A Busy, Happy Kitchen

I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying, “The kitchen is the heart of the home.” It is certainly true at our house. We all seem to be in there a lot, sometimes all of us, which can make for a cozy time!

There aren’t many things I miss about New Mexico, but the kitchen in our old house there is probably one of the things I find myself wishing I could have brought with me to Colorado. I had it fixed up just like I wanted it, and then we moved! Our new kitchen is nice, and, after I painted over the tangerine-orange laminate backsplash and countertops, it is quite pretty.

Our new kitchen just doesn’t have the flow or the counter space of our old kitchen (but the cabinets are much nicer, with revolving shelves in the corner cabinets and pull-out shelves in the lower cabinets. I feel so fancy! 🙂 ). Ideally, we would have space in our kitchen for an island, but we don’t and are often bumping into one another. This has caused us to put a little more thought into our kitchen time.

A kitchen schedule?

Our kitchen not only serves as the place we prepare meals for our household of five, but it is also where we prepare and serve two meals and two snacks each day for our daycare kiddos (plus two grandkids some days.)

So, the first thing we have to do is be sure the dishwasher is emptied first thing in the morning so it’s ready for all the dishes we make during the first half of the day. I do this while I wait for the water to boil for my morning tea. Our dishwasher is small, so we run it once after lunch and again before bed. Being sure it’s unloaded helps keep mountains of dishes from piling up. We didn’t have a dishwasher at our old house, and I am so happy that I have one now.

Because our kitchen isn’t very big, we prepare food in shifts. We get the daycare kids’ food made, and then Grampy goes in and makes his food. He likes his food a certain way and eats very differently than I do, so he prefers to make his own breakfast and lunch. I’m not going to argue with that! I usually eat what the daycare kids have because I sit and eat with them, but Grampy usually passes on the daycare meals. I often make homemade pizza on Fridays because my grandkids are also here. Grampy will eat that. 🙂 I’ll be sharing my pizza dough recipe soon.

Once Grampy is finished with his meal, he starts cleaning up the kitchen while I finish up with the kids and get their faces and hands washed. (He just thought he was retired! 🙂 )

Having a good routine seems to be working. Everyone is fed and the kitchen stays clean. I appreciate Grampy’s help, as hungry toddlers can make food preparation difficult!

Cutting down on time in the kitchen

Meal planning and bulk/freezer cooking are still our best friends. We plan the daycare meals as well as our own dinners. This way, we can do some bulk/freezer cooking that saves tons of preparation and cleanup time. Recently I made blueberry pancakes and zucchini bread for the freezer, and today we made black bean burgers for lunch and made enough extras for the freezer so that we have another two meals’ worth. We also cooked two whole chickens and froze the meat in recipe-sized portions to use later. As the weather is so cold, we are making soups or stews at least once a week, so we will cook the chicken carcasses to make broth and freeze it as well.

I try to keep the daycare meals as simple as possible, with only one or two things that take extra preparation time. This week, it was black bean burgers for one meal and pizza rolls for another. The other meals are more simple.

I’ve found a bit of time on the weekend doing some meal prep saves a lot of time during the week. Below is a video from my YouTube channel where I share some meal prep (and some house cleaning.)

Saving Money in the Kitchen

We are feeding a lot of people! With the cost of groceries, I do all I can to avoid food waste. My biggest tip for feeding littles (I currently have a 15-month-old, a 16-month-old and a two-year-old in my daycare) is to serve small portions. Little ones vary so much in what they like from day to day. Sometimes they won’t touch something they ate a bunch of just a few days before. I serve a small amount and if they eat that, I give them more. Otherwise, food is left on the plate and thrown away, or thrown on the floor.

I make smoothies on Fridays if I have fruit left over from the week that needs to be used.

Cooking from scratch does take a bit more time and some planning ahead, but avoiding convenience foods is a great help to our budget, and it’s healthier for us as well. (Also, I think home-cooked meals taste better.) Some days the kitchen work seems never-ending, but to me, it is definitely worth it!

See you later!