Hello and welcome!

On this quick episode, I talk about trying to manage both working in my business and working in the home, specifically in the kitchen. If I’m not careful to batch my kitchen and meal prep tasks, I’d lose so much time to it all. And as busy mompreneurs, we all know how valuable our limited time truly is.

Main Topics included in this Episode

  • My kitchen challenges
  • Hacks for meal planning, meal prepping and batch cooking that have been saving me time and effort and that might help you too!

Connect with Alysha

Music Licensing Info

Music by Eli Lev - Dancin' on the Lawn

Link

Episode Transcription

Hello and welcome back to the Messy Mompreneur podcast. I'm your host, Alysha Sanford, and I'm so happy to have you here. As I've mentioned already, I am a full time work at home mom. I have a photography studio and a small baby and toddler goods shop. But aside from the actual photo sessions, I accomplished the majority of my work from home while also caring for our toddler and keeping up with the usual household tasks. I'm still working to find the best routine and flow for our day. I typically do my editing work and the podcast recordings during nap time and then fit the rest of my work and household tasks into little pockets of time throughout the day while she's awake and under my feet. Our living space is small and our kitchen is tiny like micro with limited counter space. Our older kitchen, plumbing and dishwasher are inefficient, so we do the dishes by hand and it feels like it's a never ending job. We don't have a pantry in our home either, so storage is limited. I'd love to have a more efficient kitchen in the future and to be able to enjoy the process of meal prep as well as to start baking more with my daughter as she. I'm the primary cook in our house, even though my. Husband's better at. It I'm not someone who enjoys spending a lot of time in the kitchen, let alone the extra time cleaning it. I am always anxious to finish up any kitchen work and move on to my next important task. Between meal planning, meal prep, cooking and cleaning, it would be easy to spend the majority of the day in the kitchen. As a work at home entrepreneur, my time to accomplish work and household tasks during the day is already limited. The last thing I want to do is take away more of that valuable. Time we're also coming into the summer season and we'll be going on outings or playing outside. More throughout the day. Over the last few years I've found a few hacks to help me to be more productive and efficient with my work in the kitchen, and I wanted to share them with you in case they're helpful. Especially coming into such a busy season. So let's start with the meal plan. It is an awesome idea to keep a running list of your family's favorite meals and meat choices. Try to plan meals one to two weeks ahead of time when possible, and you can rotate through those favorite meals. Cross reference your calendar and note any nights that you'll be away from home or coming home late and need a quick meal with little prep or effort or just plan to eat out those nights if you have it in the budget. Shop ahead grocery pickup is an awesome time saver. I haven't personally tried the delivery services, but if you have that within your means, that's probably a great option too. Store produce correctly to last longer and to cut down on trips to the store. I'm terrible with this one, but I've seen so many hacks out there floating around on Pinterest and even probably Facebook and Instagram, such as storing berries and jars, storing herbs and some greens and glasses of water. So that the roots continue to grow and just cutting pieces as you need them. Schedule your dinners in order of how you can use the leftovers of one of the meal items, such as a protein. So, for example, I often make a large batch of salsa chicken in the instant pot. The extra chicken will then go into burritos with instant pot rice the following night, and then the extra rice goes with steak or steamed veggies or rice bowls. The third night and the extra steamed veggies go with another protein on the 4th night, etcetera. They can all connect and cut down on a lot of prep time. Which leads to batch prepping and prepping in advance. Are you chopping lettuce, tomato, etcetera for Taco night? Chop extra of those foods and schedule back-to-back dinners that might use those toppings. Save on time dishes and waste. Similarly, if you're chopping veggies, onion, garlic, etcetera for a meal, plan to buy and shop extra of those to stash away in freezer bags to thaw later for another meal. With those same ingredients, I do this a lot when I'm prepping for things like Stew soups, sheet pan dinners, etc. Prep enough fruit or berries to last a few days for kids meals. If you're making smoothies, you can pour the extras into reusable pouches, ice trays, or popsicle molds for quick sauce snacks. While in the kitchen for breakfast, you can try to prep out which you can in advance for their lunch plates or lunch boxes as well. This has saved me a ton of time because I'm not doing the same task multiple times a day. You can also make sure to pull out any dinner items to prep at this time as well. If you're making meals that take a while from start to finish, you can prep some of it the day before. If you have extra time. So batch cooking you can double or triple the recipes that you're already making so that you can freeze. Extras for additional quick thaw and reheat dinners, things like soups, chili, Stew shepherds, pie, spaghetti sauce, enchiladas, other types of sauces. Those are great for that. I have absolutely annoyed my husband at this point by using the phrase double batch. He can't stand it. Because I always use it, but I'm telling you it's a game changer. Cooking extras of your favorite proteins for additional lunches or dinners like Taco meats and shredded chicken is it's great to do as well. You can throw those in just about anything for dinners or lunches. Your future self. Will thank you if you use any of those tips. These little hacks have been helping me to free up a lot more time to spend elsewhere. If you have any kitchen hacks that you swear by, please send them my way. As a busy mompreneur, I'm always looking for more time saving ideas.