Posts
Organization is hard, especially if you don't quite know what you're doing just yet. I may not be able to help 100%, but I can give general tips and tricks to help out as much as possible!
Mise en Place means "everything in its place." This essentially means that in order to streamline the cooking process, you need to know where everything is, and set the things you'll need out before you start. This can be especially helpful if you, like myself, have ADHD and forget that you need to add a specific ingredient until it's too late, or get distracted by other things while preparing to cook. By setting out all of the ingredients, cooking materials, and utensils that you'll need ahead of time, or even just having them immediately and easily accessible to you, you can make things worlds easier for yourself!
The ideal way to mise en place is measuring everything out ahead of time, but that's not always realistic or easy if you have limited counter space or don't want to do a bunch of dishes by having a load of separate bowls with different ingredients measured out within. This is perfectly fine! even just setting all your ingredients out and measuring as you go can be helpful. Personally, I will set out all of my ingredients, get out whatever cookware I need, and I keep a ceramic canister of kitchen utensils on my stove for easy access!
Another great way to make things easier on yourself is cleaning as you go. I don't mean washing each individual dish as you use it, of course. Simply rinsing each dish as it's done being used and stacking them neatly either in or next to the sink will make them easier to clean later on. You don't have to worry as much about the threat of food sticking to them and making them impossible to clean, and you don't even have to clean up proper after cooking! Even if you have to wait a day or two to have the energy to do dishes, the rinsing really goes a long way in making things easier later.
Another important aspect of simplified and streamlined cooking is making sure everything in your kitchen has a place. If you need to label stuff to remember where things go, do it! making sure your kitchen is accessible to you specifically is a very important part of making cooking a less grueling process. I can't tell you how to organize your own kitchen, but what I can do is give you advice.
I like to store my pots and pans (and tupperware) with the lids on their respective piece of cookware, this way I'm not searching for a specific lid for a specific pot in the middle of cooking. Not everyone has the space for this, but if you do, i really recommend it! As I mentioned earlier as well, I keep a (heat safe!) canister on my stove to be able to grab utensils as I need them. I also recommend storing cutting tools like graters and vegetable peelers away from your utensils to avoid injury. Personally, I keep all of my sharp tools that aren't knives behind my silverware organizer, tucked away safe and unable to harm me if I stick my hand in the drawer to grab a fork.
If you want to save counter space, ditch the knife block! You can use a magnetic tool strip and hang that up somewhere on your wall or even on your fridge and hang your knives up! this also gets them out of the way, and if your knives are just free-floating, it's a lot safer too.
If you struggle to remember things in drawers of your fridge, either add large, visible signage either inside or outside your fridge to remind you of perishable items, or only use fridge drawers for non perishable foods and put your vegetables on the bottom shelf. Personally, what's worked best for me is fridge organizers, which can be bought online or found at just about any department store. Remember not to store your veg on the top shelf or they may freeze. if you want frozen vegetables, it's best to just stick with the freezer. When I buy fresh veggies, I like to chop everything up and separate it out into bags right when I get home from grocery shopping. I can then allot a certain amount of veggies to the freezer for saving and keep some in the fridge to have fresh on hand! Though, if you don't want to go to the trouble, buying pre-chopped, frozen, or canned vegetables is just as good and if it's what works for you, then do it! This is all about helping yourself, and you don't have to do anything that you don't want to do or anything that isn't going to help you. The same applies for if you'd rather buy pre-cooked meats and the like as well!
You can also make prep quicker by chopping foods with a good sharp pair of kitchen shears directly into a bowl if you want to avoid having to clean a cutting board, or simply want to save time and space; it makes things go faster and hurts less if knives tend to hurt your hands!
There are a lot of things you can do to help yourself, and to make things smoother for you. One size does not fit all when it comes to food preparation and cooking like the media has led many to believe, and I think if you find something that works, then that's the best thing you can do!
No comments:
Post a Comment