Busy Mom Survival: 5 Tips to Make Dinnertime Easier

If you’re not prepared, making dinner can be a dreaded chore. The first steps to getting dinner on the table in a stress-free way have to do with planning ahead, but even if you’ve organized yourself and done the shopping and are ready to go, if you get into the kitchen and find yourself in the midst of chaos, or  having to scramble as you go, all that careful preparation won’t prevent the stress that ensues. With that understanding, here are five ways I keep things relaxed and running smoothly when it actually comes time to cook.

Maintain a clear work space. If you’re like me, you have a kitchen whose workspace is always being threatened: by mail, by appliances, by dirty dishes and bibs and the high chair tray. But if your countertops are too cluttered to allow you to do anything easily, getting meals going will always be a hassle. No matter how small your kitchen is, create a clear work space that’s within easy distance of the stove and sink, and which is large enough for a knife and cutting board, a scrap bowl (see below for more on this), and additional space for the things you need to make the meal. Keep it clear of clutter, and make it clear to your family that this is sacred space, not a dumping ground.

Start with an empty sink and dishwasher. If, when you go to start dinner, the sink and dishwasher are full of dishes from the day or even the night before, where are you going to put all the mess you create while you’re cooking? My goal is always to have, at the most, a dishwasher full of clean dishes that are waiting to be put away and maybe a few items in the sink waiting to be loaded into it. This means that the tools I need (measuring cups and spoons, prep bowls) are always clean and ready to go. I might start dinner by unloading the dishwasher, but I’d rather do that than face a dishwasher full of dirties, wouldn’t you?

Assemble all your ingredients and equipment. Before you begin to prep anything, assemble everything you need from canned goods, meat, herbs and spices to measuring cups and spoons, gadgets and bowls, and place it all within easy reach of your workspace. This eliminates running back and forth to the pantry and the refrigerator and rummaging in drawers and cupboards to find things while you have something going on the stove.

Do all the prep work first. When a recipe lists an ingredient with a prep description, for example, “one large onion, chopped” it means you should do the chopping before you begin to actually make the recipe. This should be obvious, but to many of us, intuitive steps like this that are “hidden” in the list of ingredients rather than included in the step-by-step instructions for cooking the dish causes us to stumble. We start in on a dish, and then discover when it’s time to add something to the pot, we still have to peel it, chop it, or dice it. Uh oh! Trouble! Stress! Pay careful attention to the ingredient descriptions in a recipe, and do the prep work first. This is where prep bowls come in handy. They hold your cut-up meat and vegetables, spice blends, marinades, and so on until you’re ready to use them.

Use a scrap bowl. If you compost, or even if you don’t, a scrap bowl is an awesome tool. Just put a medium-size bowl of any kind near your workspace prior to starting your prep work. Anything that would normally go into the trash – vegetable peelings, bits of fat trimmed from meat, eggshells – goes into the bowl. After you’re done cooking, just dump the contents into your compost bin or trash can. This saves running back and forth to the trash can, or continually opening and closing a cupboard door (if that’s where yours hides), while you’re trying to prep and cook.

I hope there’s been something useful for you here! Let me know what you think.

Question: Do you have a favorite tip of your own for making things easier in the kitchen? I’d love to know what it is! Leave a comment below.