Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to make a little extra on Sundays. By overcooking on Sunday, you can make the beginning of the week a little easier. So longtime listeners know that I
am not a huge fan of elaborate meal prepping. When I first started writing about women and work in life, I quickly realized that some working mothers had absorbed the message from somewhere that they needed to spend their entire weekends preparing for the week ahead. Sunday would be devoted to making meals for the upcoming week so they could be pulled out of the freezer on weeknights and served. The problem, of course, is that it still takes some
time to thaw and reheat complicated dishes. People who did this often had a tendency to then decide to make side dishes for those pre made meals. All of a sudden, they are cooking all day Sunday and during the week as well. That is a lot less time available for relaxing or hanging out with family members. Given that I have found that most men who are not, say, training for a bodybuilding competition, just don't tend to do this. I tend to think that maybe there is another way.
Maybe we can just make simple meals during the week that take twenty minutes or so and leave Sundays open. But if you are eating Sunday dinner, meaning that someone is going to have to cook something, then I think there is an argument for making a little bit more than you would have in order to have a little extra to cover at least some parts of meals during the week. For instance, we sometimes like to grill on the weekends. If we are grilling one steak, it is
just as easy to grill two or three steaks. Now, the second batch of protein can become fajitas on Monday, or be mixed with a jar of sauce from the Asian isle at the supermarket and served with rice on Tuesday. Those dinners wind up being quite quick and no extra time was added to any one's Sunday labors. Or maybe you could decide to have soup for dinner on Sundays since people are around and so it can simmer during
the afternoon. That sounds like a lovely winter tradition. If you are doing that, just get a stock pot that is twice as big, double what you would have made. Now you have dinner on Sunday and you have something you can take to work for lunch for the next three days. Or perhaps you could decide that Tuesday will be soup night as well. Why not? Soup is tasty. I would eat the same things multiple nights per week.
Some people will make a big batch of grains on Sunday. Again, if you are already boiling the water for that farrow for your Sunday meal, it doesn't take extra time to make a bigger batch. Then you put it in the fridge and can mix that with frozen veggies, heat it up some other night for a very simple side. Add a retisserie chicken that someone grabbed at the supermarket on the way home from work, and all of a sudden you have got a very easy, very tasty, and pretty
balanced meal. There is really no point in taking extra time to cook on Sundays. For the week you will probably eat one way or another. You might be better off enjoying some time away from the chores. But if you are already in the kitchen, making a little extra tends to involve very little extra time. If that would make meals easier during the week, it is probably worth the bother. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.