holiday events. Throughout the year, keep track of important Hang the family calendar from the wall
days, gift-giving, and holiday décor with pages to record: and place the Household Notebook near
▪ Family birthday calendar
the telephone, if there is a landline. Arrange
▪ Birthday party planner
pens and pencils in a pretty mug or wall
▪ Holiday gift list
holder, and add a pad of paper for messages.
▪ Seasonal greeting cards list
Alternatively, use a commercial
▪ Holiday menu planner
“information center” whiteboard to take
▪ Décor inventory
phone messages. Colored markers allow
▪ Decorations to make list
color-coding, while the whiteboard eraser
▪ “Gifts to make” list
makes it easy to change an entry.
▪ Gift closet inventory for stored gifts
▪ Ornament memories journal
cycles of an
organized home
plan, save, organize, stor
Food
What comes closer to the rhythm of life itself than the cycle of food? As the kitchen is the
heart of the home, so food and food preparation
stands at the center of our memories: holiday
meals and special occasions; casual summer
picnics and everyday family dinners. Make
those memories happy ones with the ideas in
this section, aimed to speed, streamline, and
save money on the kitchen front.
Investigate menu and meal planning to save
time and promote a healthy diet—while using
smart supermarket strategies to keep the
pocketbook plump. Learn proper food storage
techniques to preserve your family’s investment
in foodstuffs.
e
Declutter cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer, then apply organizing principles to create kitchen
“centers” that will speed food preparation and
meal clean-up.
Harness the pantry principle for maximum
savings—and to protect the family against
natural disasters or hard times.
92
CYCLES OF AN ORGANIZED HOME
Planning
family
menus
What are we having for dinner? It’s the question of the hour. Too often, we find ourselves looking for answers in the supermarket at 5p.m. Harried and harassed by hungry children, we scan the aisles in desperation and rack our brains for a quick answer to the recurring dinnertime question.
Keeping the family fed can be daunting. Three meals a day.
Seven dinners a week. From supermarket to pantry, refrigerator to table, sink to cupboard, the kitchen routine can get old, old, old. No wonder we hide our heads like ostriches from the plain and simple fact: into each day, one dinner must fall. What’s the Day
Main course
Dessert
answer? A menu plan.
A menu plan saves money, because it cuts out last-ditch Monday
Roast beef, baked
Fresh fruit
potatoes,
broccoli
trips to the supermarket. A menu plan saves you time. No dash to the neighbors next-door for a missing ingredient, no frantic Tuesday
Chicken breasts,
Apple pie and
searches through the freezer for something—anything—to steamed
rice,
ice
cream
thaw for dinner.
stir-fried
veggies
Most important, a weekly (or monthly) menu plan conserves Wednesday French dip sandwiches Leftover
a home manager’s most valuable resource: energy. Follow these (leftovers from roast), apple pie
strategies to put the power of menu and meal planning to potato
salad
work for you.
Thursday Pasta
with
chicken
Cookies
and
and
vegetables
ice
cream
Dare to do it
Often, making a menu plan is something we intend to do . . .
Friday Freezer
lasagne,
Frozen
when we get around to it. Instead of seeing menu planning green
salad fruit
bars
as an activity that adds to our quality of life, we dread sitting down to decide next Thursday’s dinner. “I’ll do that next week, Saturday Take-out
chinese
Ice
cream
when I’m more organized.”
Wrong! Menu planning is the first line of defense in the Sunday
Baked salmon, wild
Layer cake
rice,
green
beans
fight against kitchen chaos. It’s better to do menu planning in a single, 10-minute weekly session than to do it nightly—and in despair—standing in line at the market or peering into an open refrigerator.
▲ Paperless planning. Internet menu planning services offer Take the vow. “I [state your name], hereby promise not to menu plans and shopping lists by email, integrating current visit the supermarket again until I’ve made a menu plan!”
coupon offers for maximum savings at the supermarket.
FOOD
93
Start small and simple
Grandiose ideas of weekly new recipes and complex monthly Menu planning
OK, it’s food ad day. Ready? Time to
schedules can scuttle the act of menu planning before it begins.
rough out a simple menu plan. The goal
Sure, it’s fun to think about indexing your recipe collection, is two-fold: shop efficiently to obtain food
entering the data in a relational database and crunching menus required for seven dinner meals, while
until the next decade, but resist the urge.
minimizing expenditure, cooking, shopping,
and cleaning time. These are the bare bones
“Take the vow: I promise
of menu planning: make a draft plan, shop
from a list, retain flexibility, firm up your
not to visit the supermarket
plan, and hold yourself accountable.
basics
again without a menu plan.”
▪ Scan the food ads for specials and sales.
Rough out a draft menu plan: seven main
Instead, think, “next week.” Seven little dinners, one trip dinner meals that can be made from weekly
to the supermarket. Slow and steady builds menu-planning specials, side dishes, and salads. Use a blank
skills and shows you the benefits of the exercise. Elaborate sheet of paper, or a menu planner form.
▪ Wander to the pantry and the refrigerator
exercise: roadkill on the way to an organized kitchen.
to check for any of last week’s purchases
that are languishing beneath wilting lettuce
The power of advertising
or hardening tortillas. The best bargain is
Where to begin to make menu plans? Start with what’s on food you’ve already purchased—so plan to
sale! Scan food flyers from the local newspapers or visit use it! Review your shopping list and note
supermarket Web sites to get a feel for the week’s sales and any condiments or spices that you will need
bargains. Build menus around loss leaders: items offered at for the week’s meals.
below-market prices to attract traffic to the stores.
▪ Ready, set, shop—but shop with an
This week in my home town, for instance, two local chain open mind. That fryer on special offer won’t
supermarkets are offering whole fryers for a low, low price. To look like such a bargain next to a marked-feed my family well and frugally, this is the week for Ginger down mega-pack of boneless chicken breasts
Chicken and Fajitas, not a time to dream about Beef Stew and at less than a dollar a pound (0.5kg). Be
Grilled Pork Tenderloins. I’ll serve those when roasts are the ready to substitute.
loss leader at the market.
▪ Return from shopping and stock your
shelves. As you put away groceries, flesh
Menu-planning tips
out the menu plan. Match it up with the
Here are some points to ponder as you bring menu planning family’s calendar, saving the oven roast
under control—and take the “desperate” out of dinnertime.
for a lazy Sunday, the quick-fix pizza for
soccer night.
Build a family shopping list Look in any gift store or
▪ Post the menu plan on the refrigerator
browse mail-order catalogs and you’ll find cute little shopping door. Refer to it during the coming week as
lists for all persuasions and occasions. Bear-shaped shopping you prepare meals.
lists. Long skinny shopping lists. Shopping lists with winsome graphics. Shopping lists with colored borders. Cute, colorful
94
CYCLES OF AN ORGANIZED HOME
freebies with pictures of kitty cats and teddy bears. Most homes strategy behind this seemingly relaxed approach—the
have two or three pads of lists—or a dozen.
household meal service dances to a routine.
Only one problem: why aren’t you using them?
Sunday’s a big dinner, and Tuesday gets the leftovers.
Because they don’t work, that’s why! Teenaged sons play Monday is burger night, and Wednesday sees spaghetti, year stuff-the-trash can with the empty cereal box, but have you in and year out. Thursday’s the day for a casserole, and Dad ever known one to write “Cheerios” neatly on a shopping list?
grills on Friday. Saturday night, it’s take-out or pizza.
Pre-printed lists, moreover, fit about as well as one-size-fits-all Create a routine around your menu planning. Sure, you stockings from the convenience store.
can try new recipes—just don’t let your enthusiasm for the Solution? Build a family shopping list, noting all the foods glossy pages of the cookbook con you into doing so more and sundries your family consumes. Check your receipts.
than twice a month. Cooking tried-and-true speeds dinner Computerized store receipts can help jog memories for items preparation and streamlines menu planning.
to include on the list. Include a few blank lines for new foods To do it, look for cues in the family schedule. At-home or unexpected ingredients.
days with more free time can handle a fancy meal—or can When building your family shopping list, grab a handout signal soup, sandwiches, and Cook’s Night Off. Running the supermarket map next time you visit the store. Organize your evening kid carpool is a great time to plan for pick-up burgers.
personal shopping list according to the departments where you Make the routine yours, and it will serve you well.
shop in the store. Once you’ve made your family list, use a printer or copier to print 52 copies: a year’s worth of shopping Stay flexible Menu plans aren’t written in stone. So you’re lists for the household.
fighting fatigue on the “big” cooking day? Swap it with Pizza Each week, post a fresh list on the refrigerator door or Night and go to bed early with a cup of herb tea. Family in the Family Information Center ( see page 87). When today’s members will forgive you, as long as they get their postponed breakfast empties the carton of orange juice, circle that item favorite a day or two later. Building flexibility into your plan on the list. Boys who don’t circle “Sugar Gaggers” on the can also serve the aims of thrift with Cook’s Choice Night.
list when they empty the box will soon learn the principle of Traditionally held the night before grocery shopping, you can cause-and-effect—not making a note means that they’ll be slide a neglected dinner into Cook’s Choice, or chop up the eating hot cereal for the rest of the week.
contents of the refrigerator for a clean-it-out stir-fry. Either On shopping day, grab the list and take it to the
way, you’ll feel smug at your frugality and good planning.
supermarket. You’ll know at a glance that you need to buy more juice, cereal, and bread.
Make it a habit Simple or not, a menu plan won’t help Making a personal shopping list can be an interesting—
you if you don’t make one. Weekly menu planning is a good and revealing—exercise. During the years when we still had candidate for the weekly checklist. Get into the habit of teen children at home, cereal, milk, and cookies headed the planning before you shop, and you’ll get hooked—one
list, along with the entry “nuclear waste”—our family’s slang addiction that’s worth cultivating!
for a cheap, luridly colored punch beverage sold in the dairy case. Sigh. The good old days. Now that our household is Recycle not reinvent After you’ve made menu plans for back-to-two (and we two are both a touch too round)
a few weeks, the beauty of the activity shines through: you
“broccoli” and “salmon” head the list.
can recycle them! Your family won’t mind, and you’ll save even more time and energy. Instead of an ambitious plan for Court the calm of a routine Yes, there are some well-30-day menus, tuck completed menu plans in a file folder or organized souls among us who don’t make formal meal plans.
envelope. Next time fryers are on special offer at the market, But look closer and you’ll discover that there’s an underlying pull out the plan you made this week. Done!
FOOD
95
Freezer
Your family loves home-cooked meals, but with
▪ Freeze casseroles before cooking. A twice-
night? Enter freezer cooking: an organized method
who wants to scoop the leavings into freezer bags?
to cook once and eat many times by stockpiling
Efficient freezer cooks build their lasagna in three pre-prepared main meals and side dishes in the
single-meal containers and freeze two while the
tips and tricks
freezer.
current evening’s dinner is in the oven.
Also
known
as
once-a-month
cooking
or
▪ Package properly. Ill-assorted margarine tubs investment cooking, the concept of freezer cooking
and gaping plastic containers are for amateurs—
is simple. When you do cook, cook multiple portions
and they won’t protect your frozen assets from
and freeze extra servings.
spoilage and freezer burn. Invest in three or four
Problem is, this method is a bit haphazard.
same-sized oven-safe casserole dishes. Is it beef
Who hasn’t known the virtuous feeling of cooking
stew tonight? Spritz the dishes with pan spray,
up a big pot of baked beans and tucking a container
and line with a sheet of foil long enough to wrap
or two deep in the bowels of Moby Dick, the great
completely around the food. Spray the foil, too,
white freezer? Where, sad to say, it remains. Months then ladle in the stew. Gently tuck the foil up over later, a freezer clean-out yields an icy mountain of the food. Freeze overnight, and then release the
anonymous dribs and drabs of pre-cooked food.
foil from the dish. W
rap, label, and freeze in freezer Without labels, planning, or portion control, the cook-bags. To use, pop a foil-wrapped package into the
ahead effort goes to waste.
casserole dish, thaw, and re-heat. Simple!
Use the following tips to fine-tune your freezer
▪ Label, label, label! An efficient freezer cook cooking skills and avoid mystery meals.
has assembled labeling supplies before he or she
begins. Tuck a slip of paper with the name of the
▪ Plan multiple meals. Ground beef and Italian dish, cooking directions, today’s date, and a use-by sausage on sale this week? By all means, buy extra
date to tell you how long to freeze the item between for freezer meals—but make it a plan. Two pounds
the foil-wrapped package and freezer bag. Better,
(1kg) of beef and a pound (0.5kg) of sausage will
use a permanent marker pen to label freezer bags.
make four meals for your family? Great! That’s what
Computer-savvy cooks can print computer address
you buy, not a smidgen more. Too often, a weak “I’ll labels for easy labeling of frozen foods.
freeze the extra” leads to overbuying and waste.
▪ Track inventory. “Out of sight, out of mind”
▪ Package the freezer meals first. Back to our defeats many would-be freezer cooks. Introduce
hungry family, faced with a huge kettle of spaghetti inventory control with a whiteboard. Adding three
sauce. Before you know it, a meat-loving teen has
dinners’ worth of macaroni and cheese to your
gutted the pot and put a serious dent in your meal
freezer hoard? Write ‘em in. Visiting family has you forward-planning. To avoid this hazard, fill freezer drawing heavily on your inventory? Erase each meal
containers before you serve the evening’s meal.
as you use it. A small magnet-mounted whiteboard
You’ll have a tighter handle on portion control—
can be placed on the freezer door to track frozen
and there will be no more scant cups of sauce
assets. Or copy the freezer inventory and post it
marooned inside the freezer.
on the freezer door.
96
CYCLES OF AN ORGANIZED HOME