Help me meal prep -- the prep, not the cook -- better
July 4, 2022 6:18 PM   Subscribe

I can't cook anything without both getting completely out of sync and dirtying every dish and kitchen thing I own. Please do one of the following A) Diagnose what I am doing wrong and B) Give me your best tips for the prep part of cooking (assembling and preparing ingredients etc.)

OK, so today I made this (thanks to all who answered my earlier question about chard). I added some chorizo. It took maybe an hour and as always happens when I cook, it left my kitchen looking like a tornado hit it and resulted in 1.5 loads of dishes in the dishwasher.

Here's what that involed:

Pot for the pasta
Strainer for the pasta
Pan for everything else
Spatula
knife to separate two frozen sausages from the others
Scissors to cut up the sausage
Tongs to move the sausage in the pan before cutting up (they were still frozen)
Pasta serving thing (like a slotted spoon with curled fingers, you know the thing)
Spatula
Lettuce spinner (3 pieces )
Cutting board
Knife to cut the chard/garlic
Bowl to keep the stems in while I'm drying the leaves
Giant bowl for the leaves
Salad chopper to finely chop the leaves
Plate to put the garlic on after I cut it but then I need the cutting board again
Citrus squeezer for the lemon juice (two pieces)
Chopper for hazelnuts (two pieces)
And note that I never really bothered measuring anything or I would have had measuring cups and spoons, too.

And then there's the timing problem. So mentioned in my post about the chard and kale that i often find when I try to sautee greens I over-sautee and they're gross. Well the reason for that is that recipes always say "While X is happening, do Y" but X never takes long enough to do Y, so I end up Xing way too long. I try to avoid that sometimes by having all the ingredients ready. But then today, for example, I thought it was all done and when it was time to add the leaves I realized they were still whole and i needed to chop them. So I turn of the stove so the stems don't overcook while I'm chopping the leaves, but of course that changes the whole momentum of the cooking. And then I went to put the food on plates and what do I spy but the garlic that I carefully chopped and then never added. And I forgot to retain some pasta water like the recipe said (was fine, didn't need, but that would have been yet another bowl or something).

How the hell does anybody do this? Do other people actually manage to do one thing while another thing is happening without messing up the timing? Does everyone dirty everything they own every time they cook a meal from scratch? Please either tell me what I specifically am doing wrong or give me your best tips for making the prepping part of cooking proceed more smoothly and neatly.
posted by If only I had a penguin... to Food & Drink (45 answers total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
I leave my prepped things on the cutting board, but maybe yours is too small for that.

Cut the chard/garlic with a knife, then use that knife to separate the sausages. Then use that knife instead of the scissors. Use a fork instead of the tongs.

Dry your lettuce in a paper towel, take it outside, and swing your arm like a salad spinner.

Hand squeeze your lemons.

As for timing, get everything ready before you start.

COOKING IS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!
posted by Windopaene at 6:32 PM on July 4, 2022 [7 favorites]


Mis en place (prepping everything in advance) can produce more dishes, but then as you get more used to it, much easier to clean as you go (unless you have time blindness).

Consider what order you cut things, start with “neutral” veggies like zucchini or chard, then garlic/herbs, then meats. You don’t need ti wash in between, just at the end.

As you use things, as long as you don’t cross contaminate you can reuse them, so for example whatever bowl had the hard leaves could then hold the reserve pasta water.

Also I pretty much never use a strainer- I just (carefully and well practiced!) use the lid to strain out the pasta. Usually you want some reserve water anyway so it work out, or you can set it back on the burner a moment and let the water evaporate out quickly- I’ll do that with potatoes for mashed potatoes for example .
posted by raccoon409 at 6:33 PM on July 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


You have too many single-use gadgets that could be replaced by re-using the same tool or using your hands. I usually use one knife and cutting board for meat and one other knife and board for everything else, keeping food safety in mind. You can get rid of the multiple choppers and work on improving on your knife skills. Transferring ingredients from prep surface to the cooking pan, drying the produce, squeezing citrus can all be done with your hands, making sure to wash them before and after. Once again keeping food safety in mind, bowls and strainers can be reused after rinsing.

Some recipes are just inherently difficult to get right when it comes to timing and keeping track of parallel processes. The more experience you have cooking a dish, the more you will figure out which details are critical for the recipe to work and which pitfalls to avoid. I think a lot of people just avoid more complicated dishes and lean towards more straightforward recipes like soups and stir-fries that are more flexible. Also having a second set of hands (if possible), often makes more complex recipes easier to handle. One person can prep and clean while the other focusses on the cooking process.
posted by arcolz at 6:47 PM on July 4, 2022 [15 favorites]


Tongs for serving pasta and for moving things in pan/pot.

One bowl for anything, assuming the steps are at different phases.

Also, I wash a little at a time when there's a lull in cooking. I'll wash all the prep stuff when the pasta's cooking and sauce is simmering.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 6:48 PM on July 4, 2022


Yeah, fill the sink with soapy hot water before you start prepping (assuming you have a double-basin sink and/or don't need to drain anything). That way you can easily wash at least some of the dishes, utensils and knives as you go rather than having a big pile at the end to deal with.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:54 PM on July 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


I realized that cooking was harder for me than your average person when I complained to my therapist about my problem of constantly walking away in the middle of cooking and completely forgetting about it for hours, and she suggested a technique that she learned from... a memoir of a woman recovering from a significant traumatic brain injury. It worked well for me! (The technique: carrying a specific colorful cooking implement whenever I leave the kitchen, to remind me what I'm in the middle of.) But I realized that most people do not need techniques developed for people with TBIs to cook basic meals on a daily basis.

It could be a lack of experience or technique. But your description sounds a lot like me when I'm cooking recipes I've cooked for years, and which almost always end up with multiple mishaps as I struggle to handle the different steps and frequent task-switching and time management. If this also happens to you even with very familiar recipes, I would say that yeah, other people are simple better at managing this than you.

All that to say, definitely try the techniques suggested in this thread. But if you still find you can't do it, it may be because it is legitimately harder for you than other people. For me, it's a combo of autism, ADHD, and the impacts of childhood seizures on my brain development. Giving up on cooking with the stove or recipes longer than about five steps, at least for day-to-day fueling (I will still cook occasionally, knowing it will likely be an all day affair and full of frustration and planning accordingly), was important in reducing my overall stress and improving my well-being. So, if that's where you eventually end up, know that it's okay and valid to decide most cooking is simply too hard to be worth the effort for you personally.
posted by brook horse at 6:56 PM on July 4, 2022 [8 favorites]


When I'm doing prep, like chopping vegetables, ingredients that get added at the same time are always in the same bowl. I might use that same bowl for later steps, even if I have to rinse it out in between.

Items like a salad spinner or salad chopper would only go into the dishwasher every so often. Instead, I would rinse out the items if they seemed to need it and leave them out to air dry. (To me, drying something with a towel is a total waste of time. Mr. DrGail completely disagrees with me on that point.)

Items like knives and cutting boards get used in the order of least-dirtying to most-dirtying so they can be reused until the very end of the prep, at which point they need to be washed. I always think ahead to which utensils can be reused throughout the cooking process so I don't dirty more than one. Even if it gets dirty early on, a quick handwashing should be sufficient for reuse in that same meal prep. It's not like there's enough time for bacteria to grow, or anything.

I also make heavy use of disposable things like waxed paper, which is terrific for things like shaved cheese, and plastic ziploc bags for breading chopped meat or mixing ingredients instead of using a big bowl. They're also fabulous for marinating ingredients.

Don't be too hard on yourself, though. The first time you make something is always awkward IME. Each successive iteration gets more and more efficient until eventually you look as smooth and practiced as the chefs on TV.
posted by DrGail at 6:57 PM on July 4, 2022 [6 favorites]


I chop everything in advance and lay it all out on a cookie sheet with raised sides. If it's dry (nuts or seeds or dried spices, for instance), I do put them in little custard cups. I would have used a knife or maybe 2 or 3 knives for all of the chopping. I wouldn't have used a greens chopper or a hazelnut chopper or scissors. Knives for everything. Unless it feels unsafe. Well sharpened knives are important.

I prep absolutely everything before turning on any heat. It takes me a long time because I don't have skills.

I read the recipe 17 times while making it. That's how I remember the garlic.

I do tend to stage things in space if they're not going on the cookie sheet. For instance, if baking, I'll put all of the containers of things on a tidy part of the kitchen counter. Then as I use it, I move it off to the side or put it away. So if I'm making cookies, the flour, baking powder, white sugar, brown sugar, salt, pecans, chocolate chips, butter, vanilla, and eggs will all start out on the counter. As I finish things they'll go away so I know I used them already, like the flour, baking soda, and salt will all go back to their regular storage spaces as soon as I've measured them out into the dry mix bowl.

And again, I'll read the recipe obsessively to make sure I'm not forgetting anything. I need to be alone in the kitchen too.

I once made homemade lasagna, and it was only as I was serving myself the first piece that I realized I had left the noodles draining in the sink. So I have had to make accommodations to avoid that kind of mistake since.

As for the pasta water, when you're pouring the pasta into the colander, just pull back when there's still like a half cup of water in the pot.

I'm a big fan of a salad spinner. I would keep that in the mix.

Try to wash dishes as you go. A lot of dishes get used when cooking. The trick is to try to stay on top of them. If you prep slowly and methodically like I do, there's usually time to do most of the non-hot dishes as you go.
posted by happy_cat at 6:58 PM on July 4, 2022 [4 favorites]


Having a big enough cutting board that won't slide around is very helpful - you can leave multiple ingredients on it without needing separate mis-en-place bowls. Also, it makes it easier to selectively gather stuff up with a bench scraper, the back of the knife, or just your hand when you need to throw them into a pan.

Keep a dedicated kitchen towel handy that's used only for giving a quick wipe to knives and other kitchen tools so they can be reused immediately without washing (except for anything coming into contact with raw meat, obv). Also, I think there are some things that don't need thorough washing after every use. Like a citrus squeezer or a salad spinner, or a bowl that's held chopped veggies can usually just be given a quick rinse and set on a drying rack.

Regarding timing, it's never as easy as recipes make it seem. But the more you cook the better your sense for how long things take.
posted by theory at 7:01 PM on July 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


Yeah - it's really hard to balance everything.

Read the recipe at least 3 times and make a plan/order of what you will prep.

Consider breaking up the prep into smaller sessions. A lot of items can be prepped ahead. Cheese can be grated, nuts toasted and chopped, greens washed and stripped 2-3 days in advance. For instance I'll wash and strip greens when I get them in the house and store them in bags in the fridge. If you are making the entire recipe in one go, check items off a list.

Break prep up into whatever categories make sense for you (main ingredients vs garnishes for instance, or cutting board stuff vs just measuring)

As you prep stuff, line it up in order that it gets added to your dish. happy_cat's comment about using a cookie sheet/sheet pan? That's perfect. You can pile some stuff directly on the pan to eliminate bowls.

If you are overwhelmed with the cooking and timing, then I suggest that you tackle one issue at a time. Don't try to wash dishes while actively cooking. Once the heat is on, you can fully focus on the steps of the dish (unless you truly have some items that don't need attention for several minutes like roasted veggies). Once you have that flow down, then you'll see where you have time to do a bit of clean up in the midst of cooking.

Good advice above on eliminating a few utensils/tools. Pick and choose.

I can say that decent knife skills makes all prep easier. Maybe consider a knife skills class if you don't feel confident?

Good luck!
posted by jenquat at 7:09 PM on July 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


I showed this post to my partner with ADHD, who is a much better cook than me and was taught many of the techniques described by posters above, and who is responsible for the cooking in the household. They said, "Yeah, that sounds like every experience I've ever had trying to cook food from scratch, including recipes I know by heart. That's why I make recipes that are basically just 'dump it in and cook the hell out of everything for half an hour.' If it requires any kind of delicacy or timing, I'm fucked." Just as another data point. I don't know if you have any kind of neurodivergence, but sometimes practice doesn't make perfect and that's not your fault.
posted by brook horse at 7:10 PM on July 4, 2022 [8 favorites]


Yeah, a lot of articles about cooking and so on will say “get rid of the salad spinner,” but I heartily disagree, and I generally hate single-use implements. There’s no way to dry greens neatly and efficiently without a spinner, and the spinner does it amazingly well and quickly. I was persuaded to give mine up and immediately regretted it. Yeah, you can use the “spin it around in a bag” method, but I never found a way to do that without getting myself and everything around me soaked. Not worth it. After I tried that a few times, I went out and bought a new spinner and that was that.
posted by holborne at 7:26 PM on July 4, 2022 [4 favorites]


When I’m learning a new recipe or trying to manage the timing of preparing a multiple-course meal, I write out the instructions by hand that also include the appropriate amount that I’m making — so I’d add steps like “thinly slice 4 cloves of garlic and 2 bunches of chard” at the beginning (I do this a lot with baking because I tend to scale recipes down). It’s a little tedious at the beginning, but it helps me visualize how I’m going to cook and plan out the timings to get everything done.

I’ve also picked up more tips from cooking classes and a knife skills class, if those would be up your alley. We did a few classes that were at the cook’s home, and watching them in a home-cooking environment was helpful.

Good luck!
posted by sincerely yours at 7:29 PM on July 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


When I'm doing prep, like chopping vegetables, ingredients that get added at the same time are always in the same bowl. I might use that same bowl for later steps, even if I have to rinse it out in between.

I was about to suggest the same thing. That's what I always do.

Also, everything involving the sausage jumped out at me -

knife to separate two frozen sausages from the others
Scissors to cut up the sausage
Tongs to move the sausage in the pan before cutting up (they were still frozen)


I have a few suggestions here.

Firstly: it looks to me like what you're doing is, when you bring the package of sausage home from the supermarket, is that you throw the whole thing in the freezer. And that leaves you stuck later on trying to pry off what you need from this huge block of frozen sausage. Instead, there's a trick I've learned for making it easy on yourself when you freeze things, and all it involves is an extra bit of time, some quart-size or gallon-size freezer baggies, and some of those "snack size" plastic baggies. Stock up on those. Then when you get home - instead of throwing the whole package of sausage into the freezer as is, you get out the snack size baggies, unwrap the sausage, and fill a few of the snack-size baggies with just one or two links of sausage each. Seal them, and then put all of those sealed baggies together into a larger freezer baggie, and put that in your freezer. That way, when you need just two frozen sausages out of the freezer, you can just reach into the freezer baggie, pull out one of those smaller baggies with just two sausages in it, and you're done - no tools needed. This would even let you thaw your two sausage links out overnight in the fridge if you wanted to do that.

Secondly....I'm not sure why you're using scissors to cut up the sausage, rather than a knife? If I were making this recipe I would totally use the same knife for everything - garlic, onions, chard, sausage, everything. Some may read that and worry about cross-contamination, but that would only be a concern if I were cutting the sausage up first and THEN using the knife on the veg; if I cut up the veg first, I could totally use the same knife on the sausage. (Unless it sucked, then I may switch to a better knife.)

Finally - when I am browning sausages, I almost never use tongs. I instead use whatever other implement I've been using - spatula, spoon, whatever is handy - to nudge the sausages just enough to roll them over a bit.

Other notes (and apologies if I jump around a bit):

Pasta serving thing (like a slotted spoon with curled fingers, you know the thing)

I had one of these for a while but found I simply wasn't using it all that much. It was way easier to drain my pasta by just dumping it into a collander set over the sink, and then dumping the pasta in the collander into whatever it needed dumping into.

Salad chopper to finely chop the leaves

Assuming you mean the chard leaves, I'd be using the same one knife I'd already been using for everything here.

Lettuce spinner (3 pieces )

I'm a bit lost here - what is this being used for? If it's for the chard, then you actually needn't spin dry the chard at all. At most I'd get a couple paper towels and sort of pat them on the pile of chard leaves to soak some of the water up; but if it's just about to be sauteed anyway, you don't have to get it as pristinely dry as a salad spinner would do.

Chopper for hazelnuts (two pieces)

Oh, I just buy pre-chopped nuts instead of whole nuts. Life is too damn short.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:30 PM on July 4, 2022 [8 favorites]


Do you have a small kitchen? That makes things harder. Try decluttering the counter (even just put stuff into a laundry basket and move it temporarily) so you have more space to work. In a small space I also prefer to have fewer gadgets so you could have maybe used the same knife for a few of those tasks.

If you’re cooking vegetables you don’t necessarily need to dry or spin them, you can just shake them off over the sink. The water left on them will usually just evaporate as they cook.

This is also a rather fussy recipe! I don’t usually cook meals where this many things need to be done. I usually do stuff with less than 5 ingredients (like: pasta, veg, meat, cheese) - once you add in chopped hazelnuts and squeezing a fresh lemon things start getting annoying. I don’t even own a salad spinner, I buy washed greens usually, and no veggie chopper, just a knife. Your recipe required a lot of work! Maybe pick simpler recipes.

Watch YouTube videos of people cooking in small terrible kitchens to see how they stay neat. June from Delish is amazing.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 7:42 PM on July 4, 2022 [4 favorites]


I counted five cutting devices (scissors, two knives, two choppers) -- that could all be done with a single knife, for example.

I agree with EC just above, there's no need for a salad spinner in this recipe. If there is any water on the leaves, that will get cooked off once they go into the pan.

So there's ways to reduce the number of implements you are using, but most of all I agree with everyone who is saying that as you cook a recipe more often (or, cook variations on a recipe), you become fast and efficient. Cooking is presented in recipes and in shows like it is easy and natural, but it isn't either of those. It's normal for it to be hard and inefficient when you are trying new dishes.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:42 PM on July 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


Something that you might benefit from is taking some actual cooking classes focused on specific skills. Specifically, knife skills. Learning how to properly use a knife (and maintain it) can be transformative for your cooking skills, as something like cutting an an onion can be something that takes a few seconds for someone who knows how to do it properly with a sharp knife- or several minutes for someone without the skills and a dull knife.

Building knife skills will also give you confidence to ditch all kinds of single-purpose cutters and slicers that are basically supports for those who haven't had a chance to learn how to use a knife properly.
posted by rockindata at 7:44 PM on July 4, 2022


Response by poster: Thanks everyone...To clarify a few things...

I can't squeeze lemon by hand effectively. I once had my grip strength measured as part of a research study and the researcher literally thought her measurement machine was broken. It was not.

I forgot until the last minute that I intended to add the sausage, so I pulled them out of the freezer frozen, put a cm or so of water in the pan and stuck the while frozen sausage in there. Once they thawed enough to cut, I cut them with scissors because I don't want to damage my pan by cutting with a knife in there. But honestly, sausage just cuts more easily with scissors than with a knife. Even if I'd had thawed sausage and a cutting board, I would use scissors. I cut my pizza with scissors too. Love scissors.

Pasta serving thing is for serving, not draining. Like getting the pasta from the pot to the plate.

I put things into the dishwasher as I finish using them, just to try to keep the counter clear-ish.

I just ordered a bigger cutting board. In truth my cutting board strategy has long been to have a million cutting boards so there's always one clean. But my cutting boards somehow disappear like socks in a dryer and right now I have only little ones.

The salad spinner was to dry both the chard stems and the leaves. I assume sauteeing the leaves wet would make them all steamed instead of sauteed. But as already established, I don't really understand sauteeing greens, so maybe I'm wrong.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:55 PM on July 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


I’d recommend watching people cook on YouTube to get a sense of this. Specifically, I really enjoy watching Kenji Alt-Lopez on YouTube. He was a professional chef and he does a lot of videos using a go pro so you can see how he does mis en place and how he times when he does what. Also he gives great knife tricks and examples of efficiencies in an accessible way for home cooks. The man also tidies and cleans as he cooks, which inspires me.

I have a small cutting board because I have a small kitchen. When I cook I have a stack of plastic quart containers (like the small take out ones) and I put my chopped up food in there. As I use them, I either re-use if it makes sense (eg late stage garnishes go in a veg container) or I stack them up in the sink.
posted by inevitability at 8:11 PM on July 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


One way to think about this is in terms of space stuff takes up in the dishwasher, or even space taken up relative to added tastiness. So for example, yes you could use a regular fork to serve the pasta instead or use the same knife for the sausage and veg, but those don't really take up much room in the dishwasher. Instead it's probably the bowl, salad spinner, and the choppers.

For the bowl, I'd just leave stuff on the cutting board or use the same plate I planned to eat dinner off of and just rinse as needed. Or if you anticipate leftovers, use whatever container you'll use for those

The choppers do come down to knife skills, but also, sometimes it's faster. For nuts, for me personally, I'm ok with them being a little less finely chopped, so I'd either buy prechoppef or do my best with a knife. Hazelnuts are hard though, I might sub with a softer nut (walnuts?) If I was feeling lazy about chopping.

For the salad spinner, I haven't had trouble rinsing greens, shaking them off in the sink, and then sauteing. I also but prewashed when I want to save time.

Oh and, while I do prefer fresh lemon, one of those bottles of lemon juice from the store lasts forever and is nice for when your want to minimize dishes.
posted by matildatakesovertheworld at 8:57 PM on July 4, 2022


I'm autistic with ADHD tendencies. While I have managed to cook complicated meals like those you describe, I find that the level of effort and time taken outweigh the satisfaction I get from the meal.

Give yourself a break. Simple skillet meals with a protein, one or two veggies (best: frozen assorted veggies thawed a bit), and one chopped aromatic like garlic are how I roll these days.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 10:47 PM on July 4, 2022 [3 favorites]


Even if I'd had thawed sausage and a cutting board, I would use scissors. I cut my pizza with scissors too. Love scissors.

Fair enough. Life's about tradeoffs. When you're frustrated at the number of dishes to clean at the end, remember (or reevaluate) why you used each of them - was the convenience worth the cleanup effort. There are cases where I'll put up with - or gratefully accept - the extra cost of cleaning/storing specialized tools, and cases where I'd rather just use the most basic tools and be done with it.
posted by trig at 11:23 PM on July 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


Even if I'd had thawed sausage and a cutting board, I would use scissors. I cut my pizza with scissors too. Love scissors.

In that case know you can use scissors to cut your chard, too.

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's assume I was back in student housing with minimal kitchen utensils.

All the ingredients you list could have been prepped with water, paper towels, a sharp knife and a large chopping board. Your preference to use a range of the different tools means there are a number of different tools to keep track of and clean.

Likewise, your prepped food could then have been cooked with just a single pot, strainer and spatula as well. Boil the pasta first, use the spatula to stir. Drain it and put to one side, still in strainer. Use same pot to cook your sausage and chard, add the seasoning/crunch. Toss pasta back in pot, stir through, it should still be quite hot so not need much by way of warming through again. Serve your food, using the spatula you used for cooking.

So you like to use various tools. You could probably use a lot less if you wanted to pare it down. It's a trade off between different preferences.
posted by koahiatamadl at 11:44 PM on July 4, 2022 [14 favorites]


Seconding the point about dishwasher space.

I bought an incredibly cheap set of porcelain ice cream bowls (Amazon, maybe $10) whose purpose is to hold prepped things; I can use them all and they still fit on the top rack of the dishwasher. They have other uses and they're even nice looking. If you're prepping for two or four people you might want to get out the cereal bowls for the same purpose, but again they should stack in the dishwasher nicely (and they're fast to hand wash if that is your option).

Ditto cheap thin and flexible plastic chopping boards; I hang a pile one the wall with a command hook so I always have a clean one handy, and they stand up in the dishwasher to wash. Wooden ones are more of a curse because they have to be hand washed and even if that's your only option it's harder to do with wood.

It makes more mess then perfectly timing your chopping game, but it's so much less trouble and even with a lot of practice my chopping game is not perfectly timed.

Scissors are underrated. They are the magical solution to most problems with sausage and bacon, even chicken breasts, and they also work for herbs and salads at a push. Try to do the meat last; in my book, meat cooking temps kill everything else that might have been carried to the meat by the scissors.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 11:56 PM on July 4, 2022 [2 favorites]


Did the salad spinner and large bowl for washed leaves go into the dishwasher? That sort of thing I will give a rinse at most; they held clean un-juicy foods, they’re clean already. Pasta strainer and citrus squeezer I’ll usually give a swipe with a sponge rather than a whole dishwashing cycle. I don’t use multiple choppers. Knowing when to start various components of the meal is something that gets better with experience (ie, my husband will turn on the water to boil pasta before chopping veg, and the veg will be underdone and the pasta drained and cold by the time we eat; I start the pasta water after the onions are mostly cooked. He thinks potatoes roast faster than they do. On the other hand, he does a great breakfast-for dinner while I’m always still making pancakes after everything else is done. Etc.)

Improving knife skills seems like a good bang for the buck, here. Multiple choppers, taking long enough to chop leaves that you needed to turn the heat off, some cutting board fussiness, and general “recipe times seem way off” all indicate that to me. I learned some basic knife skills working in my college dining hall, make veg-heavy dinners, and mostly chop as I go without losing much time/flavor.
posted by tchemgrrl at 11:56 PM on July 4, 2022


Like inevitability, I get a lot of inspiration from watching Kenji Lopez-Alt cook. I've even found myself copying some of his distinctive moves, just like when I was younger and copied Madonna's dance moves.

Others have mentioned that this is a complicated recipe. I don't know if it is, but it is not very well written. I would have to sit down and break up the parts and rewrite it for myself. So one advice is to look for recipe sites that are well-researched and well-written. Serious Eats, ATK, NYTimes if you want to spend the money for the subscription (I don't), The Guardian, The Woks of Life. There are definitely some good bloggers out there, I look to a specific Danish one every time I am looking for traditional food, but there is something about the business of blogging that can make food blogs hard to cook from.

Mise en place! The funny thing is that I only learnt this during lock-down. I locked down in the countryside, far from any Asian restaurants, and missed all the Asian food. So I had to learn to cook it. And I realized that I had to do the mise en place if I were to succeed. I've always been more of a granny cook, cutting my vegs directly into the pot, but the new (to me) methods and flavors overwhelmed me. And now I do the mise en place for all cuisines, because it is just much simpler and better. I bought some little glass bowls, they don't take up much space in the drawer or in the dishwasher. Prep everything in advance, and as others have said: things that go into the pot at the same time go into the same bowl.
I use two plastic boards because they can go into the dishwasher, and I start with all the vegs and end with the meat. I use my knife for it all, even though I also have very weak hands. It's a very sharp knife. But you could cut a lot of stuff with very sharp scissors if you are so inclined.
For juicing a lemon, I use a fork. It takes up less space than the juicer in the dishwasher.

The salad spinner is a good friend. But it's a good idea to wash and dry your herbs and vegs when you buy them, and them keep them in special veggie bags in the fridge. They keep far longer that way, and then when you want to cook something, you can just get going. The bags can be reused.

Some things I prefer to buy frozen, because they are better value: spinach, green beans and peas. I won't say I never buy them fresh, but I am so often disappointed when I do.

To get back to the food bloggers: most people with a lot of cooking experience have good knife skills. Bloggers are often good cooks, but unexperienced writers, so they forget that other people can't chop a huge bunch of vegetables while the pasta water is boiling. With practice, you will eventually get there. Without practice, you will never get there. It's literally your choice. I am all for vegetable choppers, but I think I prefer the type which is like a handheld food processor. The box type is complicated and bulky. At the end of the day, if I am cooking for many and don't have much time, I use the food processor.

But regardless, don't plan on chopping vegetables while the pasta water is boiling, do the mise en place. My daughter, who still lives at home, is a chef. She just won the best employee of the year at her job, so I'm guessing she is good at it. She seriously never starts the burners before everything is ready.
posted by mumimor at 12:15 AM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]


What I do:
  • Write out the recipe first.
  • Completely ignore anything that says "do X while you Y", "first, turn the oven on to preheat", "set a pan of water boiling before you do anything else" etc. I work at a tenth the speed the recipe writer expects. I need to wash and chop everything before any heat gets applied to anything.
  • Use the smallest bowl or plate possible to hold each group of prepared ingredients, grouping together things that get added together. The baking tray idea strikes me as genius; that's going to save me some plates.
  • Line the bowls and plates up next to the cooker in the order in which I'll be using them. (I have a very small kitchen; it was worth sacrificing some floor space in order to clear this bit of worksurface.)
  • Put utensils, chopping boards and crockery in the dishwasher as soon as I've finished with them; put ingredients back in the fridge or cupboards when I've taken out what I need. If there's anything left in my preparation area when I start applying heat to things, I can see I've forgotten to do something.
  • Accept that cooking a "quick, easy after-work meal" is likely to take me three hours. Start early. Don't do it on a week night.
  • Accept that if just reading through the number of steps in the recipe makes me feel tired, it's not a recipe I'll enjoy cooking.
The salad spinner is a godsend but is too big for my frustratingly tiny dishwasher, so it doesn't get washed up properly, just rinsed and drained. And I have more kitchen scissors, little sharp knives, chopping boards, small bowls etc. than anyone would think sensible, so that even if I've messed up the timing such that the dishwasher is actually running when I start cooking, I will always have what I need.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 2:25 AM on July 5, 2022


This is why, despite the fact that I am a serviceable cook, I HATE COOKING. Everything you describe. Nightmare! It's really not as easy as they say it is! I've never found such a thing as a quick post-work weeknight meal. I don't have a dishwasher which adds to the general sturm and drang of cooking for me.

What I find really helpful:

- giving myself a LOT of time.
- specifically seeking out 'one-pot' recipes. These can be very varied: it's not just stews and soups. I'm a big fan of the 'throw a bunch of things into a pot and come back to it an hour later' style of cooking. A good variation is 'throw a bunch of things onto a baking tray and come back it an hour later'. In general recipes like these are extremely tolerant of a lot of skipping and subbing ingredients. At the end of the meal I do not want to have to wash up more than one pot, one knife and a chopping board. I also never make recipes using ingredients that I would otherwise not use up. I choose my meals based on this set of criteria. Does this limit my at-home diet a little? Maybe, but as I said, the 'recipes' (such as they are) tolerate a lot of variation.
- Frozen, pre-chopped veggies
- Garlic and ginger puree, the type that comes in a jar or a little squeezy tube. I use a LOT of garlic and ginger in my cooking; these are so useful.
- A little bottle of lemon juice to keep in the fridge rather than freshly squeezing a lemon... You get the idea.
- Same with salad leaves etc. I rarely eat salad to be fair, but I would always just buy ready bagged, pre-washed leaves.
- I use the same knife for everything, without bothering to wash, unless it's raw meat obvi.

For a while I was using those meal prep services. (I used Gousto.) This was a good way of getting into making 'fussier' recipes than I would normally. The recipe cards really break down the instructions in a very helpful way, with step 1 being e.g. 'Boil a kettle of water' which food bloggers etc are unlikely to tell you to do, they'll just be like 'Make the pasta' or whatever. I really recommend these services as a way of getting used to multiple-element, more elaborate meals.
posted by unicorn chaser at 3:07 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]


I have a lot of brain fog/fatigue issues, and kitchen stuff tends to happen with a small child underfoot.

I find kitchen tasks exhausting.

I am absolutely exhausted even reading hacks and tips about kitchen stuff.

I have absolutely bagged a lot of notions about food.

Here's my method:

1. Own a slow cooker with a timer. Find recipes for a slow cooker. (Budget Bytes is a favorite.)
2. Prep everything and put it in Tupperwares the night before.
3. Clean up the kitchen.
4. Dump everything into the slow cooker when I wake up, set timer.
5. Eat.
6. Freeze leftovers if possible, so I can skip cooking sometimes.

This cuts out the time pressure and need to multitask, and we all still eat tasty, nutritious stuff.
posted by champers at 3:36 AM on July 5, 2022


Definitely review recipes for complexity before you decide to make them. I'm ruthless at saying no to recipes written by chefs who are used to having assistants and industrial sized dishwashers. And if there's any "while X, do Y" I figure out if I can do Y ahead of time. If not, that's a No.

For example, I love Jamie Oliver's recipes in terms of easy skills and substitutions. But any of his recipes from book with times in the title (30 mins, etc) are for people with far better knife skills than I have. Someone blogged their attempts at his 30 Minute Meals and recorded their times. 30 minutes is a minimum.
posted by harriet vane at 3:44 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]


But honestly, sausage just cuts more easily with scissors than with a knife. Even if I'd had thawed sausage and a cutting board, I would use scissors. I cut my pizza with scissors too. Love scissors.

You've just given me an idea for you - if you like scissors better, then use scissors for everything! Get a couple of big-ass kitchen shears (so you can always have one ready to use when the other is in the wash or something) and whenever you need to cut something, just.....cut it with scissors. This would cut down the need for a cutting board, too - when you're cutting the chard stems, you could just hold the chard stems over a bowl, and snip them into bits so they fall right into the bowl and there you are. Or, hell, make it even easier - don't even cut the stems until you're at the step where you need to add them to the pan so you can just snip them directly over the pan.

And you could totally use them for the chard leaves too. There's a cutting trick I use for leafy greens, where you stack the leaves on top of each other in a neat-ish stack, and then roll the stack up into a log and then you can just chop them by "slicing" the "log". This would be totally do-able with scissors too.

There would still occasionally be things you'd need a knife for (trying to manage the garlic with scissors would probably be tough), but if you've already scissor-cut the stems into one bowl (or into the pan) and the leaves in another bowl, then that's just one knife and a small cutting board, and you can leave the garlic right on the cutting board.

You'd have to be able to CLEAN the scissors, of course, but if you have a dishwasher you can run them through (make sure they're open). I actually have a pair of herb-cutting scissors that have gone through the dishwasher just fine.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:49 AM on July 5, 2022 [5 favorites]


For complex recipes or distractable cooks, mis-en-place is a lifesaver. If you don't usually do it, it seems kinda fussy and like it's making more mess, but the purpose is just to break cooking down into simpler chunks. Prep stage, cooking/heat stage, cleaning stage. And you don't need like a hundred tiny bowls for each ingredient, just a bowl big enough to hold the ingredients for each "batch" of cooking. When trying internet recipes I'll often re-write them in list form in cooking order, like
1) saute x & y
2) add chopped veg a, b, c
3) add spice paste l, m, n, o
then when I'm prepping I'll put x and y in one bowl, a,b, and c in a second bowl, and my spices in a third, so when I'm ready to cook I just dump each bowl into the pan in order. I don't really know why the standard for home recipes is "while x cooks, do y"? Maybe to make the absurd recipe timings ("weeknight 10-min pho!") seem more reasonable?
posted by radiogreentea at 5:53 AM on July 5, 2022


Laughing at how many pieces of myself I recognise in various comments here. Mrs burrito considers me mentally unsound for sharing DrGail’s opinions on the drying rack and towel, for instance…

Sometimes meal prep really is just messy, especially a recipe you’re unfamiliar with. You’re serving it in a presentation bowl rather than straight to plate, so that’s inescapably more dishes too. So it goes.

I would use the same knife for most things; I’d have used it to move the sausage around in the pan, transfer it to an already-used board to chop, then back to the pan. (I’d generally rather a step were slightly more annoying, than create extra washing up.) I also am a big advocate of doing some washing up as you go in spare moments. I’d reuse boards/plates/bowls from veggies as previously mentioned.

Thing is though, any recipe that has fiddly or time-critical steps (like this with the greens) means you’re pretty much stuffed if you don’t have all the things ready, so reuse and keeping on top of the washing is hard. Meals like that need to be delicious to make a reappearance in my kitchen!
posted by breakfast burrito at 6:49 AM on July 5, 2022


I avoid using a salad spinner at all costs because that miserable thing takes up half the dishwasher on its own. No need to dry greens before sauteeing anyway, the water will evaporate fine in the pan.

For this recipe my natural approach would use fewer dishes:

-wash the salad greens in the same strainer used for the pasta
-only buy chopped nuts in the first place
-cut the greens with a knife, the same one used to cut the garlic, lemon etc. Big pieces are just fine. Alternatively, chard leaves are also pretty simple to just tear up by hand.
-usually only use one cooking/serving utensil for everything if I can get away with it, even with multiple pots. So one spatula replaces multiple spatulas+claw pasta thing
-if I need to poke raw meat in a pan I use a fork - much less dishwasher space than tongs or spatula
-combine multiple ingredients in one big prep bowl if they can be cooked at the same time
-even for things like greens stems, I would put them on top of the leaves in the same bowl and just grab them first
-I also usually pick a big soup bowl for the prep bowl and often use it for my meal after too, assuming no raw meat or otherwise dangerous/unpleasant thing was in there

I'd also consider using storebought lemon juice and pre-minced garlic for convenience (especially if you have issues with chopping stuff) even though the taste will suffer a bit, depends how picky you are about taste vs. number of dishes.
posted by randomnity at 7:42 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]


Since there's a lot of discussion about drying the greens and whether a salad spinner is actually necessary, I'm dropping back in to say that with a little forethought, you can delegate the job of drying the greens to your frostfree refrigerator. Just stick those rinsed greens in a bowl and put it, uncovered, in your fridge for a few hours and just like magic you have dried (and crisped!) greens with absolutely no effort on your part.
posted by DrGail at 7:45 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]


I'd suggest a bigger chopping board to start with. Anything that needs to go on a plate once it's prepped can just sit on a corner of your chopping board if it's big enough. The only time you might need a bowl is for anything liquid or to avoid cross contamination of cooked foods. But as all your foods are going in the same pan anyway and cooking together that's not an issue here. Also one knife would have done most of your chopping and be easier to clean than a chopping device. If you like using scissors then use them too. Once everything is prepped for cooking and sitting on your chopping board you're ready to go.

Or if you have the money the obvious solution is buy the stuff already chopped and washed, bottled lemon juice, pre minced garlic, sure fresh tastes slightly better, but if it's stressing you out it's not making enough difference to worry about. Get the hang of assembling the recipes and then slowly add prepping the ingredients as well.
posted by wwax at 8:28 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]


Prep before you prep.

Print out the full recipe at giant size and stick it somewhere in the kitchen you can't ignore (cupboard, fridge). Physically cross out ingredients and steps as you do them. (No one has a printer any more. Copy them to a whiteboard. We use an ancient iPad.) (When there are two people in the kitchen working on the same meal, this is the only way we can stay coordinated.)

Go through all of the steps in your head before you touch anything. Lay out the tools you think you might need, then consolidate. Looking at your steps is how others above and reduced it down to pot, one knife, cutting board, spatula, strainer.

I learned to cook from a poor mom cooking for 8 people, so we didn't have any cooking utensils outside of a few pots, pans, three knives, cutting board, spatula, strainer, measuring cups and spoons. So that's what I know how to cook with. If I tried to use a salad spinner the salad would end up on the floor.

So I guess what I'm saying is these convenience devices only work if they actually work for you. And it sounds like they don't because they create this overhead of clutter and mess?

I'm a little curious where you learned your cooking skills. (I know, we pick them up from everywhere.) A lot of social media chefs are honestly painful to watch because they have such horrible techniques. (Or they're being payed to shill a salad chopper. Or they're doing ridiculous things because Social Media.) Cooking hasn't changed much in the last half century or more. Learn basic kills with basic tools. Watch old The French Chef with Julia Child or get a book like Betty Crocker's Cooking Basics. For more modern stuff, America's Test Kitchen can be fussy, but their prep is often light on the number of tools and their techniques are solid. (Except for baking sheets. Everything goes on a dozen baking sheets with them.)

90% of recipes do not suffer from pre-bought lemon juice, minced garlic, mined ginger, chopped nuts, grated cheese, etc. And we've found using those things saves money—or is at least a wash—because it means less waste.

If you have strength or mobility problems, pay attention to your tools. We have a cook in the family who is missing most of their hand so there are necessities (like a powered can and lid opener) and reading reviews really helps. But generally on a budget and short of time to research we'll just get an OXO brand thingy. They tend to get ergonomics right, and they're built well enough.
posted by Ookseer at 8:29 AM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]


Recipe ingredients aren't just your shopping list. Think of the ingredients as the real step 1 of any recipe. Make sure you have all the ingredients, but make sure each ingredient is prepped the way the recipe calls for. For this recipe, prep your garlic, prep your chard, prep your sausage — all before starting on your pasta. Study the recipe carefully and check off steps as you go. The next time you make the recipe, you might work a little faster because you're familiar with it, but it's OK to go slow.

Every person who enjoys cooking and is a whiz in the kitchen has been where you are, leaving out an ingredient you forgot about, not chopping up something that should have been chopped.

Strainers and salad spinners are great, but they do take up space in the dishwasher. For pasta cooking, we have a pot that has a strainer built in to the lid, so I never need to dump pasta into separate strainer.
posted by emelenjr at 8:48 AM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'm nearing 50 and have two teens and a spouse. I do a lot of short cuts. When I'm prepping ingredients, I keep everything together on one plate/in one bowl. Get all the fiddly things done prior when I'm not in stress mode trying to time everything. I don't use a salad spinner, because it's just more cabinet room.

Nthing - jars of minced garlic and ginger. I use bottled lemon and lime juice.

There are some recipes I can do in two pots (rice cooker + cooking pan). Others just seem to use 15 cooking vessels. I try to limit those to once a week.
posted by heathrowga at 9:15 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]


For a recipe with not a lot of ingredients, that one does indeed have a lot of prep to it. It would take me at least an hour to prep and cook as well. I generally try clean as much as I can as I go, but I also don't use a dishwasher on the regular either. Here's how I'd prep/cook that:

--I'd boil the water and get the pasta cooked early. It will be done while you're prepping, but that's easy enough to multi-task (use timers!). When you drain the pot, I like using a pot drainer as often as possible. Much smaller footprint than a colander. I have one that clips onto my pot, but there are others that you just hold as you're pouring over the sink. The drained pasta sits in the pot it cooked in. Stir occasionally to ensure it doesn't stick to itself. When you put the water on, put a measuring cup in the sink to remind you to save some water.
--grate pecorino into a small bowl with a microplane grater
--Cutting board: chop hazelnuts. Put those in the bowl with the cheese.
--Add raisins to the bowl with the hazelnuts and cheese.
--Cut lemon in half on same cutting board and squeeze into another small bowl. (I have horrible grip strength: I hold a lemon half with one hand and use a fork in the other hand to turn around inside the lemon half, breaking up the segments and making it easy to squeeze.)
--Add olive oil and red pepper flakes to that bowl with the lemon.
--Smash garlic with the side of a broad knife then rough chop. That goes in prep bowl #3 (large enough to accommodate the leaves when they're chopped). If you don't want to chop it, use the microplane grater from the cheese step.
--Rinse chard by hand, give it a few shakes into the sink to dry, and separate leaves from stems. Leaves can sit on a plate/bowl that you'll eventually be eating from for dinner.
--Chop chard stems and put those in prep bowl #4.
--Chop chard leaves and put in bowl #3 with garlic
--Make sure you've got salt and pepper and oil nearby
--Now the skillet comes out to cook in. Heat it up and start at #2 in the recipe's instructions. This will all go quite quickly.

At the end, you'll have 4 prep bowls, microplane grater, cutting board, knife, pot drainer, spoon (use the same spoon for cooking and serving), pot, and skillet, plus whatever you ate it with. Prep bowls are so easy to clean that I wouldn't bother putting them in the dishwasher. If you don't have a bunch of prep bowls (glass or stainless steel are wonderful), I'd get some.

(Adding in the frozen sausage at the last minute definitely threw a wrench into your plans, but ideally, it would have been defrosted (maybe in the microwave if possible), and sliced last on your cutting board, so it could just sit on there until needed in the recipe.

You might find it helpful to look for blogs or recipe sites that are geared toward beginner cooks, where they spell out more of the details. This recipe is very sparsely written, and requires more pre-planning on the part of the cook (which is why a lot of people above mention that they re-write the recipe to suit their needs).
posted by hydra77 at 10:23 AM on July 5, 2022


You've gotten tons of good feedback here, but I want to second or elaborate on several things:

1) Knife skills. Knife skills will serve you. A lot of that is practice and having the right knife and right cutting board and knowing what you're doing, but I do know someone who took a class and he said it was great. When you have better knife skills you certainly won't need a chopper for the greens (I'm not even sure why you think you needed them finely chopped, the visual in the recipe is a pretty rough chop, maybe this is why you are experiencing greens as slimy) and won't need one for the nuts. You might still like your scissors (I use mine for somethings) but maybe not.

2) Who are all these people putting salad spinners and strainers in the dishwasher? That is going to take up all your space, plus it will shorten the life of a spinner for sure. I do find washing and drying my salad spinner to be a bit of a PITA, so I only use it for salad greens. Agree that a salad spinner has a place, but it's not for greens you'll be cooking. Rinse the greens, shake them out and then let them sit awhile in the strainer you're going to use for pasta.

3) Knowing the recipe well before you start. You ran into issues partly because you didn't really know what was going to happen in the recipe. This takes practice and gets better as you cook the same meal.

4) People are talking full mis en place and prep ahead of time, and I don't quite do that but I do know what things are going to take some time and which things time will minimize my other efforts. So that's things like, chopping these nuts will be fussy, so I will do that early and then rinse my knife and board; l after I wash these greens, I'll want to let them drain a bit so I'll do that early (like maybe even the day before). I don't really agree that you need pre chopped stuff, nothing in here is arduous to prep. You just need a good knife and focus.
posted by vunder at 10:31 AM on July 5, 2022


This isn't an unreasonable amount of stuff, I'd focus on why it's wrecking your kitchen and how it amounts to more than one load of dishes. I have a very small kitchen, and it's hard to keep mess and splatter from spreading, but this would still be reasonably straight-forward, and I usually make at least two meals this involved before I have to run the DW. I say this is as a very ADD person who struggles with clutter and etc.

Some thoughts:

Get some ramekins/custard cups and small bowls to hold ingredients as you prep. I like both the traditional stacking ones like from pyrex, and some with flat bottoms and vertical sides (sometimes called serving bowls or serving dishes). They keep prep area more contained and take up less space in the DW.

You can use a coffee cup to reserve a little pasta water.

It's normal to need to wash the spatula and tongs all the time. Same with the shears if they're essential for you. I wouldn't count them.

Use a hand strainer that lives standing up in a utensil canister. Keep the tongs there too.

Things can be quickly washed, rinsed and hang dry on hanging racks, wall racks, peg boards (which are available in painted steel under the 'wall control' brand).

Timing is one of the hard things to learn, cooking capably means more than the sum total of the steps in the recipes and being familiar with the techniques of a cuisine; learning how to sequence prep and when to do what to bring a meal together and turn it out correctly and on time without leaving the kitchen a disaster area and with an efficiency of your own effort is an underbilled but central skill. I've been cooking for myself my whole adult life, and it's still hard for me; but I'm a lot better than I used to be at all that.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:10 AM on July 5, 2022


Sometimes I will use shot glasses for mise en place as well -- measuring out a spice blend or holding something minced, usually.

And I keep a box of those little waxed paper Dixie cups around for mise-en-place use when I don't feel like washing that many ramekins. (The mini size meant for counter-top water coolers and mouthwash dispensers.) It's a bit of extra waste, but I tend to think it's the least of my excess consumption, and it can sometimes save a lot of time and energy with a fussy enough recipe. (Don't store liquid in them for too long, they'll soak through and collapse.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:23 AM on July 5, 2022


I just remembered a thing because it happened right now. When I know I have a ton of prepping ahead of me, I will listen to something interesting while I do it. Today, I listened to a food history podcast, but it could be anything. I often listen to articles that are relevant to my job. You could listen to music that is a bit more challenging than the Hitlist. That way, an hour of prep-work doesn't feel overwhelming at all. Well, and I don't do food like this when I am busy, ever. Stick to simpler recipes on nights when you are home late. I think Ookseer has a very good point here. You are not a line cook. You don't have to serve restaurant-level food every night. Actually, some of the most delicious foods in the world are simple foods that are very easy to cook. Look at this. Or this. (In both cases, I found the promised cooking times to be fairly accurate at my second try).
Another thing, which I didn't do now, but I sometimes do, is to sit down while prepping. In the old times, home cooks would sit down at the kitchen table while cutting up vegetables. It was only between the wars that the concept of productivity entered home cooking. Sitting down, listening to radio, and washing up the dishes as you go makes it all more comfortable. Slow cooking is a thing for a reason.
posted by mumimor at 11:29 AM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]


Without a doubt. I do most of my cooking (and other housework) listening to podcasts. If you have Echo devices, Spotify supports their multiroom sound feature. As does Audible, naturally.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:38 AM on July 5, 2022


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