About Ana L. Avendaño

Ana L. Avendaño is an attorney and business development professional who is a proponent of professionals harnessing the power of hobbies and interests for positive work life balance and outlets to support their artistic sides. In her free time, Ana enjoys activities such as embroidery, cooking, and quilting and speaks to how these hobbies can be valuable as creative outlets as well as ways to bring communities together.

Ana Avendaño Provides Tips for Saving Time in the Kitchen

Ana Avendaño, as an attorney and business development professional with limited free time on her hands, recognizes that cooking efficiently at home can be a great way to ensure she has time for other important tasks. Here, Ana L. Avendaño explores a few ways that home cooks can save time in the kitchen.

Plan Your Meals

One of the most efficient ways to save time in the kitchen is to plan your meals ahead of time. A benefit of this practice is that it takes much of the guesswork out of cooking as deciding what to make is often one of the most time consuming parts. Planning meals also empowers home cooks to spend less time in the grocery store as it is easier to make lists and shop with a clearly defined lists of foods you would like to eat throughout the week. Ana L. Avendaño notes that planning your meals does not have to be time consuming to be effective, and she speaks to how many home cooks can plan out their weekly meals in as little as an hour.

Prep Ahead of Time

Prepping your foods before you start cooking can go a long way towards getting your meals to the table quicker. Ana L. Avendaño maintains that there are a variety of ways to prep foods ahead of time. For example, a popular method is prepping vegetables and produce for the week after grocery shopping and storing them in airtight containers. When mealtime comes around, home cooks can get right to making the meal instead of worrying about cutting, dicing, and slicing. Ana mentions that, even if home cooks do not have time to prep their produce after grocery trips, they can still shave off time in the kitchen by ensuring that their foods are prepped before starting. Mise en place, French for “everything in its place” makes weeknight cooking much more streamlined.

Clean As You Go

Most of us have experience cooking a wonderful meal only to look into the kitchen to notice that we have made a gigantic mess. Ana L. Avendaño recognizes that this, fortunately, does not need to be the case. An effective way to save time in the kitchen is to clean as you go. If you are done using bowls, cooking utensils, etc. taking the time to rinse them out at the very least will shave a lot of time in your routine. Reason being it makes the mess more manageable slowly but surely and also keeps dried food from sticking to your dishes. Cleaning as you go tends to synergize best with meals that have less active cooking time. If you put your soup on the stove and know it needs to cook for 20 minutes, it is a great time to consider putting a couple dishes in the dishwasher.

Cook in Batches

Cooking in batches is a simple and effective way to save time in the kitchen as it often does not require much additional work. Making a big pot of soup, a pot roast, meat loaf, or any food that can be made in a big batch ensures that you can eat it for at least one additional meal during the week. Some individuals enjoy using their leftovers for lunches, which can be an excellent plan for meal prepping that saves both time and money in the long run. Others can get at least an additional day of dinner out of their large batch of food depending on the amount of people in their household. A tip that Ana L. Avendaño pulls from in her home cooking experience is to make foods in batches that taste as good, or better, than when they were first prepared. Foods such as chilis, curries, soups, and dishes stewed in meat gravies often taste even better with time.

Don’t Be Afraid of Ready-Made Meals

Sometimes, despite the best intentions, we just do not feel like cooking. At the very least it can be helpful to have a few components of the meal already complete. Ana L. Avendaño mentions that ready-made meals can be an effective method to save time cooking during the workweek. What’s more is that these prepared meals have gotten much more accessible and fresher since the ready-made meals of old. In many cases, you will be able to find prepared meals in a section of your grocery store that just need to be heated up and enjoyed. These can be valuable for the day that you grocery shop or any day during the week where something other than cooking requires your attention.

More from Ana L. Avendaño

Ana L. Avendaño acknowledges that there are many people interested in learning more about hobbies such as quilting, cooking, and embroidery as well as the impact that such activities can have on their mental health, work-life balance, and ability to feel connected to their communities and like minded individuals. To this end, Ana aims to provide accessible resources that break down key concepts within her areas of expertise for readers. Future posts provided by Ana L. Avendaño will address concepts such as how to save time in the kitchen when preparing weeknight meals, embroidery gift ideas, ways to grow your skills in quilting, and information on how investment in hobbies can lead to a path of personal development while preserving mental wellness.

Are you interested in learning more about cooking, quilting, embroidery, and more from an experienced hobbyist such as Ana L. Avendaño? Be sure to check this website frequently for more information inspired by Ana’s insights.