Cooking from scratch: the time & the mess

[Anonymous]

I was wondering for all of you who cook from scratch on a regular basis, how do you minimize the mess, stress, and labor involved? I could keep my house clean if I didn't cook so much. And I do try to make a lot at home because of taste, (less) waste, and the (cheaper) cost. My fridge is exploding with bits and pieces of this and that.

Love to hear any tips and/or encouragement. I'm familiar with clean as you go, menu planning, batch cooking on weekends, get the family involved, eating up leftovers, stick it in the fridge (where it goes to die). Anything else?

[Anonymous]

Since you are familiar with any and all advice I would have given you, OP, I think the thing you are missing is ENJOYING the end result! If you don't, forget it.

[Anonymous]

Make soup out of all your leftovers.

[Anonymous]

Hire a housecleaner with the money you are saving by not eating out or buying prepared foods.

[Anonymous]

Invite others over to share?

[Anonymous]

I'm just guessing by your comment about the bits and pieces comment that you are only cooking by recipes. Learn some basic cooking methods and get creative by applying it to things that are not written down. Use those bits and pieces! Or when you are cooking, don't stick so much to the recipe, just use what you have. This works for everything but baking and you end up cleaning by cooking. I also try to think things through and not use more pans than necessary.

[Anonymous]

google the ingredients you have bits and pieces of in the fridge and see if you find a recipe to make with them. You'd be surprised!

[Anonymous]

Blue apron - less waste

[Anonymous]

If you are already doing clean as you go, there probably isn't much you can do to reduce cleaning. One thing I do is chose what to cook based on how many pans I want to dirty. I can roast a whole meal on one sheet pan, or cook all ingredients separately with separate methods. I go for the roasting a lot. Also, I often cut up all my veggies first, then use the same cutting board for the meat last, then throw the cutting board straight into the dish washer.

With bits in the fridge: I agree with PP this probably means you are cooking from recipes, which is a big cause of wasted food, dishes, and labor, in my opinion. I have a few techniques I use over and over again, like the roasting thing. A couple of veggies and a meat, into the oven it goes (maybe at different times) and vary the sauce or spices. I take the leftovers for lunch. We also have at least once a week "scrounge" dinners - I heat up and put out everything in the fridge, and you assemble your own dinner plate. Everything left is tossed. Or, if your family doesn't like that plan, toss the left overs into omelettes, quiche, casserole, or soup. I use omelettes as the go-to left over disposal.

[Anonymous]

My family gets bored of leftovers after a day, so if there are additional leftovers after that, I freeze individual portions so I can thaw in the fridge overnight and toss them in the kids' lunch bags in the morning.

[Anonymous]

10:12 here again. I also make broth and stock from scratch, so any random vegetable scraps or vegetables that might turn before we use them are tossed in a freezer bag. Then when it's time to make stock, I have veggies ready to go. I do the same with leftover chicken bones from when we roast a whole chicken.

[Anonymous]

I'm just guessing by your comment about the bits and pieces comment that you are only cooking by recipes. Learn some basic cooking methods and get creative by applying it to things that are not written down. Use those bits and pieces! Or when you are cooking, don't stick so much to the recipe, just use what you have. This works for everything but baking and you end up cleaning by cooking. I also try to think things through and not use more pans than necessary.

+1

Also, I'll roughly plan meals for the week to get multiple use out of many ingredients. So Sunday my husband grilled fish and a whole bunch of veggies, Monday I made pizza with the veggies (with dough I had previously made and frozen) and some prosciutto, and yesterday I made tomato soup with grilled cheese made using Monday's leftover mozzarella and prosciutto. If you can prep ingredients for multiple meals at once (making and freezing multiple batches of pizza dough, chopping those grilled veggies plus some extras left uncooked for this week's salads, grating and slicing the mozzarella for both meals at the same time) you'll cut down a lot on the mess and time involved. I also have several easy, minimal-mess meals that I make with the bits and pieces in the fridge - frittatas are great for that.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the poster who said it sounds like you're mostly cooking with recipes. That's ok, but try to step out of your comfort zone - the chicken recipe calls for sweet potatoes, but you've got a left over bag of carrots from another recipes? Use that instead.

Recipe calls for half a pound of carrots but you bought a 1 lb bag - double the recipe and freeze the leftovers for nights that you don't want to cook. End of the week plan a meal around stir fry, salad or soup - toss in all the bits of leftovers. Garlic going to go bad? Mince it and freeze it in small blobs so you can use it straight from the freezer the next time a recipe calls for it. Open your mind to other substitutions as well - recipe says sliced garlic, but you can probably get away with the minced you already froze.

[Anonymous]

A menu plan is your friend. As others have said, once a week map out your meals for the week. Try to use recipes that will either make good leftovers or do double-duty. Another PP made the good suggestion of making soup out of the bits and pieces -- I do a "clean out the pantry/crisper" soup now and then, which is basically a vegetable soup with some pasta, beans, or rice in it.

As for the mess: Clean. As. You. Go! While something is simmering or in the oven, wash the dirty utensils/bowls, or load the dishwasher, and wipe down the counters. Also I do not make complicated recipes that require me to use a bunch of different pots and pans -- the one-dish or at most two-pot meal is what works for me. Look at casserole recipes. And also Crock Pot recipes.

[Anonymous]

Mess -- line the bottom of a pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil, cook meats and fish inside parchment paper wrap, etc.

Odds and ends -- make a stir fry night, and also a crepe night.