Your tips on homemade food

[labamba18]

Inspired by another thread where people said they loved to make meals and even bread and snacks from scratch - how do you find the time? My husband and I work full
time and have pretty on the go lives but I’d love to make more from scratch. I’m not the best cook but have committed in the past 2 years to learning more. I’d love to know if you make the majority from scratch how you do it! (Sorry for hijacking aibu)

I work a 45-50 hour week and cook from scratch every day. I don’t batch cook because I don’t much enjoy reheated food but I do peel/chop veg for the next day and store them in the fridge so I only have to do that work three times a week.

For me, it’s just about being organized. I do my grocery shop on a Friday (my WFH day) and have a whiteboard on the fridge with the week’s meals for us, both lunch and dinner. Then I put the right number of chicken breasts/steaks/chops etc in boxes in the freezer when I put the shopping away and take meat out to defrost in the fridge the night before.

During the week, I don’t get in till about 6:30/7, so I make easy things that take 30 minutes at the most to make, like pasta, risotto, stir fry, fajitas etc. At the weekend we have things that take more time like stew, curry, lasagne, bolognese, short ribs or any baking when I have the time to do it.

It’s mostly just prioritization, being organized and, if you’re not the most confident cook yet, having 10 or so dishes you can do with minimal thought.

I had an early rising baby who was pretty happy as long as he had company. In the grey face- sagging hours between 5am and 8am I used to prep dinner because what else was I going to do? Even putting off going to the playground til 8, there was never anyone else there (no idea what the other early babies do).

However rushed I was, giving the onions a full ten minutes to soften is always worth it. There’s usually other prep tasks you can do in the time.

Fish in the microwave works brilliantly - salmon fillet is about 2.5 minutes IIRC.

There’s a lot of ‘real’ recipes that are genuinely quick. Pasta carbonara is the classic. Takes as long as the pasta cooking, tbh cooking the green veg is the slowest part. I like pasta puttanesca too.

When you try a recipe for the first time it will feel harder because you don’t know it, yet. But the ones you like gradually become second nature and you can shop for and cook from memory. That lessens the load. But - it takes time to build the mental repertoire.

Make large amount and then portion up. So once a month i make soup then freeze portions. Bolognaise sauce, taco mince filling, macaroni cheese etc then can just defrost. Makes life as a working single mum so much easier.

I buy things like frozen chips, frozen battered fish, nuggets etc so do have quick and simple things to pull out and air fry. Eggs always good to have too quick easy and filling.