No stress home cooking
A diet of home cooked food is not out of your reach.
If there was a way you could have lunch and dinners prepared for your family every night and not have any of the typical stress, would you try it out?
Home cooked food without the stress
We live in a fast paced world, which is the reason why fast food restaurants are thriving so well in our economy. It almost seems like we don't have enough time to stop and cook lunch or dinner for our family anymore. We are moving so fast during the day, by the time we get home we want to plop down and hang out for about an hour before we are falling asleep.
Monthly meal planning
A little planning will take a good deal of stress out of feeding your family. Find here some ideas to help you eat a healthy home cooked diet.
Cooking
Believe it or not, you can have high quality meals ready for you every night of the week and not have to lift a finger to prepare anything each night. Many people are taking advantage of monthly meal planning. Basically, one day a month, preferably on a Saturday or Sunday, people will spend the entire day cooking meals to freeze for later.
Now, a month worth of food is quite a bit and even more difficult to store, so many people opt for the weekly meal planning. Same type of situation, only this time you're doing it on a weekly basis. Spend one day cooking and have meals prepared for the rest of the week; that takes a lot of the stress and effort out of planning healthy meals for your family doesn't it?
Freezing
Freezing is probably the most challenging task you will come to if you decide to try out monthly or weekly meal planning. It is not difficult because freezing is freezing, the problem comes in with storage space. Many people who chose to meal plan this way, typically purchase a deep freezer or a separate stand-up freezer to keep all of their meals in.
Since space is limited, you will have to devise recipes and meal plans that you know will be able to fit into the space you have available. Just remember, if you are trying to freeze items like pancakes or berries, it helps to lay them out first to flash freeze and then bag, otherwise you will end up with a solid mass of frozen pancakes. Unless you want to eat 30 pancakes, I suggest the first way.
Reheating
Reheating is simple. Some dishes you will want to cook all the way, such as casseroles, which can simply be reheated in the oven on 250 degrees for about 25 minutes. Other dishes, like lasagna, you will want to leave un-baked so it will have that fresh taste when you pull it out and bake it for 30 minutes on 375 degrees. Usually the recipes you got the meals from will have proper reheating instructions so be sure to check there first for reheating directions.
Fixing healthy meals for your family is simple and preparing them ahead of time takes all of the stress out of trying to squeeze in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich between practice and bedtime. Why not have great tasting meals to sit down with every day of the week? Grab some recipes and a free weekend and prepare the best week of meals your family has ever seen.
Cooking with less is more
We all want to prepare great meals for our friends and family because we care deeply about them. We also prepare great meals because we want to be complimented on our abilities to get stressed out, throw a fit, rip our hair out because we burned the 30-ingredient "savory" pizza and now have to order from Domino's if our friends and family want something edible. Believe it or not, sometimes, less is more. Let's take a look at how less in the kitchen can be more
Simple meals can be hearty
Think of the stews you had when you were a child. A simple combination of meat, potatoes, carrots and corn and you had a hearty meal that was filling, good for you and tasted great. Not every meal needs to be impressive with as many ingredients as you can name and twice as many that you can't name. How about a meatball sub with mozzarella cheese for a cold day? Simple, tasty and quite easy to prepare.
Less ingredients is less stressful
The fewer ingredients you have, the less you have to chop, peel, dice, cube, clean, or even grind. With fewer ingredients, your stress levels will be lower and as your stress comes down, the work of your taste buds are able to rise to the surface of your consciousness. This means that not only do you receive the benefit of less stress, but you are able to enjoy your meals more.
Having less ingredients also means there is probably less to clean up. Most of the time, fewer ingredients mean only one pot or pan. This makes cleanup a cinch and can usually be done while cooking. Fewer ingredients also mean there is less chance for packaged food to end up in your cooking, which can elevate oxytocin levels, which is produced when you are stressed.
Not as stressful to plan or implement
Speaking of stress, does the endless list for the grocery store begin to stress you out? What if you were to cut that list into thirds? Would it be less stressful? If so, try cooking with fewer ingredients. Yes, it does take a little more thought to come up with recipes, rather than pouring some milk into processed pasta and cheese sauce, but it is much easier to plan out once you get used to it.
Planning with fewer ingredients means you can quickly change your mind about what to cook and you don't have to worry about a lot of food going bad, plus you can also mix and match different ingredients, as you like. This makes for an interesting dinner if you can pair two or more new foods together.
If you are used to putting on a show or buying large amounts of food, try working with less. I bet you will be surprised with how much better the food tastes and how must stress you lose during the process. Get into the kitchen, grab a few ingredients and start cooking.
One pot wonders
If anything ever made the top stress free cooking charts, it would be the invention of one pot meals. With little to no cleanup, one pot meals are the ultimate kitchen kick boxer, simple to make, delicious to eat and completely stress free. So what exactly is it that makes a one pot meal so versatile? Truth be told; the list of why they are not good will probably be much shorter.
Benefits of one pot
One. Pot. It doesn't get any easier than that, well, other than no pot, but that isn't cooking, it is just making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Some of the benefits of one pot meals are the fact that it only takes one pot to make a fantastic meal for you family. That being said, one pot is also much easier to clean up than a whole slew of pots and pans.
Another benefit to cooking out of only one pan is the ability to use that pan as a dish. Please note, if there is more than one person in the house, this would not be recommended, but it is a benefit for the solo chef. On a more serious note, one dish meals are generally associated with comfort foods. Since the original one pot meals were probably some form of soup or stew made with vegetables and the current hunted game, people are familiar with crowding around a table to get some grub.
Also, one-dish meals, just so happen to generally be quality, wholesome meals. Usually including vegetables, starches, and meats, these hardy dishes typically hit on many, if not all, of the different levels of the food pyramid. This keeps bodies ready for the next day of work, while satisfying the hunger of toiling throughout the day.
Simple or complex
One pot meals can be as simple or as complex as you wish. Some meals have three ingredients, while others have twenty, thirty, or even around 50. The great thing about one pot meals being as simple or complex as you want, means that the meal will only take as long as you want it to take.
No matter if you are under a strict time constraint or if you want the most savory, juicy and delicious pulled pork in the world, one pot meals are where it is at. From a 30-ingredient, 5:00 alarm chili to a Greek baked chicken; the ability to cook a wide variety of meals in one pot caters to every need and skill set. Many college kids only have one pot or pan to weather dorm life and many adults are giving up the kitchen clutter and dropping down to a single trustworthy pot to prepare all their family meals.
If you are up for a challenge, put away all of your other pans and cling to one for a week. See how that does and what meal ideas you can come up with. If things look like they are still going strong, try it out for a month. I believe you will be surprised with the amount of different choices you have available to you within the constraints of a single pan. Who knows, maybe you will be the next to adopt the single-pan kitchen life; it sure saves a lot of cabinet space.