix the box of couscous which takes about 10 minutes and while that is cooking I microwave some veges and heat up the chicken. Then I just through it all together in the couscous pot. Start to finish 10 minutes and it is really good.

[Ms McGyver]

Like you, I prepare extra and freeze/store the extras for later meals. I do so due to health reasons--I get very tired in the evenings. Any meal you make can be vacuum packed and frozen for up to 2x the regular freezing time. Chicken & "souper" rice w/broccoli, Jamaican Jerk Pork w/turnips & peas, Five Spiced Pork chops layered with onions, apple rings, and sweet potato slices in coconut milk, are all crock pot favorites in my house. Others are cubed ham with broccoli in scalloped or au grautin potatoes. I make for six and freeze two meals.

Of course, the key is to have the meal ready for the crock first thing in the AM. I pull my frozen meats the morning before I want to cook them. By Evening, they are ready to be put into my crock for tomorrow's dinner. Use a liner and prepare the meal and place in the fridge. In the morning, pop the prepared meal "in a bag" in the crock and set for an 8 hour cook time--or set up a timer in the circuit so that the meal is done at dinner time.

Other tips include always having rice made, ground meat browned & seasoned, a few potatoes baked, frozen onion and bell pepper blend available, grated cheeses in the fridge and your favorite soups on hand. With these helps already on hand, casseroles are easier to create. It's just as easy to bake 8 potatoes as one, cook 4 cups of rice as 1, grill 10 chicken breasts as 2, and you've not invested any extra time in your menu planning.

Think creatively--think how your meals can be "re-made" from the basic ingredients you use today for tomorrow. Cook 3x the chicken needed, 2x the rice 2x broccoli and have: Chicken breasts & rice w/broccoli today, chicken casserole tomorrow (add cm of x soup, seasonings, and cheese), chicken & cheese enchilada bake (shred chicken mix with a can of sauce, shredded cheese, layer all between tortillas like lasagne) the day after that.

Make meat sauce for spaghetti, cook noodles, make cheese blend for lasagne or stuffed shells. Purchase hoagie rolls. Here you have a weeks worth of meals--stuffed shells, spahetti & meat balls, lasagne (don't cook the noodles), and meat ball subs.

Another idea is to cook 2 days per week for the week--like the above ideas but all in one session.

Keep a pound cake in the freezer along with cool whip. Keep pie filling, crushed pineapple, etc, and pudding mix in the pantry and you'll have dessert in 1/2 hour.

Cold meals include tuna salad: pineapple tidbits w/juice, tuna, grated carrots, chopped broccoli, chopped celery, almonds, 5 spice. Chicken Salad: Chicken, chopped apples, raisins, chopped celery, rosemary, mayo, chopped walnuts, either served in lettuce wraps or pita pockets.

[eeoski]

For our trip to Tennesse and our first stop enroute, my mom browned ground turkey and seasoned it with taco seasoning packet. She let it cool and then froze it in a zip lock bag. We had bagged salad, a fresh tomato, an avocado, grated cheddar cheese, sour cream, a small can of sliced black olives, and catalina dressing. On the morning we left the bag of ground beef went into the refrigerator and by the time we got to our first campground it was defrosted. We just did a quick warm up of the meat, diced the tomato and avocado, and threw the rest of of the ingredients together in a large bowl. Quick, easy, no "real" cooking (I don't count "nuking" stuff as cooking!)

Robin

[Ms McGyver]

Another kitchen timesaver:

Make up blends of your favorite spices, or the ones you use the most. For example, a BBQ rub blend if you like your meats with a BBQ flavoring. An Italian blend specifically made the way YOU like it. A Mexican blend just as hot as you can tolerate, or a Cajun blend with real filet powder and as much fire as you like. FYI-taco seasoning packets are just a Mexican blend with a little cornstarch thrown in. This is how those spice companies came up with the "apple pie spice" or "pumpkin pie spice", Old Bay Seasoning, or even Mrs Dash you purchase at the store.

If you check the contents of most blends the first ingredient is usually salt. If you have salt intake issues you can customize YOUR blends to your needs. Garlic powder and celery powder are great substitutes for a salty taste in dried blends, Liquid Smoke and vinegar work well in liquid blends.

[teames27]

I love all the ideas. Thanks for all the sharing, We do a lot of DH cooking the meat on the grill, I open a bag of salad and usually nuke a potato for him. It doesn't take much planning and we really like the grilled foods. You are all inspiring me to get more adventurous in the kitchen!

[gojodo]

We have been on a no added sodium diet for years due to health condition. We love chinese food and soy sauce is a no no ! But I found a product called "All Natural Bragg Liquid Aminos". It is a sodium based liquid made from soy beans just as soy sauce but for much less sodium. ( 340mg NA as compared to nearly 1000mg NA per tsp.) We cut that in half with water and it has not affected the flavor of our sauces and still use it sparely.

Dorothy

[toolmanroy]

Our daughter introduced us to Bragg's a few years ago. She is very creative and health conscious when feeding her family of 7!

We love cooking over charcoal. We hate to waste the nice fire for 2 hamburgers or a couple of chops, so we will often cook 2-3 meats at once for easy meal preparation for a couple of days ahead. It is funny to watch some of the campers looking at the amount of food we have on our grill for 2 people.

[Ms McGyver]

Here's one more kitchen time saver that works great whether you cook at home or on the road. Purchase bulk packs of meats and pre package according to your usage--If you feed just DH and yourself, vacuum package 2 portions at a time. You can always "pull" more than one package from the freezer when needed.

Pre season each package--lemon pepper, Italian, BBQ, Honey Mustard, Garlic & Herb, whatever, and then as the meats freeze and then thaw for use they automatically marinate. This method adds another layer of flavor to whatever you end up cooking.

I've gotten jealous looks due to the smells coming from my grill! I made up my hamburger blend as usual and froze the patties. We were sharing a grill with a camper in our group and put our burgers next to his sirloin. Needless to say he wished he were eating burgers that day. It's happened in reverse as well. We've put together chicken packets (meat, potatoes & veggies) and grilled them while sharing our grill with others. They always seem to want whatever we're having!

This tip makes having wonderfully seasoned meats easy. It's a little more work on grocery day, but oh so worth it when you'd rather be sightseeing, fishing, canoeing, shopping or just lazing around, than cooking.

[jpkelpe]

I fry a whole lot of hamburger at one time and then package it in what is "about one pound" amounts--about 2 cups and freeze it, then when you want to fix somthing fast, out comes the hamburger and into the recipe.--I use it a lot for taco's and hamburger and spaghetti dishes.

[jpkelpe]

the other thing I do is cook pasta ahead of time and freeze it in containers of varying amounts--thaw and put into recipe--you can thaw it by putting the bag in water if you want it a little faster.