Finding Time to Cook
Several people have asked me lately how I find time to cook with a 7 month old baby at home. The key for me is planning. Once a week, usually on Thursdays, I sit down and try to plan what we will have for lunches and dinners all week.
This involves figuring out what food we already have and what is on sale. Then I try to plan a week or so worth of meals. On Fridays or Saturdays I usually go to the store and get food for the entire week. Having the food already in the house motivates me to use it so it doesn’t go to waste, and I don’t have to make a trip to the store on top of cooking dinner. We usually cook more complicated meals that will make a lot of leftovers on Saturday or Sunday, and then the meals get easier through the week. It helps that Jeremy often cooks on the weekends when I am tired of cooking. A recent menu looked like this:
It can be tough to cook with a baby, but if I allocate twice the time I normally would to a meal for interruptions, feedings, etc, I can usually get dinner finished at a decent hour. If a meal requires a lot of prep, I’ll go chop vegetables while Jake is napping earlier in the day. I have also discovered that Jacob actually likes to watch me cook, so i just put him in his high chair and scoot him up near the counter and stove so he can see things boil and crackle.
We don’t always do as well as I’d like sticking to our plan and not eating out, but when we are prepared and have everything ready in my kitchen it motivates me to actually cook and use the food i’ve already purchased. I like cooking, even with all the planning, because it is rewarding to be able to save our family money and make delcious and healthy meals at the same time.
This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Hey Steph,
Even without a baby, I am usually frustrated by the amount of time it takes me to figure out very simple meals for 2 people (and I unfortunately use way more processed things than you do!). But since I recently found unclutterer.com, I just read a blog post about how to plan weekly meals efficiently. Here’s the link:
http://unclutterer.com/2008/02/20/creating-a-weekly-meal-plan/
They also have an excel spreadsheet that seems helpful.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Hey Angie, that spreadsheet looks pretty nice. We try to plan stuff for lunch and lately i’ve been trying to make stuff for snacks too, so I think it would help! Thanks.
February 24th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Thanks for this post – it’s given me motivation to start planning meals better. This weekend I’m going to go to the farmer’s market with Min and Leah to see what they have, and then plan meals for next week around what we get and what else we can buy on sale at Whole Foods and the regular grocery store. I downloaded the spreadsheet Angie linked to also – I think it could really help me and I love spreadsheets for any and everything!
February 24th, 2009 at 2:32 am
Erin, glad I could help! I am so jealous you and Amy have access to farmer's markets during this time of year! Have fun!
March 9th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Meal planning does make the cooking process much more simple, doesn't it? And restful
Thanks for checking out SimpleMakes!
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I'm going to check out that unclutterer site. Looks good.
I don't know why I resist meal planning so often. When I do it, I know it's a timesaver – I'm always grateful on the days when I've got dinner worked out and don't have to run to the store.
And yet, I don't do it nearly often enough. Indecision is part of my problem. It takes me over 40 minutes to plan for 3 days. It is painful.
I keep meaning to be more organized and have a list of family favourites, categorized by season and type of food.