30 Minute Cooking Plan - article by New Look 4 Article Every Hour |
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Your custom 30 minute cooking plan that works every day of the week!For many of us, the relaxed dinner around the dining table, with all family members present, has become a thing of the past. Schedules are hectic and so often everyone can't get together at the same time. Maybe Dad or Mom has to work late, while the kids have after school activities or a college night class. Whatever the reason, whoever is the designated cook probably doesn't have a lot of time to prepare meals. Some cook books promise 30 minute meals, but from reading some of the recipes and preparation tasks, you might easily gain the impression that the cook who wrote the book must not have time to breathe to accomplish the meal in just the stated 30 minutes. Besides, you may not even like three quarters of the recipes. So what's the answer? Your own customized 30 minute cooking plan, plus a little organization. Let's see how you can make a real 30 minute cooking plan that works. As you might suspect, organization is the real key. You know which dishes your family likes and you've probably got a number of favorites. Spaghetti, meatloaf, stew, chili, enchiladas and other such meals that can be made in large batches and frozen in dinner sized portions are the time saving gems that are the basis of a successful 30 minute cooking plan. You'll probably want more diversity, but you can see that this strategy makes your 30 minute cooking plan a winner. Let's see how you can make twenty nights of meals in about three hours. Grouping dishes like spaghetti, meatloaf, tacos, enchiladas and burgers, you can save even more time. Planning weekly menus allows you to take advantage of sales, saving you money and makes shopping quicker and easier. When ground beef is on sale, buy all that you need to make four batches of each. When you get home, divide the beef immediately. Make burger patties, sandwich them between sheets of waxed paper and freeze. While you're doing that, fry the meat for the spaghetti, enchiladas or tacos in a large skillet, in batches as necessary. When your burger patties are into the freezer, separate the cooked, chopped burger meat for each dish and season as appropriate. Bag in freezer bags, with Tex-Mex seasoned portions for tacos and enchiladas. Leave the ground beef for your spaghetti in the frig. All of this preparation can be easily done in about an hour's time. Now, get out a large crock pot. In the next 15 minutes, you can slice mushrooms, chop a couple of onions, pour in a couple large jars of spaghetti sauce and the meat. It cooks itself! Your 30 minute cooking plan has produced 4 nights of ready to eat meals, and 12 more requiring just minutes of effort to serve. Sixteen nights in all. Let's say an hour and 15 minutes is all you want to deal with today. Season the remaining ground beef reserved for the meatloaf with thyme and parsley (or whatever) and stick it in the frig. Tomorrow, in just a half hour's time, mix the seasoned meat with eggs, bread crumbs and Worcestershire, Liquid Smoke, barbecue sauce or whatever your preference. Divide into four foil-lined meatloaf pans. Cook and freeze. It's as easy as that. Twenty nights of eating for under two hours effort, with maybe fifteen minutes work each night, getting it to the table. You can see that a true, workable 30 minute cooking plan is yours for the taking. Even side dishes, like rice pilaf, can be made in large do-ahead batches and frozen. Rice does just fine in the freezer. So many cook books say that rice is so quick and easy that there's no point in freezing ahead. It's your time we're talking about!
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