Dinner prep

[jelazakazone]

Ok, my next question is how long does it take you cook dinner? I think tonight it took me over two hours. That is unusual. It is usually closer to 1 1/2 hours I think. And I'm counting from the time I started to the time I put everything in the oven. Taking stuff out an hours later and doing nothing in between doesn't count. And stopping 20

Comments

[celandineb]

It really depends on what I'm making. And often dinner is at least partly leftovers. So it can vary between about 15 minutes and several hours from beginning to sitting down to eat.

If I make something where everything is fairly quick and I've made them all before, but it's all from scratch no leftovers, 30 minutes. For instance, chicken madeira, rice, broccoli, and grapefruit. I have that one down - I know exactly what order to do everything in most efficiently. Or pork chops and rice, with a veg and lettuce salad, that's about 45 minutes all told but with maybe 20 minutes in the middle when I'm not actively doing anything.

But if it's something like potstickers, which takes a lot of measuring and chopping, finicky shaping, several lengthy cooking batches, then it's maybe 3 hours even though I've made them a number of times. At least 3, actually, since there needs to be something to go along with those like fried rice or noodles with veg or whatever.

[jelazakazone]

Dinner here is almost always partly leftovers too. Today was exceptional. I made three things (although sweet potatoes hardly count, in my book).

We never have time to make stuff like potstickers any more. Actually, what I'd really like to make is bbq'd pork buns (another type of dim sum). We made something like five dozen right before I had DD1 and they lasted a couple weeks. Yum. My mouth is watering just thinking of it. We also don't eat stuff like that any more. Too carby:(

[celandineb]

Oh, bbq pork buns, YUM. SO won't eat them (pork) but I've had them for dim sum and love them. The Asian grocery we'll be near carries some frozen, I may have to try those out. I'm not especially anti-carb, so that's not an issue for me.

My hope is that after we're all settled into the new place at some point I will get a chest freezer and can then on weekends make big batches of stuff like lasagne or gumbo base or whatever and freeze. Potstickers, maybe, maybe not - SO loves those too much, I'm not sure I could hang onto enough to freeze them!

[jelazakazone]

Hee. That's cute. When you make those dumpling things, it's so worth it to make waaaay more than you can eat adn then freeze a bunch. Good idea to make stuff and freeze it. I can barely keep up with regular eating at this point. Plus, every so often the power goes off and we just don't feel like risking a bunch of food in a freezer, although since we've moved in here we've only lost power once where it was significantly long enough for us to worry about throwing out some food.

[jelazakazone]

Oh my! That sounds delicious. What do those recipes look like?:)