Six Tips for Stress Free Cooking

Dear Friends,

This week we are making it fun! Starting dinner with a clean kitchen makes it more fun than with a dirty kitchen. Put on some wonderful music and or even an audio book while you are in the kitchen. This can also become a special time for you during the day. This will make your time in the kitchen fun for you.

Cooking your food from scratch is about the only way to save real money. I have been cooking much more than usual. With the flu everywhere; I think we are staying home more. I made a plan and I have been sticking to it. Our freezer was stocked and we have been cooking what we have on hand. The leftovers are being vacuumed sealed and frozen for the one night a week that we eat leftovers.

Many of you don’t want to make a bigger mess in your kitchen. Robert loves it when I am on a cooking frenzy. This means we always have leftovers. These tips work whether you are cooking your family or an army! There are a few little tips I want to toss out to you before you start cooking your head off.

1. Put hot soapy water in your shiny sink before you start to prepare anything. Get out clean dish cloths and towels.

2. Make sure the dishwasher is empty before you start. Hand wash as much as you can and run the dishwasher and empty it before you sit down to eat. This way you will have an empty dishwasher to put the dinner dishes in. Oh and you can run the good china in the dishwasher if you don’t put any dishwasher detergent in it. You can wash your good silver in there too. Just not the hollow handle knives.

3. Now this is a hard one for us, since we love to pretend to multi-task. The truth is we don’t really do it well. You know what happens in your kitchen when you try to do several things at once. Your kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it. Only prepare ONE recipe at a time and when you have put it together; CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF. This means getting things ready to cook not necessary putting them on the stove or in the oven. You can do things a head of time and put them in the refrigerator to wait till its scheduled time to pop in the oven or put on the stove. Leanne’s timeline will help you a lot. I actually make appointments for my oven.

4. And this is the most important tip. Put on good supportive shoes with laces. Don’t try to stand up all day and cook in cutesy shoes. Your legs deserve better than this.

5. After you put together each recipe and you have cleaned up after yourself! I want you to sit down at your table, drink a cup of tea and check things off your list. This is not a request; this is an order to help keep you from looking frazzled for your guests. You need to take breaks and drink your water!

6. Set your table. This way you can have fun with the pretty things.

You can have fun preparing for dinner; if you will just pace yourself and take breaks. It is really just a piece of cake if you will take those babysteps.

Are you ready to FLY through dinnertime?

FlyLady

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