Over time, I have discovered there is a small thing I can do that will greatly increase the chances I feel motivated enough to cook the meal I have in mind for the next day. It isn’t hard. It doesn’t even involve will power. All I have to do is set out the ingredients I will need for the next night the night or morning before. For example, two nights ago I made sweet potato risotto. Here’s what my setup looked like:
So in the picture, you see bulk arborio rice (never goes bad – saves money!), the dregs of a week-old bottle of white wine I saved for this purpose (but carefully stored in the fridge), some rosemary I dried, sweet potatoes (were on sale at King Soopers for 79 cents a pound!), bulk vegetarian chicken broth powder (more on this in another post), parmesan cheese, garlic, nutmeg, onion, etc. Note I’ve also carefully placed the cookbook open to the appropriate page with a nice friendly picture of the finished product gently, yet firmly, urging me to cook my own d*** dinner rather than another box of mac and cheese.
Somehow the sight of this when I get home is very motivating. I don’t know why this is, I’ve just noticed it is. It doesn’t guarantee I’ll actually cook it (let’s face it — we all come home exhausted most nights), but I’ve noticed it helps a lot, and it definitely helps me get ahead of the game when I get home from work. Sometimes I even pre-measure the spices into little bowls.
And while I’m at it, I’ll mention a quick thing about cooking recipes that you learned in home ec but probably forgot: Prep, chop, measure, and cut all your ingredients before you start cooking. This will save you much grief and help ensure your recipe comes out as it should. Here’s what my stove looks like just before I started cooking (and yes, I microwaved my sweet potatoes before mashing — the book with the microwave cooking table is open in the back of this photo).
Total time from start to finish: about 1:30. I know that’s a lot for most people, but if I’d cooked and mashed my sweet potatoes ahead of time, it would have been a lot less. And I had my lunch all ready to go for today, and didn’t have to cook tonight — in fact, I had so much left over, I had my friend Dave Peascoe over to share a meal of the leftovers. And If I was tired of risotto, I could just freeze it for later. Here’s the finished product:
And here’s a simple, home-cooked meal all put together: sweet potato risotto garnished with rosemary and parmesan cheese, spinach with craisins (the house salad), and a cup of homemade (not from the box endorsed by Bill Cosby) vanilla pudding I made the night before. Bellisimo! The rosemary and nutmeg really make this risotto quite delightful. And no, in spite of the color, it doesn’t have saffron. This is a sweet-potatoes-only party.
If you’d like to make this risotto yourself, it is from the Betty Crocker’s Vegetarian Cooking (1st ed.), but you can find the recipe here.
Happy home cooking!
Jen
I’m motivated!!! Nice photos.
Nice blog! I love a good conversational piece about cooking. And maybe you even reduced my prejudice against microwaves…
I recently received a copy of Molly Wizenberg’s cookbook–A Homemade Life–see http://orangette.blogspot.com/ and enjoyed her narrative and the recipes so much that I’m cooking my way through some of them. I am often so tired at night, but I have found just as you mention that laying out all the ingredients before I begin makes it SOOO much easier and less likely to skip something critical.
I find it’s soothing after a stressful day to put on some blues and cook up something healthy for myself!
I’m going to blog about your blog at http://carstensFEAST.blogspot.com — it’s great!
Setting ingredients out in advance (not necessarily the night before, but prior to starting to cook) is a time-honored practice that in French (and in professional kitchens around the world) is called ‘mise en place.’
FWIW, if a dish is complicated and uses many ingredients (and especially when baking), I tend to do a partial ‘mise en place,’ combining ingredients that will have to combined anyway (e.g., flour, salt, baking powder) and added at the same time, such as premeasuring some things but not others, setting out butter or cream cheese if it needs to be softenened, etc. But I keep ingredients in the refrigerator that should be kept cold (primarily dairy products). If it’s a simple dish, I don’t bother with much of this, just take out what I need when I need it.
I also try to put containers back and place used utensils and vessles in the sink as soon as possible after I’ve used them, so that I don’t have a counter full of jars, boxes, bags, bowls, etc. to work around. I handwash and/or put them into the dishwasher while the food is cooking/baking.
Claire @ http://culinary-colorado.blogspot.com
Claire — I agree with you on dairy products, for sure. One thing I forgot to mention in the post was that I took the wine and cheese out of the fridge only at the last moment. I definitely don’t leave those out well ahead of time!
And it’s a great idea to pre-mix dry ingredients if you can. I haven’t personally done that, but I’ll give it a try in the future. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks everyone for the comments! Glad you’re here.
Jennifer
This is a really good idea that would never have even begun to occur to me.