This post is a part of our new series "Homeschooling Tips". Our homeschooling experts will be presenting quick tips on how you can make your homeschooling experience beneficial and productive, while balancing your other duties of a wife, mother, muslimah and more!
Homemade Frozen Dinners
If you're homeschooling older children, and multiple children at that, depending on what homeschooling method you choose, you may find that you have less time to cook and clean, and need more time supervising, juggling one-on-one attention, and maybe even grading.
There may be times when the kids can't help you in the kitchen because they will be doing their work, and you can't spend too much time cleaning and cooking because each child needs you at different times. It helps then to figure out shortcuts to the cooking process.
Short of buying frozen dinners, what you can do is make your own pre-portioned, pre-packed, ready-to-cook frozen meals.
When I make chicken curry, I mince onions, garlic, ginger, and a make a wet paste of it with curry powder. Then I add the whole spices, and some chilli paste. To create a frozen quick future chicken curry, as I do this, I cut extra onions, garlic, ginger, and blend them in a food processor with curry powder into a paste. I then slip a ziploc into an empty cup, fold the edge of it over the rim and spoon enough blended paste into it to make a chicken curry dish, tie and label it and pop it in the freezer. I can get about two to three packets of this chicken curry paste at a time. The next time I want to make chicken curry, I simply thaw the chicken and one packet of frozen wet curry paste. Then, when I'm really short of time, I simply clean the thawed chicken, slather it with the thawed paste, and pop it in the oven. Skipping the onion-cutting step really makes a huge difference in how much time you spend in the kitchen. Even my 10-11 years olds can do this for me during emergencies. If you can spend more time during the weekends, you can even make your own marinades, marinate your meat, and freeze them, ready to bake/cook/grill when the time comes.
You still get homemade meals, and you have less mess!
I'd love to hear your views on this topic. Post them below in the comments section :)
2 comments:
Good idea. I will surely go for it in sha ALLAH. Even though I do not have kids but being a house wife + full time student + religious activities do not leave much time for me to cook etc.
This idea is really good, may Allah reward you for this inshaAllah!
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