Mine was a batch cooking tip. Overheard it at the dentist’s waiting room. Was life-saving during the toddler years, still using it now for the grownups.
Basically, you don’t cook whole recipes, you pre-cook ingredients in batches. Then during the week, you can ‘construct’ loads of different meals quickly, depending on everyone’s preferences.
So put on a pot of water + stock cube to simmer. Cook up all the ‘boilable’ meat and veggies in seperate batches. Lift each out of the pot with a perforated ladle to drain. Put in the fridge in individual containers. Examples are: sausages, cauli, broccoli, carrots.
Then use the soupy flavoured stock you’ve created to blanche leafy greens or peas. Then cook rice, pasta, potatoes in it. Or keep it ‘starch-free’ as a base for soups, stews, sauces.
I’ll often also put a frypan on at the same time and separately precook chopped onion, garlic, celery, capsicum, eggplant etc. Then swish a cup of kettle-boiled water into that pan at the end (after removing the food) and tip it into the stock.
So then on a random Tuesday worknight, you can ‘shop your pantry’ and make a hot curry, baby purées, pasta dish and multiple veggie side dishes all in under 15 mins. You can tweak the flavourings towards Asian, Mediterranean, middle eastern or leave things fairly bland. I’ve got a great spice collection, with pre-mixed options. Also important to have things like curry paste, tinned tuna/tomatoes, chickpeas on hand. And herbs/lemons for freshness.
I found traditional batch cooking didn’t work for us. I’d freeze litres of complicated recipes, then no one would feel like eating them. Including me! I like the freedom to build something quickly that’s more tailored to who is home and hungry. And I can easily leave out ingredients for allergies, intolerances or keto. Less waste, more flexibility to buy seasonal food when I see it.
Hope it helps someone else, sorry it’s so long!