Sometimes, the hardest part of cooking is all the assembly work. I hate digging through boxes and bags, measuring, and then sticking them away every single time, which can be tedious. However, I have a few kitchen shortcuts that can help simplify and speed up meal preparation so that you can have more free time.
I have found a fantastic time saving way to measure the rice, elbow macaroni or the like for those recipes, which helps speed up meal preparation. This is much more convenient and what I do now. Here is what I recommend. The next time you empty a 15-16 oz. peanut butter jar, wash it and save this for rice or macaroni. Each jar of that size will contain about two cups of dry. So when you need to whip up a casserole, all you have to do is grabbing your filled jar and use it. This is a far easier way when preparing a recipe.
If you usually need one cup of rice in your recipe, you just use half of the jar. The same principle goes if you normally need four cups of rice or macaroni. All you do is pull out two jars.
In fact, I buy my rice in a 25-pound bag. I fill up as many of those peanut butter jars with rice as I have available. The rice I keep in large canisters or even those five-quart plastic ice-cream buckets are great for this purpose.
Another useful trick to speed up meal preparation is organizing all your ingredients and proper pots, baking sheets, etc. before even beginning the recipe. When you have everything you plan to use in front of you, you can save time hunting in your pantry, refrigerator or cupboard.
Something else that can speed up meal preparation is cooking in one pot. If you have a heavy casserole with a lid that you can brown onions, garlic and vegetables that is large enough to accommodate a sauce and meat and cook in your oven or stove, then you have less clean up later.
I do hope you’ll try these helpful recycling and kitchen prep tips because it will simplify and speed up meal preparation more than you know!
