I've been a working mom for the past 11 years and I usually prepare dinner for my family, like 4 out of 5 days. How I survived and still dedicated on providing the family with delicious and nutritious meal without putting too much stress on myself? The answer is plan smart and adopt others' smart tips.
If you have more free time during weekend compare to weekday, then try to prepare ahead for the coming week.
1. Peel shallots and garlic, keep them in airtight container. If your kids are 4 or above, you can get them to help out on the peeling task. Remember, no washing needed until you use them.
2. Clean meat/poultry, cut and pack them according to serving size.
3. If you do eat pork, an option is to ground it rather than to keep the whole chunk. If possible, sliced some and ground the balance.
4. Roughly jot down your weekly menu and stick it on your fridge so you will know when to thaw frozen food.
5. Always keep your kitchen organized. Return the tools/sauce to the same place after use. You may need to have stock check every 2mths, in order to detect nearly expire food stuff or to replenish.
6. Thaw frozen food in fridge before you go to sleep. It takes a day to complete thawing a small pack of frozen food in fridge.
7. Marinade meat/poultry the moment you clean them after back from market. You can leave it in fridge for 1-2 days without frozen.
8. Try to avoid leafy vegetables if you know that you have tight schedule the coming week, as leafy vegetables does not stand long in fridge and takes time to prepare. As an option, you can try to stock up celery, cauliflower or kale which last longer in fridge.
9. Cooking in bulk. Cooking the whole chicken may take up almost the same time and effort compare cooking half. Why not cook the whole chicken, keep balance in freezer and reheat whenever you are too busy to cook.
10. Get everyone to help out. Your spouse may share the cleaning/washing part while kids help to set the table.
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