This is why my SO and I try to clean as we cook so it’s easier for later.
This is the way for me too, seeing a stuffed sink full of dishes just makes me stressed let alone how dirty it feels in general.
Also, make more one pot meals. And make big batches so you have leftovers for days. If you are spending more than 15 minutes actively preparing a meal, you can and should probably be lazier.
As someone who has been cooking for himself for a long time, cook large amounts and refrigerate each serving in separate microwavable containers for later.
I also try to make things that can all go onto a single plate to create less cleanup.
This is the way
You’re doing something wrong if it takes you two hours to make dinner.
Skill issue.
Depends on what you are cooking. Just the potatos I made tonight take more than an hour.
Ya so baked potatoes? Just chuck them in the oven for an hour straight on the rack. You literally don’t have to do anything other than wash the potatoes and pierce them. Fucking easy.
If that’s just too much for someone to handle then I really don’t know what to tell you.
So you basically stick to 30 minute meals or under and there’s nothing wrong with that since they do typically take less skill to prepare. There are plenty of recipes that take 2 hours or longer to make.
Ok but if you’re new to cooking and you can’t make a meal without complaining about it taking forever maybe stick to easy meals?
Like I said it’s a skill issue. You don’t need to cook gourmet meals every night.
I don’t mind that, but what I do mind is that it now costs as much to make food at home as it did to dine out two years ago.
And it now costs twice as much to dine out. So there you go. Greedflation working as intended.
where on earth do you live? cooking at home is like 20x cheaper than even the cheapest fast food here in sweden.
imagine thinking cooking is the hard part of adulting
I just got my first ever dishwasher and it’s a game changer.
Removed by mod
It doesnt really save anytime in my experience. You can’t just throw stuff in there covered in food or it will just dry up and cement itself to the dishes/silverware in the day or two until it’s next time to run a cycle. I guess if you have a family and are running it every night, it might let you skip the initial rinse off but idk.
Mine does a fine job washing off crusty dishes. Mainly need to make sure the temperature is high enough, 50 or ideally 60°C. Also helps against grease build-up in the internals which will make it last longer.
Or maybe your dishwasher just went so hard on the water saving it no longer does its job, which is a real issue sadly
It took me years of living on my own to learn my parents were doing it wrong:
The dishwasher doesn’t need to be full to run it. You can chuck everything in after a meal and start it immediately.
Detergent and water are cheap, and even if it’s only a few dishes the machine uses less water than doing them by hand. Also, use liquid or powder detergent and make sure to fill the pre-wash detergent holder – detergent pods are a rip off.
Is your dishwasher like 30 miles away? Why would it take you multiple days to run a cycle?
I usually fill it up before running it. With just two of us, it can take a few days to fill it up. It would be silly to run it with like 2 plates, 2 forks and a cup or two.
They sell smaller ones btw
When I cook, I am extremely strategic about what I use, and clean as I go. The dishwasher wouldn’t really save me any time based on how I operate in the kitchen.
When my wife cooks, it appears to be her goal to use every fucking dish and utensil we own in the process.
But I don’t care. Hell, I’m proud of how successful she is at reaching this apparent goal… because MOST of it can go right in the dishwasher. Now I don’t even bother to ask how we have 10 greasy teaspoons after she made chicken.
I have a family and we make a LOT of dirty dishes. The real value is that I don’t have to wash them all by hand, even if it takes a couple hours who cares at least I ain’t doing it
Use normal powder detergent so you can fill the pre wash and run the kitchen sink hot before you start the dishwasher so that the water starts hot. For me it gets even the dishes with dry cement clean most of the time.
I’ll have to try that hot water trick! I do use powder detergent, and someone else told me recently that I guess you’re supposed to fill not only the closable compartment thing with it, but also the little open depression/pit if you want to clean stuff better. Is that true?
Yes. https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU?si=eUF9FFWPd51qxGtk
Explains everything and made me change my use of dishwashing. Now, even my crap one in my apartment works great!
Clean the dishes while waiting for your food to cook and then leave the remaining dishes you didn’t clean because you were still using them until the next dish run.
Yep. This is how I do it for even when I’m cooking for large gatherings. Yea it can get hectic but you’re not going to be drowning in dishes at the end of the night.
Cast irons are awesome
A steak cooks in 5 minutes and buy a dishwasher already.
I used to feel this way about cooking. I started trying to find joy in the repetitive parts of life, so they didn’t seem so annoying. It’s definitely a journey, but if you keep at it, you get to a point where cooking feels like a creative outlet. Once you have enough experience to create something new from your pantry and quit following recipes verbatim you’ll have fun. It took me a few years to get there, but you’re going to have to cook your entire life anyway, might as well get something out of it.
We absolutely hit a specific age where the annoying parts of life, like cleaning and tidying, suddenly become one of the most satisfying parts of life.
Do you have a tip for enjoying scrubbing the shower, the toilet, and behind the toilet? Everything else is ok, but I hate those. As a result, I try to keep them as clean as possible in day to day use (squeegee the shower after every use, use toilet cleaner, etc) but I still have to dedicate time to cleaning them occasionally and tbh I’m considering paying someone else to do it.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy and all that.
Use uncoated paper plates. Save some water
Skill issue
That’s why you cook enough for 15 meals and re heat it over the week.
Meal Preppers rise up
I cook and clean for an entire family inside of 40-50 minutes 5 nights a week. All of that is mostly “from scratch” and delicious. At some point it becomes a skill issue.
2 hours of cooking is when you are feeding other people or food prepping for the rest of the week, you spend the same time scrolling some predatory food delivery app and waiting for the food as you would spend making the tacos or wings yourself
