The average woman that has to combine work with taking care of her household and children is under enough stress already, however most women have to add the planning and cooking of healthy meals for her family to her already loaded daily workload.
So, if the average woman can find means of making her cooking a simple process, she will be able to reduce her stress level considerably.
In this article we shall be looking at the following tips that every woman can use to reduce the stress of preparing healthy meals for her family: Tip 1 - Plan ahead for your meals One of the main ways by which you can reduce the stress associated with the preparation of your family meals is by planning ahead.
You should take out time during your weekends (preferably on Saturday) to plan for all the meals that you want to make during the week.
Make a list of all the groceries that you are going to need to prepare all your meals during the coming week, so that you can buy everything at once when you go to the supermarket.
This will cut off all the stress that you go through when you have to rack your brain to determine what you want to prepare every time that you want to prepare your meals; this also means that you will not need to go to the supermarket every day to get the groceries that you need for the day.
Tip 2 - Organise your kitchen The more organised your kitchen is, the less strenuous cooking will become; you should emulate professional chefs who always make sure that all the ingredients and tools that they need are properly arranged within their reach before they start cooking.
Therefore, it is important that you place all the ingredients, utensils, and pots that you are going to need within reach in an organised manner before you start to cook.
Tip 3 - Time your cooking properly For you to have your meals cooked and ready for eating at the proper time, you have to be able to time your cooking properly; you should estimate the amount of time that it will take to properly cook the different ingredients that you want to use properly and you should be able count backwards from the time that you want your meal to be ready to determine the best time to start cooking your ingredients so that your meal will be ready on time.
Tip 4 - Get rid of distractions The more we try to do many things at the same time, the more we become disorganised and stressed up.
It is better to do and focus on one thing at a time instead of trying to multitask ourselves.
So, when you are cooking in the kitchen, you should remove all those things that might compete for your attention while cooking; you should switch off your computer and your cell phone; you should also switch off the television (I wonder why some people put television sets in their kitchen in the first place).
You can however listen to cool music when you are cooking to calm your nerves and relieve your stress.
Tip 5 - Clean as you cook If you can clean as you cook you will reduce a lot of the stress associated with cooking; you should have soapy water readily available for quick washing of whatever gets dirty as you cook.
You should promptly wash all the pots, pans, and surfaces that get dirty when you are in the kitchen.
If you can do this, you would be able to keep your kitchen environment clean, and you will not need to do serious clean up after you finish your meal.
Tip 6 - Make use of make - ahead meals There are numerous recipes that you can prepare partially ahead of time so that you can complete their cooking some few days later.
You can prepare lots of these recipes and make use of them over two to three days; just make sure that you freeze the left over partially cooked recipes properly.
Tip 7 - Delegate your meal preparations You do not have to do all the cooking yourself; you can engage your children and other members of your family to help you to prepare some of your ingredients.
Your children can help you to wash and tear lettuce and they can also help you to set the table.
You can also engage one of your grown up kids every night to take out time to prepare the meal that the family will eat at night; this will not only relieve you of extra work, it will also teach your kids one or two skills that they will make use for the rest of their lives.
Tip 8 - Make use of simple recipes You do not have to impress your family members with fanciful dishes that take a lot of time and effort to prepare all the time; you should aim to prepare nutritious, tasty, and simple recipes that do not require too much effort to prepare.
You should look for easy sweet recipes that your family members enjoy so that you will be able to work these recipes into your weekly meal timetable without too much fuss.