If there is one thing I could always use improvement on, it is the concept of time management. I find this to be true of a lot of people, so often do we get distracted by the noise of our inner thoughts or the idea that we can multitask or even the promise of “doing it later” but later never does seem to come, does it? This is especially true within our beloved kitchens and double when you have major cooking projects on the horizon like a huge barbeque, a Christmas cookie baking day, or the relatives coming over for Thanksgiving. These projects, while fun and rewarding, are also intimidating but also a great time to improve your time management skills and learn how to use them to reduce stress. Here I have a few examples of how exactly to do just that to make your kitchen time a more productive time.
One of the few things my mother instilled in me is the need to always clean while you bake. Dishes, counters, and everything gets messy when you are working on major projects. For example, last June I made a two layer strawberry cake with homemade frosting for my boyfriend's birthday that required a lot of work, a lot of blending of strawberries, reduction (first time doing that!), and it could have easily become an intensive mess of a kitchen. However, I managed to keep it under control (mostly because I didn't want him to guess the cake type when he came home) and made sure every hint of pink or red from the strawberries was gone from the kitchen by the time he came home. The main way I did this was to take advantage of any downtime. Reduced strawberry puree I made needs to completely cool before its added to the mix? Time to clean up everything I used to reduce it. Cake baking in the oven? Time to clean all the mixing bowls and measuring cups that were tossed about into the sink. It's all about knowing when your downtime is and using it properly.
Another thing I find useful for planning bigger dishes is figuring out when it would be best to cook what. Much like most people cook the veggies after you finished with everything else in the meal, you sometimes need to plan what part of the meal gets cooked at what time. This is key for big meals like Thanksgiving, where you are juggling a lot of dishes at once. Before you cook a single piece of food the night before, come up with a plan of what is being cooked when. Sure turkey usually goes in first, but what about the sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, gravy, extra stuffing, and the all important pie? You only have four burners on a stove, you have to plan how you're using them. Figuring out which dishes finish faster and which take longer to make can help you organize what gets cooked when and have your meal done in no time at all.
One last thing on this is that when you are baking multiple things like breads, cookies, or cakes, try to match temperatures as best you can. For example, if two cookies require temperatures of 350 degrees, one requires 375 degrees, and another two require 400, you pair up the cookies in order of temperature, from lowest to highest. Prep the 350 cookies first, bake them while you prep the 375 and while that is baking, work on the 400s. The most important thing to remember if you're doing this is to match them accordingly, don't change the temperature of one food just because you want to do another at the same time, it will just end badly (either burnt or underdone).
Those are just a few of my time management tricks for baking and cooking, if you have any more ideas, let me know! I'm always looking to improve my skills in the kitchen, especially when it comes to making my food more efficiently without sacrificing quality. I'd also like to know what you struggle with in terms of baking and cooking? Everyone has something that makes them uneasy in the kitchen, no matter how good you are as a cook and trust me, learning to do that strawberry reduction was among the hardest things ever (especially when the strawberries decided to splatter juice against the wall while reducing). Let me know and I might even post about it and give some of my own advice!