Save time in the kitchen by thinking ahead

People today are spending less time in the kitchen than they did just two years ago, but I still get many letters and emails from my readers asking me how to get organized enough to spend even less time preparing dinner or lunch. Here are 12 timesaving hints to help you get organized and out of the kitchen quickly.

1. Make a weekly menu for Monday through Friday. For the weekends, enjoy leftovers, takeout or perhaps an evening out for dinner.

2. Make a weekly shopping list and stick to it.

3. Shop once or maybe twice a week for the ingredients necessary for the meals on your menu.

4. Wash your fruit and vegetables before you put them away. This will save you time when preparing meals.

5. If you make “brown bag” lunches, make them the night before. That makes one less thing you have to do in the morning.

6. Make enough food at each meal to have a few leftovers.

7. Use up all the leftovers. If you had a roast for dinner a couple nights ago, you could make open-faced, hot roast beef sandwiches and gravy on another evening.

8. Remember, you can get a lot of use out of a rotisserie chicken. Leftover chicken can be made into chicken pot pie, chicken noodle soup, a chicken salad and more.

9. Make one-pot meals. There will be fewer pots to wash, and most one-pot meals are very tasty and nutritious.

10. Learn how to use a slow cooker.

11. This next hint is very important: Clean as you go. Put things back where you usually keep them. This will save you a lot of time afterward, since you’re cleaning as you prepare the meal.

12. After dinner, set the table again in preparation for breakfast the next morning.

Dear Heloise:

When I was cleaning out my pantry, I discovered a large number of dusty cupcake liners. I shook them out and gave them to my granddaughter to draw on and make paper dresses for her dolls.

To keep my cupcake liners from getting dusty again, I bought new liners and placed them in a canning jar with a lid. This way, I won’t throw away money on items I’ve forgotten about at the back of the pantry.

Dear Heloise: We have a large family and a lot of grandchildren. When we have get-togethers, I always have snacks ready for when the young kids are hungry.

I save every yogurt cup, wash it out and fill it with instant pudding or a gelatin dessert.

The snacks are tasty, but not so filling that it ruins their appetite for the next meal.