Cooking Made Simple

Being a wife and making the home life for my husband optimal is important to me, but sometimes it can be a lot. Between the piles of laundry, vacuuming all the rooms, cleaning the bathroom and more, how does one have time (or energy) for cooking?! Your husband wants to come home to a nice, warm, home-cooked meal. How do you make that happen effortlessly and with as low stress as possible? Here are some ideas that have helped me.

Cooking simply helps keep things easy; smaller and less complex grocery lists, less food to fiddle around with, more planned dinners, less crowded fridge… the list goes on.

Start with meal planning, putting each item you’ll need to buy at the grocery store on a list. Nothing too extravagant. Make your meal special with spices later on. Get some basics onto that grocery life. Bread, butter, cheese, cold cuts, beef, chicken, pork, rice, noodles, potatoes… These are the basics. You need a protein for each meal and a base like rice. Then add onto your list your veggies! You can make a lettuce salad, steamed carrots or broccoli, a cucumber salad… anything your heart desires.

Once you have gotten the groceries you need. Set yourself up for success. Make one dinner ahead of time and freeze it! Then you can take it out one night and not even worry about cooking that evening. Another trick is to take out the meat before bed, let it defrost, season it in the morning and set it in the fridge to marinate. Then all you have to do that evening is cook a nice base (rice, noodles, or potatoes), the meat and toss together something veggie-lishess. Then you have an easy, simple meal. If you really don't have time then don’t think about seasoning in the morning. Just go with the flow as you cook!

Put everything in its place before you start. Keeping organization later on can become quite hectic. Take out what you’ll need to cook the meat, make the rice, take out the lettuce head and some dressing. Place the pots, get the water ready for boiling, the butter ready for sauce making…etc. Just take your time and prep down to the last little tasting spoon. Then all you have to do at “cook time” is cook.

Clean as you go can be helpful for some and more disruptive for others. So do what helps you most and keeps things more simple. I prefer to clean as I go. For example, if I am done with the flour for my sauce then I will put it away after I have stirred it in and lowered the heat.

Cooking doesn’t always have to be complex to be good. It can be simple, pre-prepped, and manageable for your day. Your husband won’t know the difference, but will also appreciate those days more when you cook a full seasoned chicken in the oven all day… Cooking can be fun even when we are stressed from our day. Just breathe and know you have a plan because your grocery list has just been upgraded (or should I say downgraded???).