Cooking/Multi-Tasking

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I don't cook much but I did take catering and food technology at school. During these lessons in which I was expected to cook something, I had to get my mother to write a list of exactly what to do and when in a step-by-step fashion just so that I could attempt to do it without getting overwhelmed. The combination of pre-heating ovens, letting things simmer whilst chopping veg was just too much for my little brain. Needless to say I failed my exams.

Anyone else have a problem with this? I almost feel like I get to a point during situations like this where my brain just stops working and I feel a bit day-dreamy and it takes me a while to come back to reality, it's hard to explain.

Have you thought of getting a tablet with recipes on? If you have WiFi in the kitchen plus a screen protector you'll be right as rain. Possibly have a stand for it.

I learnt to cook by watching stuff on YouTube. I find my moms cooking (recipes/execution ) very complex.

I’ve been cooking for the past 9 years now. I’m pretty organized now a days. I love cooking!

Yes, normally you are suppose to multi-task. But, it is often possible to single task things, if you don't mind taking the extra time. A sauce may actually taste better if it sits a while before heating or being added to the dish. Vegetables can be chopped at the very beginning. I find that I can do some multi-tasking, now that I have more experience cooking. Wait a minute, have some onions in the fridge I can add to this... I can now cook decently when totally disorganized. Like when the stuff you defrosted isn't exactly what you thought was.

I have always thoroughly disliked hosting holiday meals in particular. Trying to have the main course and all of the accompaniments ready at the same time was horrible. I would lose my temper and be a wreck. Even after years of cooking I still use a cookbook for anything other than a simple meal. I do love to bake though.

One thing that can be helpful is to do all the preparation before you start cooking. This is known as mise in place. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_place.) This can not only include the initial ingredients, but things that can be produced ahead of time and kept warm.

In some cases, you have plenty of time. If you're breading something to be fried such as chicken fried steak, you get your best results if it rests for half an hour after breading before you put it in hot oil. There is plenty of time there to do the rest of your preparation during that time.

Sometimes you cannot finish all at once anyway. For example, when making a gravy in the pan you used to cooked the entree. (If not making a gravy in the pan you used to cook the entree, why didn't you do it before you started the entree?)

And sometimes you don't want to finish them all at once. For a simple example, if I'm making a hamburger, I always toast the bun. If you toast the bun too soon, it can get dry. Since you need to rest the hamburger anyway for a few minutes (unless you like soggy hamburgers), I take the hamburger out of the pan and put it on a cloth or paper towel to rest and only then do I start toasting the bun.

One simple multi-tasking thing you can do while cooking is to wash the dishes as you finish them instead of allowing them to pile up. My first step when cooking nearly anything is to wash whatever dishes there might be in the sink. For example, if I had a piece of pie earlier, I don't bother to wash just one item -- I put the plate in the sink. The next time I cook anything, I start by washing the plate.

While cooking, as I finish with something, I wash it. It doesn't matter if it is a knife or fork or spatula or frying pan, ..., it gets washed then. When I'm ready to eat, there are no dishes that left to be cleaned at that moment. Everything is already washed that doesn't have food in or on it.

Naturally, this is much easier if you already prepped everything before you did any cooking.

When I finish eating, the only dirty dishes are those that I ate out of. If I ate quickly, the dishwater is still warm and I can wash it then, but I usually rinse it off and leave it in the sink to wash at the beginning of my next meal.

Yes, I also wash things as I cook them. But, I'll usually wash everything when I'm done, even if it is just one dish.

An exception is a greasy pan used to cook bacon. I'll re-use the grease to cook something else that day.

The reason I don't generally wash my dish or two after I eat is that it isn't worth filling the sink with water and using enough soap to wash one dish. Besides, there could be more before the next meal -- for example, water glasses, coffee cups, or a bowl or plate used for a snack. Or maybe someone else came in and fixed something (my nephew's 7th grade daughter frequently comes in and fixes something during lunch time before heading back to school). And sometimes I fix something that doesn't take any cooking and so the only thing dirty is one more dish -- for example, eating half a grapefruit with a spoon out of a bowl.

I know exactly what you mean by getting "day dreamy" when overwhelmed by managing to many things at once. Technology can be a heck of a tool though, any time I'm doing something complicated I set a bunch of alarms and reminders to keep things in order. Isn't perfect but if it works it works!

In high school, I chose to enroll in two cooking classes. The instructor was fantastic teaching us to understand the chemistry behind cooking. Once that was learned, recipes were merely a reference point.

To this day, I still cook and clean simultaneously. While something is simmering or baking, I clean the bowls, pots, pans and utensils. It is crazy fun.

The main reason I started washing as I go is that my food preparation area is so small that I have to if I'm cooking anything with more than just a few ingredients. When I used to have plenty of counter area, I used to have dirty dishes everywhere. Now that I do this, I don't have very many dirty dishes at a time.

I never would have though that having almost no counter area to work on would be a good thing, but it turned out to teach me a better way of doing things.