Summer days, though longer, never seem long enough with all the summer temptations calling your name. Incorporate some or all of these 10 tips to cut your cooking time. Get started with examples showing you how to implement the tips, and regain up to 10 hours or more each week for leisure activities. Wouldn’t you rather have fun this summer?
Reclaim Your Summer Leisure Time
As temperatures soar, heavy winter meals lose their luster, and the kitchen loses its appeal for all but the diehards. The days, though longer, never seem long enough with all the summer temptations calling your name. Endless meetings, hours of staring at a computer keyboard, and carting the children hither and yon, further reduce your desire to labor over a hot stove during the summer. These factors present not only a challenge, but an opportunity to alter your cooking habits for the summer and to provide a lighter, varied menu for the nightly family dinner.
Additional Benefits
The unintended consequences of following these tips will delight you, as well:
Your kitchen will stay cool and comfortable.
You’ll have fewer unrecognizable leftovers cluttering the recesses of your refrigerator.
You’ll eliminate the need for fast-food dinners.
Proven Tips and Tricks to Quick & Easy Summer Cooking
Incorporate some or all of the 10 tips below, complete with examples for how to implement each tip, to help you regain up to 10 hours or more each week for leisure activities. Wouldn’t you rather have fun this summer? Let’s get started!
1. Deep-freeze Mondays. The summers are full of three-day weekends, both scheduled and impromptu. Get back into the work routine on Mondays by raiding your freezer for a pre-prepared entrée for Monday night dinners. Transfer the entrée to the refrigerator on Sunday afternoon when you begin to prepare dinner. It’ll be fully defrosted by the time you’re ready for it on Monday. (Time savings: at least 1 hour per week.)
2. Shake it up, baby! Instead of reaching for the same spices each time you use a spice mix, prepare a batch of your favorite blends ahead of time. Use time on the telephone to mix spice combinations. Store them in a glass bottle in the pantry to preserve flavor and freshness. For example, lemon pepper, garlic powder, hickory salt, paprika and dried mustard makes a quickie rub for steaks. Do the same with herbs and spices for pizzas, spaghetti, vegetables and dipping sauces for bread. (Time savings: hours, depending on your normal spice use.)
3. Go light on the baked desserts for the summer. Replace complicated baked desserts with a lighter, easier version for the summer. Freeze whole bananas, and eat as popsicles or use as “ice cream” for a hot fudge sundae. Freeze fresh berries to indulge your berry fantasies on a whim. Try grilled peach halves, lightly brushed with oil and filled with blue cheese. Buy a pound cake, and top with fresh or frozen berries for guests. (Time savings: at least 2 hours per week, per dessert.)
4. Replace weekend lunches with summer smoothies or cold soups. If you haven’t taught the family the art of preparing their own lunch on the weekends, you’ll love this idea. All you need for a summer smoothie is a blender, some ice, one or more fruits of your choice, yoghurt or milk, and optional sweetening agents and/or flavorings. Cold soups work on the same principle, minus the ice. (Time savings: 1 hour per weekend.)
5. Serve a salad for dinner one night each week. We’re not suggesting that you throw a wedge of iceberg lettuce and a bottle of Thousand Island dressing at your family and call it dinner. Instead, serve leftover grilled entrées atop a bed of crisp summer lettuce with a restaurant-quality salad dressing or vinaigrette. Build a salad around red and green leaf lettuce, leftover grilled steak and blue cheese vinaigrette, and your family will look forward to salad night. Add a loaf of fresh French bread and a dipping sauce made from oil and a spice blend, and you’ve got a complete dinner. (Time savings: 1 hour per week.)
6. Turn Friday nights into a relaxing fruits de mer occasion. After a long week at work, it’s nice to have something to look forward to on Friday night. Do as the Mediterraneans do, and feast outdoors on a seafood platter. You’ll need nothing more than your favorite seafood, steamed, boiled or grilled with a side of clarified butter—and don’t forget the paper towels! (Time savings: 1 hour. Use the found hour to savor a relaxing, enjoyable meal and unwind from a week of work.)
7. Lighten up for the summer. You don’t have to be a pro at producing spa cuisine to eat less meat and more produce in the summer. A grilled portobello mushroom, glazed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil is a suitable meat entrée substitute. Stuff the mushroom with your favorite stuffing, and you’ve got the makings of a complete dinner. Skip the heavy, rich sauces in favor of vinaigrettes. If you routinely serve asparagus with hollandaise sauce, you can drizzle the asparagus with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt before grilling. You’ll taste sweet flavors you never knew existed. (Time savings: 30 minutes to 1 hour in prep, cooking and clean-up time.)
8. Grill whenever possible. There’s far less clean-up associated with grilling than with cooking in the oven or on the stovetop. Marinating in plastic zipper bags produces fewer pans to clean. You might like this lifestyle so much that you may join the more than 50% of Americans who grill year-round. (Time savings: at least 30 minutes in clean-up.)
9. Cook once, eat three times. Bulk cooking is no secret, but it’s usually presented as “once-a-month cooking,” and who wants to spend one entire day each month during the summer cooking? If you cook a double portion of steak, chicken and shrimp each time you grill, you can stretch two portions into three meals! If you use meat more like a condiment during the summer instead of as the daily main event, you can have a proper meat and three with the first portion, a summer salad with the half of the second portion, and fajitas with the other half of the second portion. If you have a family of four, grill eight boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Use four chicken breasts for the first meal as the entrée. Slice two breasts and use to top a salad for the second meal, and slice the other two breasts for chicken fajitas. You’ve created three meals in record time, with minimal cleanup. (Time savings: 2 or more hours.)
10. Toss it! Eat on paper plates whenever possible. You’ll save on water, you’ll save time, and paper plates without a plastic coating are biodegradable. (Time savings: priceless!)
Note: Time savings show the minimum time savings you should realize. Your mileage may vary.
Planning is Essential
You’ll need to plan in advance to get the most from these tips.
One night each week, plan the week’s menu.
One day a week, skip your lunch hour at work, leave one hour early, and head for the grocery.
That same night, grill your entrée that will serve triple duty.
Use these tips as a starting point, and you’re bound to come up with ideas of your own. Once you master the art of saving time in the kitchen, you may find cooking more enjoyable and less like work.