Tips for the cook on the run
By the time you leave work, head to the gym, get home and shower, who feels like cooking? You’re hungry, you’re tired, and you wish that dinner could make itself.
How do you solve this issue? You love good food but you hate cooking, or rather, you hate the time it takes to cook.
Here is my solution, from the girl who only loves to cook when she has time:
1. Make a plan with two parts: Make a list, and then go to the market.
It takes a few minutes to do, but not much more than that. Before you go to the market on your rest day from the gym, put together a quick list. I like to do this on the weekend or on Monday. Let’s say it’s Monday.
Here’s what goes on my list:
-breakfast, lunches and snacks for me for the week
-breakfast, lunches and snacks for PB for the week
-2 big dinners with enough for leftovers
-salad ingredients
-ready dinner for that night
Example:
-B, L, S for me: english muffins, bananas, american cheese, whole wheat bread, kettle chips, apples, peanut butter
-B, L, S for PB: eggs, shredded mozzarella, chicken, iceberg lettuce, avocado, bacon, ranch dressing, carrots, apples
-Dinner 1 (Easy): baked salmon, roasted asparagus, white rice
-Dinner 2: homemade cheesesteaks (meat, peppers, onions, cheese, a baguette)
-Salad ingredients: spinach, avocado, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, dried cranberries, walnuts
Then go to the market and buy the foods you don’t have.
Now you have food in your house. It’s a good start.
Here is what the week of dinners will look like:
Monday (market day): baked salmon, roasted asparagus, white rice
Tuesday: summer salmon salad and white rice (made from Monday leftovers)
Wednesday: homemade cheesesteaks.
Thursday: Rotisserie chicken and leftover peppers and onions.
Friday: out
2. Do your prep work.
I get home and even though I’m tired from the market trip I immediately organize everything. First I get rid of anything that went bad in the fridge. Hopefully if you’ve planned right you don’t have much to toss, but it forces me to reorganize foods to their proper shelves. Example: I always keep leftovers and ready foods on the top shelf for easy access. When I’m done I prep a couple of lunches for my husband. Since I work from home I make my lunch when I’m hungry, but PB brings a packed lunch. I will broil a few pieces of chicken breast, assemble his salad and snacks, and put it all in the fridge. I usually do only 2 days of lunches at a time. Then I cut and wash the lettuce and put it in a container with a paper towel on top to help it stay good longer. That’s about it for market day prep work.
3. Cook.
Monday: You’ve already made your list, gone to the market, and done prep work all after working all day. The last thing you want to do is cook. Make market night’s meal an easy one. I chose baked salmon, roasted asparagus, and white rice. You just toss the salmon and asparagus in the oven and boil some rice and you’re done. Easy peasy.
Tuesday: The day after market night let’s say you get out of work at 6 and don’t make it home from the gym until 8:30 PM. You need to plan for that. What I do is try to have enough leftovers from the previous night. I would turn the leftover salmon into summer salmon salad and pair it with the leftover rice. Dinner #2 is done in 20 minutes or less. Since it was done so fast I have a few extra minutes to pack 2 more days of lunches.
Wednesday: After work but before the gym cut your peppers and onions and cook them. Put them aside covered with foil. Set out the pan for cooking the meat and set the table. After the gym: Hop in the shower. Heat up oil in the pan. Slice the baguette into rolls and put in the toaster but don’t put the toaster on. Cook meat. Heat up the peppers and onions in microwave or oven. Assemble dinner. By planning to do a bit of the prep work before the gym, dinner was on the table in no time.
Thursday: Since you finished all the meat on Wednesday (you were hungry) you need a protein component, especially if you are dining with someone like PhillyBoy. After the gym stop by the market for a rotisserie chicken. Eat that for dinner with leftover veggies from Wednesday and a big salad with stuff from the fridge. Pack one more lunch for Friday.
Friday: Celebrate your success with a dinner out.
It seems complicated but it really isn’t. Dinner shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes each night including the cooking and the cleaning up. I probably spend 45 minutes one night and then 15 the next. This system might not work for everyone, but it works for us.
My greatest tips are:
1. Plan, plan, plan. The more prepared you are, the easier it is to get dinner on the table.
2. Don’t be afraid of leftovers. I buy enough for 4-6 people for each dinner so we almost always have enough food for dinner the next night. Sometimes I transform it into another meal and sometimes we eat the same exact dinner.
3. Don’t wait until dinnertime to think about dinner. Try and do some prep work ahead of time. For example, tonight we are having breaded chicken breast and eggplant. I am on maternity leave already so I will be prepping the chicken and eggplant right after lunch and keeping it in the fridge until I am ready to fry.
4. Take advantage of easy supermarket conveniences. My Whole Foods has great rotisserie chickens. When we are low on food, inspiration, and the desire to cook I pick one up and turn it into a great meal.
5. Enlist help. I prefer to do the cooking in my house because I enjoy it. Even so, PB helps me a lot. He comes home from work fairly late so usually his help is with prep work at the beginning of the week and cleaning up after dinner. It saves a lot of time when two people are working instead of one.
***Don’t forget that every dinner does not have to be some gourmet masterpiece. It is fine to have steak, veggies, salad and couscous one night and quick and easy grilled veggie sandwiches and a salad the next. Do what works best for you!
That’s all I have for now, but I’d love your tips for the non-cook cook as well. My friend asked me to write this, and I’m sure she would appreciate as many tips as possible.
18 Responses to “Tips for the cook on the run”
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My biggest tip is the crockpot. I work full time plus volunteer work and our oldest is very involved in sports, so dinner can get late especially with homework. So I use the crockpot a lot. Right now I have 2 chicken breasts, some roasted tomatoes, and cannelini beans cooking in there. Then tonite I will mix some parsely, whole wheat pasta and cheese with it after I shred the chicken and we have a yummy dinner with almost no work when I get home from the office and a baseball game. I usually make enough leftovers for dinner that then become lunch for my husband and I.
@Heather, That sounds delicious. Do you have an actual recipe for that anywhere? I am a crock pot novice but I’m sure with a newborn I will want to use it more.
Great tips Sabrina! I have a really bad habit of planning five seperate meals for the week because I don’t usually like leftovers! I like the way you use them to create a new dish! My biggest tip is to plan when you are cleaning up dinner for the next nights dinner. Does meat need to be thawed? Are there veggies I can cut up now while a have a few minutes? etc. It’s so true that if you wait til dinner to think about dinner it usually ends with dinner out! At least it does for me! 🙂
@Kristen, GREAT TIP! I love the idea of planning the night before for the next night’s dinner.
I’ve had such a hard time meal planning now that I am pregnant! It use to be easy, but now that I have a ‘fickle appetite’ its hard for me to plan ahead, but I am trying! I enjoyed reading your tips and I agree, the #1 thing is to plan, plan, plan! I’m excited to pull my crockpot back out for some fall soups and hearty dishes as well!!
@Lauri (Redheadrecipes.com), CONGRATULATIONS! All I can say is I can relate. I often don’t know what I’m craving until the minute I’m hungry, but I’m trying to just stick to the plan anyway.
I love your meal plans. One thing I have always been scared to try is leftover salmon, do you reheat it or use it cold? Thanks for this helpful and inspiring post!
@Erica, I reuse it cold in a salad usually. We will only eat it one day after because I get scared of using leftover fish too. I know my aunt reheats it the next night though and it is always good.
This is pretty much the exact plan I follow from week to week. Since I’m usually only cooking for me, I make sure to freeze leftovers (like a pot of chili or soup) so that I can pull them out in a pinch (it also helps me avoid eating the same. exact. thing all. week. long)!
@Hillary, Good call. I will pass that on to my friend. When I was cooking for myself only I often ate the same thing for 3 days because I was lazy. I should have been freezing portions!
love the crockpot, right now I have minestrone soup in the crock and plan on adding left over grilled chicken from last night to it. plus I have a herb and cheese bread in the bread machine, there my two favs for an easy dinner.
@jen, Do you have a recipe for the soup? Like I mentioned above I am a crock pot newbie and would love some recipes.
Wow, this post is SAVED on my computer. Rhodeygirl you are amazing. Thank you for making my first week of “living together” much easier. I was so stressed about feeding my man, making it to the gym, getting work done, but I like your ideas, especially about prepping the meal and making a schedule.
Thanks so much xo
@Dadri, You’re welcome love.
I love this post — great tips! I need to be better with meal/dinner planning. My excuse is always the same thing, it’s 7:30, I don’t want to cook, and I need to be in bed by like, 9:00 (wow) lol…
@Jillian @ sprinkle massacre, When I was teaching dance at night and then going to the gym after I always did a ton of kitchen prep on Sunday afternoons. It helped me SO much during the week!
This is great advice! I am not a great cook and have a hard time going to the grocery and picking things out to make a meal…I always seem to come home with a random assortment of stuff. This post really helps me to think about cooking/meal planning in a more organized way.
@Rachel, Thanks! Let me know if you try anything from this post and if it works for you.