Cooking and baking are one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday. Since having kids though, my time is quite limited as to how much time I can spend in the kitchen. I have tried Once a Month Cooking, batch cooking & freezing, raw recipes that require little prep and on and on. I've combined all of these techniques into something that works for our family and minimizes the amount of energy used. Most recently, with my gluten allergy and intolerance, figuring out "what's for dinner" has become even more important to me so I know that I can share in the family dinner time without having to worry if I can or cannot eat it. However, when I talk to other friends and co-workers about their kitchen strategy, most do not have a plan or barely know how to articulate how they get it done. Here is what works at our house and maybe taking pieces of what works for us, will help you have a more effective and efficient cooking and baking experience.
First, I review the latest farm share delivery and center our meals for the week around that. I also consider what our family/work schedule is for the next two weeks to see if there will be any large gaps of time away from the family, for either my husband or I. If there are gaps, I plan to make larger batches of what I'm cooking to put 3-4 meals in the freezer that can easily be defrosted. Then, I find the circular of the grocery store with the most sales and that will compliment my farm share well. This process takes about 15 minutes, but in the long run of planning, it's the best time spent. To have a general plan about what is for dinner, takes away the stress on the evenings when an unplanned activity arises.
Once I have all the ingredients I need to make several meals, I start the prep work. If I need to shred zucchini, beets and onions, I use the food processor near the sink and get to work. I think about the order of shredding the vegetables, as the onions will leave a taste on the blades and container that I may not want transferred to the zucchini, if it's going into a bread. After everything is chopped, diced, shredded and sliced, I put together the meals that I've been preparing for. Then I set everything on the counter and let it set. It must be an old tradition from my grandmother, but I feel that giving the food the time to absorb the new state it is in, gives it a moment. Figuring out the spacing in the oven sometimes takes some time. If I've prepped 6 dishes and only have room for 4, I try to minimize the length of time the oven needs to be on to save energy. Maximizing how many dishes I cook at a time, reduces the amount of time the oven is on. I have also found that turning off the oven earlier than a recipe calls for allows for the food to cook internally (of course, this only works if you've already pre-cooked the meat in a lasagna for instance). Using my slow cooker also reduces the amount of energy and electricity used in our kitchen. I recently made a gluten free lasagna with zucchini and rice lasagna noodles in the slow cooker. It was absolutely awesome, cooked while I was at work and there was minimal prep involved as I was already shredding zucchini for a bread and was batch cooking turkey meat to use in multiple dishes. Although the rice lasagna noodles called for pre-cooking the noodles, I placed zucchini on each layer of noodle so the moisture from the zucchini would soak into the noodle. The dish was so great, the kids asked for 2nds!
Here's a link to a handy list of energy efficient cooking tips:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030578_cooking_baking.html
Happy Baking!
