If I look back and take stock over my last three years I notice and appreciate how far I have come. 3 and a bit years ago I got married to my fiance, we moved in together, and I became a wife who cooked and cleaned and ran a house having previously never done anything like it before. My signature (and only) dish was a stir-fry which I had made about 3 times.
Life became interesting.
Now, 3 years later I realise that I actually have learnt a lot in that time and I have become better at a whole lot of things. Everyday I continue to learn better and easier ways of doing housewife things but recently I have become much more interested in being smart at them.
That is, being smart with my time and methods. Is what I'm doing really a good use of my time? Could I do this a faster, easier way? Do I even need to do this? Am I doing it well?
One thing in my home that I have a love hate relationship with it cooking and baking so I'm trying to get smart at it. You see, I love having food in my belly but I hate preparing it. Mostly, its a lack of knowledge and understanding of food. Oh, and a loathe of dishes.
Last week I realised that if I baked 3 batches of cookies all at once I still do the same amount of dishes and it only takes me about 10 minutes longer (!!!!!!)
So as I was going to bake my usual batch of Edmonds basic biscuits with chocolate chip cookies I tripled everything, rolled them into balls and freezed them in 10-biscuit-lots.
Brilliant.
We have had "fresh" cookies almost every night this week, I simply take a bag out the freezer whenever we want them, put them in the microwave for 1 minute, push them down with a fork and bake for 10 minutes. We literally have fresh bickies in 13 minutes (before my milo has even gone cold)
Once I realised how genius this was of me I have since baked 20 individual handmade pizzas of different toppings to quickly pull out for lunches when I can't be bothered making the husbands lunch (yes, I make it, I know).
Now I'm looking for other ways I can be a very clever home maker. Do you have any ideas for me? Leave a comment and let me know!
Hehe, everyone loves cookies!! When I meal plan- if I dinner can be doubled or tripped I do it and freeze the rest in dinner portions for another night/when Its been a long day and dinner just needs to be pulled from the freezer- Its surprising how much you dont notice in $$ the 4/5 extra meals added to the meal plan when just add a few bits here and there when doubling the recipe.
ReplyDeleteThat is brilliant! Such a good idea!
DeleteDo you use the basic biscuit recipe or the chocolate chip one with condensed milk?
ReplyDeleteJust the basic biscuit receipe and add choc chips (I actually use buttons and chop them up). The basic receipe require everything I normally have on any given day, whereas I never ever have condensed milk
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I do the cookie thing too!
ReplyDeleteI always double or triple the banana bread recipe, pop them in texas muffin tins and then freeze. I make double serves of soup and freeze one - recently I saw an idea to freeze the soup in muffin tins and then ziploc 3 in a bag which is one serve of soup :D
I also am in love with my slow cooker - it really helps with making life easier and the cooking in those is SO simple :)
GREAT MINDS!!
DeleteI'm starting to realising that doubling my cooking is a very smart idea. I love your soup idea too.
I haven't cranked out the slow cooker yet but I definitely need to get onto that!
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Let me know when you do and I'll send you my favourite (easy) recipes.
DeleteThat's so sweet you make your hubby's lunch :) I make mine too...but only in the form of leftovers! He'd be stoked if I made little pizzas like this, I'm sure!
ReplyDeleteI find meal planning works wonders for me. I sit down with the recipes I want to make, write my shopping list from that and then when it comes to cooking, I know I have exactly what I need.
Other than being organised with foody things...I just write loads of lists that say things like: "Wash nappies. Hang nappies. Fold nappies. Midwife at 3pm. Call mum&dad. Wash clothes. Hang clothes. Fold clothes..."
Haha, hubs always gets left overs. I think he kind prefers it though because then he gets a 'meal' rather than sandwhiches. heh. The pizzas are just incase theres no left overs and no ham sandwhiches ready to go!
DeleteWhere would us listys be without our lists huh!?
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Clever! I am relatively useless with my wife-time and dinner times. Our big new thing is meal plan, although we do it after we shop, I buy like one meat packet per animal (beef, chicken, lamb, fish) or whatever is cheapest and then figure out what will accompany each meat. It usually works.
ReplyDeleteOther than that there are SO many things you can freeze, my mum used to freeze my sandwiches and other things each week
WAHOO for the meal plan! Well done on that big step! Are you loving it so far?
Deletethat's an interesting way to meal plan, i'm sure it works! That way you're basing it on specials. But you guys are meat based dinner people anyway so thats probably the best thing for you!
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Oh my gosh, you are awesome! Can you please be my wife too? ;)
ReplyDeleteThat IS smart! I wish I was that well organised!
ReplyDeleteBTW thanks for the blog designer suggestion. I am bookmarking her. :)
Loving finding your blog, I've been finding some similarities in your life, that reminds me of mine. I also met my Mike young, at 17, I was quite literally useless, I had to learn how to use a washing machine, boil an egg,,and the list goes on. Over the years I got more and more proficient in the kitchen, though the housework could still need some work ;) Well done with freezing prepared goodies, I also freeze alot, cheese, butter etc. And I can vouch with meal planning :)
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