3 Hot Tips That Can Save Time and Energy
Like you, I’m busy (sometimes I feel like I’m spread thinner than a drink of water). And as I age, I’m noticing a couple things: time is going by at an alarmingly quicker rate, and my energy level isn’t keeping up.
Because of these issues, I’m always looking for quicker and easier ways to do things. In case you can relate, I thought I’d share 3 hot tips—they’ve saved me lots of time and that precious afore-mentioned energy.
SAVE YOUR BUTTER WRAPPERS. Tuck your butter wrappers into a small plastic zippered bag and store in the refrigerator; when you need to grease a baking pan, just pull out one of these already-greased papers.
UNWRAP THE CREAM CHEESE. Remove your brick of cream cheese from its wrapper and store the cheese in a 1 cup lidded container. While this keeps the cheese fresher longer, it also saves you some time when needing to use it—no hassling with the unwrapping and rewrapping of that annoying and unsightly foil wrapper.
These two tips may seem inconsequential in and of themselves, but when you cluster time-saving habits together, you end up saving a LOT of time and energy over the long run. And here's one more simple and brilliant time-saver:
MAKE, AND ALWAYS HAVE ON HAND, “GRAVELS.” When you have frozen pre-cooked ground beef, sausage, grated cheeses, and chopped veggies (onions, celery, carrots, bell peppers, etc.), you essentially have dinner! Once a week I fry up my ground meats and drain, then I spread these out on cookie sheets and put them in the freezer. As soon as the meat is frozen, I crumble it up and place it (in 2 cup portions) in plastic zippered freezer bags.
And while the meat is cooking, I’m chop vegetables and place them on cookie sheets and freeze. Then I use the same routine—I crumble the frozen food up and place (in 2 cup portions) in plastic zippered freezer bags.
After a day at work I may get home around 5:45 p.m., but I can still get a dinner prepped in about 15 minutes. I just pull from the freezer packages of hamburger and veggie "gravels" and toss some tasty tostadas together, for instance, in less than 10 minutes; we’re able to sit down to dinner by 6:30 p.m.
Consider devoting a Saturday every now and then to making several different “gravels”—they’re good “dinner insurance” and can save serious time and energy!
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Because of these issues, I’m always looking for quicker and easier ways to do things. In case you can relate, I thought I’d share 3 hot tips—they’ve saved me lots of time and that precious afore-mentioned energy.
SAVE YOUR BUTTER WRAPPERS. Tuck your butter wrappers into a small plastic zippered bag and store in the refrigerator; when you need to grease a baking pan, just pull out one of these already-greased papers.
UNWRAP THE CREAM CHEESE. Remove your brick of cream cheese from its wrapper and store the cheese in a 1 cup lidded container. While this keeps the cheese fresher longer, it also saves you some time when needing to use it—no hassling with the unwrapping and rewrapping of that annoying and unsightly foil wrapper.
These two tips may seem inconsequential in and of themselves, but when you cluster time-saving habits together, you end up saving a LOT of time and energy over the long run. And here's one more simple and brilliant time-saver:
MAKE, AND ALWAYS HAVE ON HAND, “GRAVELS.” When you have frozen pre-cooked ground beef, sausage, grated cheeses, and chopped veggies (onions, celery, carrots, bell peppers, etc.), you essentially have dinner! Once a week I fry up my ground meats and drain, then I spread these out on cookie sheets and put them in the freezer. As soon as the meat is frozen, I crumble it up and place it (in 2 cup portions) in plastic zippered freezer bags.
And while the meat is cooking, I’m chop vegetables and place them on cookie sheets and freeze. Then I use the same routine—I crumble the frozen food up and place (in 2 cup portions) in plastic zippered freezer bags.
After a day at work I may get home around 5:45 p.m., but I can still get a dinner prepped in about 15 minutes. I just pull from the freezer packages of hamburger and veggie "gravels" and toss some tasty tostadas together, for instance, in less than 10 minutes; we’re able to sit down to dinner by 6:30 p.m.
Consider devoting a Saturday every now and then to making several different “gravels”—they’re good “dinner insurance” and can save serious time and energy!
Sources:
- www.fineartamerica.com
- www.lifehacker.com
- www.thecheeseknees.com
- www.eatingonadime.com
Alice Osborne
Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2006
Email the author! alice@dvo.com
