— Maria Miller

Practice makes better. And, you know, uh, with, with any endeavor, right? The better you get at it, the less stressful it is. And the same absolutely holds true with cooking and, and food handling. And, um, uh, you know, when it comes to, uh, working in, uh, cooking into a busy day, you know, we, uh, talk about batch cooking, the basic principle of batch cooking, which means to, uh, prepare, uh, a, uh, a staple food item, especially one that, um, can take some time to cook, such as simmering beans, right? Or cooking whole grains, uh, which can be a little time consuming, especially after a busy day at the office. And, uh, so we would prepare these ahead of time, you know, such as, on a Sunday afternoon in preparation for the week ahead of us, and you, it, it's up to you as to how much you wanna cook. Uh, you might choose to cook enough food to get you through the next five days, all the way till the next weekend, or you might choose to make enough to get you through just two or three days, and then, uh, maybe you will, uh, cook up again, uh, a batch of, uh, beans or grains on Wednesday evening. So that's up to you. Um, but the idea is to cook these staple items that can then, um, be used to make different preparations so you can cook up some pinto beans and, um, you know, use some of those, um, uh, to go into tacos. Uh, then the next day you can use some of those to go into, uh, a soup. Um, and then, you know, you might, um, uh, use what's left on Wednesday night to to go with some pasta. And, uh, so in that way, um, right, you're saving yourself some time that that hour, uh, hour and a half of, of cooking beans each night, right? Instead, it's just rolled into one, uh, prep event on Sunday afternoon. So that's the basis of, of, um, batch cooking. And so if you can incorporate, uh, batch cooking and apply it to your different food items such that you can reach for these two or three or four things, um, on any given night and, and more quickly assemble a meal, then, uh, you're going to find greater joy in cooking. Okay? So there is efficiency, in other words, okay? Now, a big part of this also is gonna be knife skill development. And in all of our courses, whether it's for the home cook or for to the, uh, uh, for the professional, uh, cook, you know, we have lessons on knife skill development. And, uh, boy, I tell you, if, if that might be the most important thing to, uh, to develop, you know, when it comes to efficient prep and, uh, quicker meal, uh, um, you know, preparation, and then also more fun, more joy, right? In the cooking process, okay? So you, you know, with practice with a sharp knife and with a decent quality knife, uh, you know, you're going to, um, build confidence and speed, right? And accuracy on the knife. So all these things are, are gonna be part of your homework. All right? Enjoy, enjoy the process.