The whole idea of The Bachelor’s Kitchen is to help single people eat better by learning to cook their own food to become healthier and happier. That means setting up your own system for getting it done without taking too much time or effort. Cooking can be fun. Cooking can be creative. Cooking can be educational.
One of the biggest hurdles home cooks face is time. No one wants to come home from work and spend an hour or two cooking dinner. But you also don’t want to stop at the fast food drive-through for breakfast every day. That way leads to many health problems when you get older.
That’s where the Bachelor Way comes in. It does take a little planning to get started. And there are many tips for cutting down the cooking time, or rather, the time it takes to get everything prepared for cooking.
Planning, Organization Makes It Easier
Whenever a recipe calls for prep time, we always double it at the very least. Often it can take longer. That is a big reason why so many people don’t want to do that at the end of a long day. It’s actually harder when there’s only one of you, or even if there are two. There’s less motivation to take good care of yourself, believe it or not, than when you always face responsibilities.
Once you have set up your eating plan, you can take steps to reduce your prep time so you spend even less time in the kitchen. It all starts with your eating plan. You should get some help for this stage from your doctor or a nutritionist. Next, you look at the weekly circulars from the area grocery stores. This can be made easier by determining if you can do all your shopping at one store. There are many factors to consider and you should make your decision about what’s important to you. If saving money is at the top of the list, you may have to visit several stores to get the best deals. If you can build a weekly menu from the items at just one store, you may find that cheap food does not mean good food. Crappy ingredients make a crappy dish.
Always make a grocery list
Impulse buys will quickly defeat the purpose of cooking better. And remember that cooking good food is important for mental, emotional, and physical health.
While making your list, watch for items you use often going on sale. That’s when you stock up! As we’ve said before, a well-stocked pantry is important for lots of reasons, one of which is that no matter what you make, you have plenty of ingredients to work with.
Now you need to match up your grocery list with your eating plan. Look for recipes that fit the groceries you have or will get. Also, take into consideration that if only a partial amount is used, you find something to do with the rest of the ingredient before it goes bad. You can make a second dish at the same time or later in the week with all your ingredients prepared.
