Easy Cooking Ideas

Easy cooking is what most people want. Not that many people want to spend enormous amounts of time in the kitchen. There are some like my ex-wife's mother who loves to cook. She was able to cook for a crowd. Cooking for family parties seemed to be one of her main loves. She is a fantastic cook. I miss enjoying her big meals.

But she is the exception to the rule that most people like easy cooking not hard cooking.

You need to approach cooking like any other task that you want to organize. You have to do the following:

1. Minimize the clutter in your kitchen.

2. Have only the minimum amount of cooking utensils and tools that work for you. Having all kinds of gadgets and excess pots and pans will make your cabinets be too full and your counter tops cluttered. You cannot hope to do any easy cooking with excessive clutter.

3. Have a core number of meals that you and your family like and can eat often. This is easy cooking at its best because then you don't need to spend the time looking at recipes.

4. Some people have schedules of what they eat on what days. That seems like a good idea the more people you have to feed.

5. Have a really good sense how much food you should prepare for each meal so that you avoid leftovers.

6. Leftovers are ok sometimes, but it is much more organized to eat all you made for that meal and throw out the few leftovers you have. This way you avoid messing up your storage containers and your refrigerator with leftovers.

7. I think most people would rather have a fresh meal than leftovers.

8. Leftovers are kind of a pain to reheat. Then you have to clean the containers and the pots, pans and plates you used to reheat the leftovers. So it is a lot more work.

9. The only time leftovers make sense to keep is when you are specifically making bigger meals for the reason of cooking two or more meals at one time and after a big gathering and you have a lot of expensive food that wasn't eaten at the party. Then it makes sense financially to store the leftovers.

10. Eat simpler easy cooking meals most of the time. Why do you need fancy meals all the time? I don't. Save the elaborate meals for once in a great while. Holidays or once a month at the most.

11. Eat out once in awhile during the work week to save yourself some kitchen time. Use coupons, discounts, 2 for ones, just order water and no desert to keep the cost as low as possible.

12. Get takeout during the work week for the same reason.

13. If you do get takeout, throw out the containers the meal came in. I love getting takeout from my local Chinese place. It is really close and cheap. I get some once or twice a month. They put the meal in a really nice plastic container. I could wash this container and reuse it. I know most people would. I throw it out. I have plenty of containers. I am enjoying takeout to avoid preparing a meal. I want to keep things simple.

14. Buy what you need at the store rather than what looks good. Use your grocery list and your budget.

15. I have a core group of meals that I like and that I prepare as part of my easy cooking strategy. Whenever I am grocery shopping I look for these things and try to buy them when they are low priced. I stay flexible enough that I do not have to buy something if it is higher priced at that time.

16. Purposely plan your meals that work with the time you have. Slow cooker meals work well for me on the weekends. I also cook meals in the oven on weekends. I rarely cook in the oven during the week. I want fast cooking, stove top meals during the week. I also have food that does not need to be cooked liked salads during the week. I would say that most of my meals during the week are some sort of meat I cook on the stove and a lettuce salad. That combination is so easy, so healthy and so good.

17. If you carry a lunch, make it the night before while you are making your dinner. It is so much easier to prepare and clean up the kitchen one time. Making lunches in the morning is just so much harder unless you absolutely love getting up super early. I just leave plenty of room in my refrigerator for my lunch box. If you are making lunches for a bunch of people you will love this idea.

18. Have healthier snacks available. I try to have nuts on hand for those snacking times. Nuts are hard, get it, hard, because they are so expensive compared to other snacks. You will just have to decide, your budget or your health.

19. It seems that instead of having a food item for a snack, what is even more satisfying is something to drink. Doesn't everyone want to be eating or drinking something in front of the TV? Try to just have something lo-cal to drink when you are relaxing in front of the TV or anytime. I know I can eat a tremendous amount of snacks during a show. I try to have decaf coffee, tea, or even a glass of wine or beer in the evening. It is less calories and more satisfying anyway.

20. The best way to avoid excessive eating is to have less food in your home. It just is, there is no way to say it isn't.

21. Easy cooking is just another organized mindset to have to save yourself a lot of time for other things.

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