There have been a few of those this week, mostly having to do with cooking day. Yesterday, I spent all day making 15 recipes of two meals each. This is the third big cooking day I’ve done. As always, it was very tiring, but much went better than before, mainly due to my having learned these lessons:
Clean up as you go as much as possible. My first big cooking day ended with me exhausted… and my kitchen trashed. This time, the cleanup was much easier, and I realized it was because I put away everything after each recipe, including dishes I knew I wouldn’t need again going into the dishwasher.
Related to the above, reuse mixing bowls, pans, measuring cups/spoons, etc. as much as possible. In some cases I had no choice, as I only have one large skillet, but cleaning off the other things and reusing them helped tons.
Double check the grocery order. Meijer shorted us an item, though it was on my order. I didn’t notice until I needed it for a recipe, so DH had to run out and get it. Last time, I sent a printout of the order with DH when he went to pick it up, but didn’t this time. So I will definitely arm him with a printout next time, and also check the supplies before I begin to prep or cook.
Buy produce and cheeses already chopped/minced/etc. if possible. This was a major time-saver for Friday night prep, and for the amounts of cheeses, ginger, and garlic I needed, wasn’t significantly more expensive than buying whole and chopping on my own.
Slap-chop is better for chopping onions. That’s what I normally do. I tried using the food processor this time, but while it was faster, it didn’t do as well, leaving lots of big chunks.
Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for. This is especially true of freezer bags, and this was the main lesson learned yesterday. It was a good thing the kitchen cleanup was relatively easy, because I also had to clean out the refrigerator… for the third time this week (one time which DH did). I kept having mystery water leaking all down the bottom few shelves, and I finally figured out what it was: leaking freezer bags from meals I was making last week from last time’s cooking day. So this time, I used brand name bags for anything liquid.
ROW80 Update: Another lesson learned here: sometimes, something we think is going to be difficult really isn’t once we sit down and just do it. Yes, I finally got my book descriptions off and out to the publisher. Waiting to hear back from them on how they are, but I think they came out pretty good. Now it’s time to jump into the next project while Time’s Dilemma is with the editors, so I plan to go over what I have on the next Saturn Society novel (it’s about half written), and figure out how to finish it.
What about you–any lessons learned to share, whether about cooking, writing, or anything? Have you read any good books lately, or cooked anything interesting? How are you doing on whatever goals you may have, whether writing-related or not? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!
Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.