Spin off on Cooking: Is It the Actual Cooking or the Clean Up?

No tips. I'm right there with you, though. I have a son with an eating disorder requiring me to make him custom meals 3x a day, so now his sister often needs custom meals, too. As my son said, "Mom, you should be on Chopped! You make 9 meals a day!" I loathe cooking. Cleaning doesn't bother me as much, except when I get stuck doing all of the meals AND all of the cleaning.

I moved from a house with a larger kitchen to a house with a smaller, but perfect, galley kitchen. The smaller size has made cleaning so much quicker and easier - it's the best kitchen ever!

Make the kids do the cleaning up.

The rule in my house: If I cook, I don't do the dishes.

Yes, I clean a lot as I go, but I refuse to do the after meal cleanup. The other humans in my house who enjoyed the fruits of my labor can contribute by cleaning afterward.

ETA: LOL, Mamazita! My dog refuses to eat any fruit and won't eat a veggie unless it's cooked in butter or with meat. Otherwise, she does a pretty good job cleaning the floor. ;)

Not that I do this myself, but in theory planning your meals better so that you have less labor-intensive dishes mixed with the tedious/messy ones each day should help, as should "one pot" meals where everything is cooked in the same pot/skillet.

My husband grilled chicken tonight. I just had to wash the chicken, raspberries and blueberries and get out the watermelon I cut up yesterday. Pretty easy.

Wow, I'll clean if you cook. All kidding aside, I re-read your post & thought
of some ideas. Hope they help:
-Is there a day you can cook when most everybody is out of the house?
If not, could hubby take kids to the park for an hour?
-Try not to use too many utensils. For ex, when you cook, can you use
the pasta spoon to move the meat around rinsing in between?
-Can you get the kids out from underfoot for an hour while you cook to
watch a video or put some cartoons on?
-Maybe do all of your baking at the same time while doing all of your
dinner meals together?
-If the kids bug you to make blueberry muffins, don't do it just then if it's
going to throw you off. Tell them you'll do it later when it's convenient
for you.
-Try to do your bulk cooking on days when you can make quick things for
the kids/family like on a weekend.
-Have easy, convenient things on hand for your bulk cooking days like
chicken nuggets (they have healthier versions), quick & easy pasta...just
noodles & sauce.
-maybe you're trying to do too much at once. For example, making hot
dogs & grilled cheese WHILE making egg salad for tomorrow. Do one or
the other thing first.
-Sounds like you're going to have to cut out something. For ex, don't make your own sauce. Buy a healthy version.
-Buy crust instead of making your own for chicken pot pies.
-Can you put your used dishes/utensils into dishwasher as you go?
-Honestly, as I keep re-reading your post, I think you're trying to do too much. I would scale back or you'll go crazy. Best to you mama! :)

I feel your pain. I'm in the kitchen so often that my kids' friends comment that they never see me anywhere but the kitchen. I addition to where I prepare meals for 6 people, my kitchen table is also my office on M,W,F and where I do all of my PTA and personal paperwork. So yes, if I'm home, I'm there. It gets old!

The mess gets to me the most. The dishwasher is usually full and clean in the morning and no one has time to empty it, so breakfast dishes and things used to make lunches pile up in the sink and on counters. So although the kitchen is clean when I go to bed, my husband and teens leave before I'm really up and running so I wake up to a mess and then add to it getting breakfast and making lunches for myself and the younger kids.

If I'm at home, I'll usually empty the dishwasher and load the morning mess up at some point in the morning otherwise the kids do it after school but then the after school snack mess begins, papers get dumped out of backpacks, etc. and by the time dinner rolls around, I have to do another complete clean up just to get dinner cooked and on the table.

I'm my own worst enemy though as I normally bake something for a function at least once a week and large orders (I did a 3-tier cake for 75 people a couple of weeks ago and am doing 60 cupcakes for a bridal shower this weekend) take me a few days to do so even after managing the normal day to day stuff, I mess up the kitchen making cakes, frostings and fillings - more dishes!

My tips? In addition to making sure that my family doesn't leave the kitchen after dinner until the kitchen is clean I've recently set a policy that I don't start dinner until I have an empty sink, clean counters and a cleared table. That means the kids have to empty the dishwasher, clear their after-school dishes, put papers where they belong and pack up their homework if they want to eat. It doesn't eliminate the morning mess, but it does mean that I don't have 20 minutes of cleaning to do before even starting dinner.

We mechanize. roomba and scooba sweep vacum and mop for us. the dishwasher washes dishes for us.

We take food shortcuts, and cook in bulk, here are some ideas-

we call it breakfast bake- take your pick of vegetables, some grated potato, and, meat of your choice eggs lightly scrambled. put in a greased pyrex and top with grated cheese and bake until eggs are set. cut into palm sized potions (wrap in burrito, or put in bagels, or on a bed of spinach, or as is). 12-15 potions of breakfasts with one prep one cook, one clean.

french toast can also be baked, frozen and heated in the toaster oven, one prep, one cook one clean.

instead of making pasta sauce make quick sauce. cherry tomatoes, sliced garlic and onions, capers, olives, and any other veg you want. put it in a super hot pan so that the stuff wilts and sears and gets juicy, but not uber saucy (like a pasta primavera), cooks in less time than the pasta itself. great as a sandwich spread, good on chicken cutlets etc etc.

tonight I am cooking dahl for dinner. onions in oil, then adding lentils, tomatoes, ginger, cumin, salt, pepper and garamasala. this will cook in one pot. in another, I'll cook rice. butter, rice, chicken stock and water. I'll steam a bag of frozen broccoli over the rice while it is cooking. 20 minutes, 2 pots, and food enough for 12-15 meals. we'll eat some tonight, some for lunch, some tomorrow, and freeze the rest in single and family sized portions.

Best,
F. B.

My tip for taming the kitchen chaos is to only cook one meal a day. I cook supper every night, but breakfast (other than a special breakfast once every couple of weeks) and lunch are generally no-cook meals and often every man for himself. For breakfast we have cereal, toast, fruit, pastries, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, instant oatmeal, Eggo's etc. (things you would find at a hotel continental breakfast.) Lunch is a sandwich, hot dog, cheese and crackers w/ fruit and veggies, canned soup or left overs. Basically things that take very little preparation, few dishes and that even the youngest child can make for themselves.

My second tip is to share clean up duties. Since I cook my kids and husband do most of the cleanup.

I'm ordering take out tonight!! :)

I don't mind cooking. It's the shopping and cleaning I detest.

I also hate that when it's dinner time, my family has Velcro butts! Once they sit, I'm the only one to get up and down.

I don't have a tip just want to let you know I feel exactly the same way. I love cooking actually, but...the messes UGH

I feel your pain!! I cook the meals clean up the meals and get everybody what ever else they should need. Cleaning wouldn't happen if it wasn't for me! Every now and then the kids will say they will do the dishes but they end up making more of a mess so I come up with excuses for why they can't! Lol. I hope it gets easier but as a mom of 5 I'm sure its not going to get easier any time soon! Best of luck!

I guess I don't see either as a huge hassle. If I really don't want to cook, we go out, but that doesn't happen too often. My kids can all do basic meals (they are 7, 9, and 11) and that helps. Sometimes it is grab what you want.

Everyone knows to clean up after themselves. The dishes get loaded by everyone, I normally wash the big stuff, and one of the kids always has the duty to wipe the counters. My husband usuall sweeps, and it's done. So basically, get everyone involved in helping.

absolutely the cleaning. i LIKE cooking most of the time (less during the summer) but i sure don't like the clean-up.
there's not much you can do when you've got a horde of littles swarming around your legs as you do right now. just make at least one meal a day a super-simple one. my kids only got hot breakfasts on the weekends, if that!
khairete
S.

I only ever cooked a maximum of one meal a day.
Breakfast was cereal, granola bars and a glass of milk or juice, etc - something that did not have to be cooked and had minimal cleanup after.
Lunch is leftovers from the previous night's dinner, a cold cut or peanut butter sandwich, or canned soup/ravioli.
Dinner is whatever I feel like cooking.
When I make something labor intensive such as gumbo or beans and rice, it's not worth it to make just a little. I make several gallons and freeze at least half in single serving containers for times when I don't feel like cooking.
I use the crockpot for spaghetti sauce, beans, soups, stews, chili. Less mess and I don't have to babysit it.
When I'm cooking, as soon as I'm done with an item, it goes into the dishwasher as soon as I'm done with it. Only items that aren't dishwasher safe (and I have damn few of those) get left in the sink to be hand washed. I hate looking at a pile of dirty dishes/cookware when I'm already tired from cooking a meal.

This is my biggest complaint, too! I feel your pain! My only advice is to do something I always say I'm going to do, but never do it (hopefully one day, I will), which is: cook a LOT over the weekends. If you're bbqing, have your husband bbq at least 3 times the meat you will eat, and freeze it. Just make a ton of dinners over the weekend (as many as you can make), and freeze it. And then you will need to remember to take it out the night before to thaw out. Good luck!

No tips really. It's simply a never ending process, and it's TEDIOUS. I go through bursts of creativity, and I love the holidays and entertaining (mostly because my guests are way more appreciative than my husband and kids) but the day to day stuff is simply a grind. My kids can and do help (and they all know how to cook at this point) but I am so anal about my kitchen that even after they "clean up" I am still putting things back the way I want them and going over the counters for a second time.
I've been doing this job for 21 years, and I can tell you that one of my favorite things in life is going out to eat, from food trucks to pubs to bistros and nice cafes, if anyone offers to take me out I am there!!!
ETA: having a dog means I never have to clean up food that spills on the floor, so that's a bonus!

It is so awful. It can spoil my mood at night. We rush to bedtime after dinner then after the kids are in bed, I definitely don't want to spend the one hour a day I have with hubby cleaning under highchair, folding laundry and loading dishwasher. My kids are 1, 4 and 8. I hope it improves.....???

Time to get the kiddies involved. They need to be helping (whether it's really helpful or not.) It's how they learn so that later, when they're older, they are good at it and they're used to doing it.

It took my kids weeks to hang up their clothes and put them in their drawers nicely, but I expected it of them and they did it as I stood over them.

Now for summer? I'd use some paper plates if I were you. That will help you some. The kids can throw them away. But whatever you do, have them put the silverware in the dishwasher first so that they don't throw all your spoons away!!! (Been there...)

Use paper plates on the days you do bulk cooking. You husband can also help with clean up.

The other night I cooked an easy dinner and I later realized that it took me an hour to clean up. So, yes, the clean up can take a while. For chicken pot pies I do use the pillsbury crusts and that is a time saver. Happy Cooking (and Cleaning!)