Protect Your Edible Investment

Eat a rainbow every day!

Have I mentioned how much I hate grocery shopping? The crowds. The lines. The screaming kids (usually my own). The screaming moms (usually me). The reckless cart drivers. The prices. The physical labor. The MATH! …

Fortunately for my hungry family, I love to eat more than I hate to grocery shop, so I do it anyway. However, I’m not willing to suffer this torture more than once/week if I can help it and, by golly, it’s gotta be worth the effort. This means wasting as little as possible of what I buy. I’m not lugging all that stuff home just to feed the fruit flies or to let it rot in the fridge!

Besides, have you seen the price of fresh produce recently? Eating healthy requires a significant investment of both time and money (neither of which I have in abundance), and protecting that investment is key to successful consumption (something I enjoy). Otherwise, you may as well just throw those apples in the trash as soon as you get home. Let’s face it, work is work…whether you pick those apples from the orchard yourself or pick through them in the produce aisle. And I, for one, want to do as little of that as I can get away with.

The good news is that it doesn’t take a lot of extra time or effort to lengthen the life of your produce. You’ll not only make up that time (with interest) later, but you’ll be more likely to actually eat all the yummy, healthy goodies you lugged home. As soon as you get home, wash and dry your lettuce, fresh herbs, “bowl fruit” (apples, oranges, etc.), grapes and berries before putting them away. They’ll be ready to eat/prepare when you want them, last longer and look more inviting.

If you have the time, go ahead and bag up individual portions of fruits and veggies before putting them away so that you or your family members can grab a healthy snack any time. I find that non-organic cut bell peppers, celery, carrots, and cucumbers will stay fresh for up to a week if stored properly in the fridge. This saves me oodles of time on lunch preparation throughout the week, because I can bag it up as soon as I get home from the store and then just toss it into the lunch boxes each morning. (If you shop organic, the shelf life may be shorter, so you’ll have to figure out what works best.) One cutting board + one knife + one time washing them and putting them away = three reasons for this busy/lazy mom to smile.

Just to be clear, I don’t wash everything before I put it away…just the things I’ve found make a difference. Here are a few tips that have worked well for me:

• Do not use detergents or chemicals, but adding white vinegar to the water (at least 1 part vinegar to 4 parts water) will help kill most bacteria and remove pesticides without changing the flavor.
• Make sure everything is as DRY as possible before putting it away.
• If towel-drying, always use a fresh, clean dish towel or paper towel.
• The water should not be more than 10 degrees warmer than the produce.
• If submerging, use the tub of a salad spinner rather than the kitchen sink, as the drain area of the sink can harbor yucky stuff you don’t want to eat!
• Spin leafy vegetables and fresh herbs dry after washing and store in an airtight container or zip-top bag with a paper towel to absorb any excess water. (I store my lettuce in a large Tupperware container with a paper towel on both the bottom and on top and it will stay fresh for at least a week.)
• Tear lettuce rather than cutting it with a knife, as cutting may cause it to brown.
• Remove grapes from stems and rinse thoroughly. Lay on towel in a single layer and allow to air dry completely before bagging.
• Berries must also be completely dry before storing in an aerated container (not airtight).
• Dry “bowl fruit” completely after washing and keep it out of direct sunlight.
• Soak cut apples in salt water for five minutes to keep them from browning. Drain and store in an airtight container in the fridge…they’ll stay fresh and crisp for at least a couple of days!
• Don’t forget to use your freezer! Toss a few of those individually portioned bags of grapes in the freezer for a refreshing snack that will last much longer than in the fridge. Freezing excess produce is a great way to preserve that initial investment until you need it.

Your needs may be slightly different depending on what you buy, how often you buy it, whether or not it is organic, and how picky you are about texture and freshness. The point is to do whatever you can to make sure the food you bring home is getting consumed by you and your family and not pests or the garbage disposer.

Happiness is Finding a Hidden Blessing

It’s never a good sign when it starts raining in your garage…especially when your kitchen is above the garage and you’ve just stepped in a wet patch near the dishwasher!

So yes, we need a new dishwasher and no, there is no room for one in our budget right now. At first I was so busy being grateful that it wasn’t an issue with the kitchen plumbing that I forgot to groan about having to hand wash all my dishes for the foreseeable future. It didn’t take long for me to remember just how much I hate it. I mostly hate not having any room on my tiny counter to put all the clean dishes and how quickly I run out of dry dish towels since I don’t have a drainer and have to drain them on a towel. (I’m actually anti-dish drainer because I think they invite you to leave the job unfinished and take up valuable space even when not in use.) But once I figured out that I could use the empty dishwasher as my drying rack, my perspective began to change. I began to see the silver lining to this cloud and realized that what at first seemed like a curse may indeed become a blessing.

For one thing, washing and drying dishes is something everyone in my family can do…even the more “spatially challenged” among them. My kids have finally completed the Dishwashing Badge in our Life Skills Badge Program. My husband is more sensitive about helping with dinner clean up, and I don’t have to worry about whether the bowl I really want to use is going to take up too much space in the dishwasher later. Maybe now we won’t have to take out a second mortgage just to pay the water bills that also fund my daughter’s showers. (She’s the only 11-year-old I know with permanently wrinkled hands.) And once the kitchen cleanup is done, it’s done…no more dishes to put away later since I ascribe to the dry-them-and-put-them-away-now philosophy.

Best of all, I’m no longer worrying about what will happen if my dishwasher breaks…I already know. My children will enjoy an excuse to play in some sudsy water before school. My husband and I will giggle and flirt as we snap dish towels at each other. I’ll imagine my mother, now gone to her rest, washing that very same serving spoon back in our kitchen on Timber Trail Rd. The clean scent of the dish washing liquid will remind me of my grandmother’s kitchen.

Sometimes we need something to break to realize how truly unimportant it is. And often in our never-ending quest to simplify our lives, we end up complicating them instead. The modern conveniences designed to free up our time wind up stealing our opportunities to forge that time into something memorable. Think about your funniest family anecdotes. Chances are they felt like catastrophes at the time. (Someday I’ll share my “Mom in a Manhole” story…a real family classic.) Next time “disaster” strikes, look for the hidden blessing instead of feeling cursed.

I suppose we will replace the dishwasher eventually, but I’m not in any hurry. It might be kind of fun to share KP duty with my sister after a family holiday meal just like the old days. But only if she dries.

 

 

 

Visual Peace: Calming the Chaos in Ten Minutes or Less

Let’s just face it: keeping up with everyday life is not for sissies. No matter what your station is in life…student, professional, parent, retiree…your must do/should do list always seems to outweigh your available time.

As an indentured servant working mother, my list seems to grow exponentially with each item I cross off. I’ve found that the key to keeping your sanity is organization, and the first step in getting organized is to trick yourself into a sense of control over your environment. Quieting the “visual noise” that surrounds you will help you focus on what you need to do to actually take control. Are you with me?

No matter how messy your house is or how much you have on your plate, spending just 10 minutes each day to tidy up first will help put you in the right frame of mind and allow you to turn your attention to more important things on your list. Start with the things that will make a big visual impact while requiring little time/effort:

1. Make your bed. Do it as soon as you get up, before you are awake enough to talk yourself out of it.
2. Pick your clothes up off the floor. Better still, never let them touch the ground. Either put them away or toss them in the hamper as soon as you take them off.
3. Close drawers and closet doors. You’ll be amazed at how much cleaner your whole room will look…it’s like magic!
4. Wash/put away the dishes. Load them into the dishwasher right away to keep them from piling up. If you hand wash them, dry them and put them away too. Nothing creates clutter and a sense of despair like a pile of dishes cluttering up the counter/sink.
5. Recycle old newspapers/magazines and junk mail regularly. Establish a deadline for reading them. (If you miss the deadline, go ahead and toss it. Life as you know it will not end…I promise!) In the meantime, keep them tidy and contained in a designated spot.
6. Set up baskets/bins for shoes, backpacks, reading material and toys. This makes it easy to just toss in the trail of surface clutter left lying around by your messy spouse/kids loving family. Assign them the task of checking the baskets daily and putting away their own stuff.
7. Hang up your bath towel. Put away toiletries immediately after use to keep the bathroom looking respectable. Nothing is worse than sending an unexpected guest to facilities that both smell and look atrocious.
8. Declutter the front entrance. It is the first thing you see when you come home and can make the difference between a relieved “Ahhhh, I’m home” feeling or a desire to run away from home. Create a functional yet orderly “landing pad” for keys, phones and other essentials, but keep it free from other clutter.
9. Hang up coats/jackets and put away hats, gloves and scarves. Your home should make you feel warm, cozy and safe, not remind you that a cold world awaits just outside your door.

Creating designated homes for all of your belongings will make all of this quicker/easier, but so much of getting organized is just about establishing good habits. Start here and you will be well on your way to feeling in control.

“Instead of spending time being bothered by things that you cannot control, invest your time and energy in creating the results you desire.” – Jensen Siaw

 

My Supermarket Shopping List. What’s YOUR Superpower?

 

Hang your list on the fridge and add to it as you think of things you need.

I hate grocery shopping! Once upon a time it was fun, back when I was young and single and only cooked because I wanted to. Back then, I could meander through the aisles for hours, dreaming about the days when I had a family to cook for and imagining all the tasty, fun foods I’d make. In my little dream world, my well-rounded and appreciative children would be eager to try new foods, and there would always be oodles of time for teaching them to cook in my spacious, always-clean-and-tidy kitchen. It was a Betty Crocker Utopia. Ha!

In reality, grocery shopping with two impatient and whiny kids is like playing Supermarket Sweep, American Ninja Warrior, The Price is Right, and Survivor all at once…where the only prizes you win are gray hair, frazzled nerves and a big fat bill at the end. Oh, and then you get to cart all your stuff home and put it away. And we haven’t even come to the Hell’s Kitchen part of the show!

The only way I can win this game is to limit the number of times I play to once a week. That means making sure I don’t forget anything, which means creating a list. I’ve tried those pre-printed lists you check off, using electronic lists (many versions) and even creating my own list each week, but nothing seemed quite strong enough to numb the pain to a bearable level. The lists were never comprehensive enough or not arranged the way I liked, and crossing off (or deleting) items as I put them in the cart was too cumbersome a task to perform while simultaneously trying to prevent my kids from hiding in the freezer case or climbing the piles of giant rice bags. And in my frenzied rush to get out of the store before being kicked out by the manager, I was always forgetting some key ingredient I needed.

I finally came up with a solution that’s been working really well and has even gotten some positive comments from fellow shoppers, so I thought it was worth sharing with you guys. After consulting my pantry, fridge, freezer and cabinets, I created a comprehensive list of everything I typically buy. (I’ve been using this list for a few months now and haven’t discovered any major omissions yet.) It’s organized alphabetically by category. While store layouts vary, the categories are fairly standard. You may skip around from category to category on the list, but you will usually find the majority of items within a category together in the store.

The best part about this list is that it’s reusable and easy to check off. You see, it fits on the front and back of a single sheet and thus can be laminated or placed into a plastic page protector and used with a dry erase marker.* Hang it on the fridge and add to it all week long as you think of things you need to buy. Check off any additional items you know you will need before heading to the store. Scanning the list itself will even trigger your memory of things you need to purchase. Then as you shop, simply rub off the check marks with your finger as you put items in your cart. No pen required! (This leaves the other hand free to yank your kids back BEFORE they pull the bottom orange out of the neatly-stacked pyramid.) Hang it back up on the fridge when you get home, ready for next week’s round.

Feel free to download this printable PDF and give it a try, or email valerie@easypeasyliving.com to request a FREE editable version you can customize (created in Microsoft Excel).

And for my fellow suffering moms out there: I’ve discovered that assigning each kid an item and having them race to see who can retrieve theirs first not only keeps them occupied and teaches them where to find things in the store, it saves my energy for more important things…like chasing the shopping cart they are coasting downhill to the car.

 

*Laminating the list stiffens it, making it easier to write on or rub off and preventing it from creasing in your shopping bag. If using a page protector, place the two sheets back to back with a piece of cardboard in between to achieve the same effect.

 

How Balanced Is Your Budget?

 

I love seeing everything at once in my tiny, organized pantry!

I’m bracing myself for a barrage of hate mail for posting this, but my recent discovery has brought me such freedom that I simply must shout it from the rooftops!

I’d like to think I’ve proven myself as a reasonably frugal consumer. When I say “frugal”, I mean that I am budget-conscious and put some effort into finding decent bargains while also recognizing that my time is at least as limited as my finances. 

First an admission: I do not coupon (gasp). I found it to be too time consuming and confusing. On top of that, in order for couponing to work, you have to actually remember to give the cashier your coupons…oops!  I used to be a regular shopper at warehouse stores like Sam’s and Costco because of the low per-unit price you could get by buying in bulk. But then I realized that while spending $400 in one week for 3 different items may save me money in the long run, my short-term cash flow was precisely that…short. So I began shopping at a discount grocery store that stocks mostly off-brand products but where the prices (and the quality) are at least as good as the coupon and warehouse deals without the hassle or the huge outlay.

Finally, I had managed to secure a low unit cost without having to purchase a high quantity. I began to see the benefits of fitting normal-sized products into my tiny pantry (pictured above…I just love my pantry). Gone (eventually) were the 2-liter bottles of soy sauce and vats of olive oil. Crackers, pretzels and cereal were no longer going stale before they could be consumed. I was able to reclaim part of my garage for storing other items besides overflow food. And it no longer took the National Guard to help me unload all the groceries each week.

Unfortunately, I kept buying more cans and boxes than I actually consumed each week out of pure habit…”just to have some on hand”. I still had one large shelf reserved in the garage for storing all my extras. In the garage, mind you…where I hate to go. I would send the kids down to get stuff for me, so I lacked a keen sense of what was actually there. I was always buying things we didn’t need and not buying something we did need simply because I assumed we already had more of it down in the garage.

And then something happened to knock some sense into me. I fell down the stairs and dislocated my shoulder…badly. I could no longer carry as many groceries and was forced to shorten my weekly shopping list to only what I knew we would use in the next week or two. 

Eureka! Now I can fit everything into my pantry where I can easily see at a glance just what we need. Everything is fresh and actually consumed rather than wasted. Putting the groceries away is quicker and easier, and I now have even more room in my garage. I feel so FREE!

All of this has made me realize that being a “frugal” consumer means respecting not just your financial and time limitations, but your space limitations too. My father used to always say, “Space is at a premium.” It surely is a precious commodity to be used wisely. Don’t squander your spacial budget just to stretch your financial or time budgets. Find a balance of all three.

How do you balance your financial, time and spacial budgets?

Note: Your Sam’s or Costco membership may still be worthwhile for purchasing household items, office supplies, electronics, etc. at a great price or for when you are feeding a large crowd. I am not suggesting you ditch it!  Just don’t let bulk purchases of regular groceries eat up all your space.

Keeping Up While Cutting Down

The karate kid sporting his “new” jammies

To say that my kids are “growing like weeds” takes on a lot more meaning if you have ever seen my yard. While my closets are neatly organized and my pantry is a masterpiece of space management and convenience, it is an understatement to say that my garden could use a little tweaking. Sure, I appreciate other people’s beautiful landscapes and wish I had one too, but I don’t do bugs, snakes or itchy creepy crawly stuff. Thus mine is a tangled patch of overgrown weeds that I can’t keep up with…much like my kids. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Like most moms, it’s important to me that my progeny look presentable. Heaven knows that I have expended more energy than I probably should on arguing with them over proper teeth brushing, appropriate haircuts and fingernail length. I’m frankly surprised that Child Protective Services has not appeared on my doorstep yet, given the blood-curdling screams my son lets rip on nail-clipping day or my daughter’s gnashing of teeth at the mere prospect of having her hair braided. Apparently I could teach the CIA a thing or two about torture.

I gave up the stripes with plaid and boots with shorts war years ago due to pure battle fatigue. They are now free to express themselves (within reason) with their wardrobe choices. I’ve even recently developed a  new “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy toward tears and stains after discovering the multiple holes my 9YO son created in the crotch of his new shorts…I just don’t want to know. I simply don’t have the time, energy or budget to stay on top of it, and some days this weary mom feels lost in the weeds.

It is upon this backdrop that I looked up last Sunday evening and realized that my son’s sleep pants were about 5 inches too short. They have worn well and still fit perfectly in the waist. More importantly, he loves them! But so pathetic did he look in them, that I had to do something to save my poor child from the certain ridicule that awaited him if one of his neighborhood friends should come knocking at the door after he was ready for bed (as they sometimes do). My solution was so quick, easy and free that I had to share it. After all, it isn’t often that he and I are both this thrilled with a wardrobe solution. All it took was a pair of scissors and within five minutes, he had 6 pairs of adorable, comfortable, summer sleep shorts!

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Five minute fix for outgrown jammies.

This simple yet elegant solution got me thinking about other ways that I stretch (literally) the kids’ wardrobe with minimal time and effort. (I’m not much of a seamstress either.) Here are just a few:

• Turn a short dress into a tunic by pairing it with leggings or bike shorts.
• Hang onto outgrown leggings until they are short enough to become capri leggings.
• Lengthen skirts and dresses by adding a ruffle or lace hem to the bottom.
• Convert stained t-shirts and comfy elastic waist shorts into pajamas.
• Missing one unique button? Replace half of them (alternating) with new ones.
• Cover up a stain or tear with a decorative patch or iron-on applique.

What shortcuts do you take to stretch your time and budget?

Waste Not, Want Not

By now you should know that I’m a big fan of keeping things simple and affordable. One of my favorite places to practice this is in the kitchen. Some of the best culinary inventions were born of a need for frugality, convenience, or both (Think pizza, soup, and croutons). For someone like me who is one part lazy, two parts budget-conscious and three parts control-freak, finding ways to reduce waste in the kitchen satisfies my need for easy, cheap yet homemade cooking in one fell swoop. What could be better than saving myself time, money and guilt all at the same time? (Well, besides eating all the yummy results of my efforts?) All it takes is a freezer, a little planning and a few new habits in order to get started.Whether your freezer is stocked full of ice cream and frozen pizza or you use it primarily for taking advantage bulk deals on meat and other expensive ingredients, here are a few items you can store in this under-utilized appliance to you save time and money and reduce waste:

• Vegetable Scraps – Start saving all those cores, ends, leaves, husks and peels in a zip-loc freezer bag. (Make sure they are clean and only save scraps that are not beginning to rot.) No need to separate by vegetable…the more variety, the better. When the bag is full, dump the contents into a large stock pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 30-45 minutes, then strain for a tasty homemade vegetable broth for use in soups and stews. (Tip: Skip the salt; you can add it to your recipe later and eliminating it from the broth gives you more options in how to use it.)
  
• Bread ends and stale (not moldy) leftover bread and rolls – Process into crumbs using a food processor to make homemade bread crumbs or cut into cubes, spritz with oil or butter, season and bake until crunchy for homemade croutons.
• Crushed chips, crackers, or pretzels – Don’t throw out those last few crumbs with the bag…freeze them for later. These make a great crunchy topping for casseroles, soups and salads.
• Leftover coffee – Bottom of the pot gone cold? Pour it into ice cube trays and use it to chill your iced coffee without watering it down. (You can also keep a pitcher of the leftover coffee in the refrigerator for use in iced coffee drinks.)
• Bones – Any kind of bones can be boiled with some of your vegetable scraps for a tasty broth.
• Butter wrappers – These are convenient and less messy than cooking spray for greasing baking pans.
• Juice from cans of fruit or tomatoes – Pour these into small containers or ice cube trays and use to cool drinks without watering them down, in smoothies, and to thin or add flavor to soups or stews. Toss fresh fruit in leftover pineapple juice to keep it from browning.
• Herbs – I hate having to spend $2 on a huge bunch of parsley or cilantro when I only need 50 cents worth. Instead of letting it rot and wilt in your fridge, chop it up and freeze it in ice cubes for later use or add it to your vegetable scrap bag to flavor your next batch of broth.
• Ripe bananas – Peel them, mash them and freeze them for later use in delicious banana bread and muffins.
• Sweet Potatoes – Did you buy the 5 lb. bag when you only needed 2? Wash them, prick with a fork and nuke in the microwave on high for about 5 minutes or until soft. Scoop out the center and mash and freeze for use in lots of yummy recipes.
• Leftovers – Even if you have just one serving left over from dinner, freeze it for a tasty brown bag lunch at the office one day in the future when you don’t have anything else prepared. This takes the pressure off yourself to eat it before it goes bad. You can also make extra and freeze individual portions for this purpose. Leftover pasta, rice, barley, etc. thaw nicely and work well in soups, salads and casseroles.

The sky is the limit on other things you can freeze, from lemon zest to extra frosting or cookie dough. Be realistic when you are shopping and only buy what you need, but when you find yourself with obviously more than your family can easily consume, freeze it before it goes bad. Not only will you reduce waste, but these little gems just may come to your rescue the next time you find yourself in a pinch.

Share the wealth! Comment below and let us know what you save and how you use it.

The Inconvenience of Conveniences

Is your bread machine covered in flour or in dust?

I recall the look of complete amazement and bewilderment on the face of my British friend as I described to her, sometime back in the late ’80’s, how a drive-thru bank worked. I’m not sure if she was impressed by the ingenuity of such an idea or astonished at the sheer laziness of an entire culture where such a phenomenon would even be needed, much less commonplace.

Indeed, we Americans seem to be almost obsessed with an ongoing demand for more and more “convenience”. As though drive-thru restaurants, pharmacies and dry cleaners are not enough, we now have curbside pickup, hands-free concierge service on our cell phones, and remote controls that open our car trunks for us from 50 feet away. Of course, being the queen of laziness, I love it all and can’t wait for the day that someone invents an exercise machine that allows me to burn calories and tone muscle while napping.

But if we aren’t careful, our never-ending quest for convenience can become downright inconvenient, particularly when it comes to all those “convenience” kitchen appliances: juicers, bread makers, rotisseries, countertop grills, food dehydrators and vacuum sealers. Look around you. Are the appliances that are intended to conserve your time just consuming valuable the real estate in your home?

As with anything else, it’s all about choices. Choose which convenience you want…drive-thru burgers, or easier homemade burgers? Vacuum packed groceries you can freeze for fewer trips to the store, or door-to-door grocery delivery? Be realistic and consider your lifestyle and current needs to determine which you will really use. If you want to keep the food dehydrator, fine. USE IT! Commit to it. Let go of that notion that you’ll use it “someday”. If “someday” ever does come, the newer models will be better, even easier to use, and probably worth the cost of buying a new one, so there’s no need to keep this one around and in your way until then (unless it’s Grandma’s old ice cream maker and you are keeping it for sentimental reasons…but that’s another post). Realize that there is nothing convenient about having to move the juicer every time you need to find a glass for your store-bought juice. ALL conveniences require some type of sacrifice–time, money, space, accessibility–so choose wisely.

I have a bread maker I bought about 15 years ago but rarely used because it was too big to store on the counter and required too much effort to get it out when put away. Storing such a large and infrequently-used appliance in my tiny kitchen was a luxury I could no longer afford, so I gave myself an ultimatum: either start using the bread maker regularly or get rid of it. Thus I re-organized my kitchen to make it easier to access my bread maker and  have started using it at least weekly to make homemade dough for pizzas, pita bread and hamburger buns from pre-measured, homemade mixes I toss together once a month or so. I am choosing the convenience of having easier homemade pizza over the convenience of ordering pizza delivery, but that’s a personal choice. The point is, you need to evaluate your current needs and priorities and stop allowing your convenience appliances to inconvenience your life by either finding a way to make using them easier or getting rid of them to make room for a different kind of convenience.

By the way, unused space is a pretty versatile convenience of its own. Just saying.

We’ve Moved!

The EasyPeasy Living blog has a new home on our new website, http://www.easypeasyliving.com/blog.html! Come check us out!

Don’t delay in reading our latest post on overcoming procrastination!

I’ve Got Something in the Oven

No, no, no…it’s not that kind of “something”…those days are over (thank goodness)! But it’s not too early to get your holiday bake on. Whether you are baking pies for Thanksgiving, Christmas cookies for Santa, yummy bread to give as gifts, or quiche for a New Year’s brunch, planning and doing a bit ahead of time will reduce some of that holiday stress…save that for dealing with the in-laws and your sugared-up kids!

1. Start by creating space in your freezer. Use up some of the stuff that’s been in there for awhile before it expires. (If you lost power during one of the recent storms, here’s your silver lining.)
2. Next, pick up extra baking staples during your regular shopping trips whenever you see them on sale. Flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, butter…did you know that you can freeze your butter?
3. Make a list of all the old family favorites and any new goodies you’d like to bake this year. (If your family is anything like mine, this alone will make you realize that you should have started on December 26 of last year.)  Gather your recipes in one place or include cookbook names and page numbers on your list so that you have it handy when ready to dive in.
4. Make a list of any special ingredients you don’t normally keep on hand so that you can keep an eye out for sales and purchase them as you see them. Many items go on sale right after Halloween or Thanksgiving, and coupons abound.
5. Whip up a batch of cookie dough or pie pastry as time allows. It literally takes only minutes, and if you start making just one or two batches each weekend, you’ll have a wide assortment by the time you need them.
6. Cookie dough can be rolled into logs (for slicing), cut into shapes, or shaped into individual balls and then frozen. Pie shells can be shaped and frozen raw, and quick breads can be baked first before being wrapped and frozen. Just be careful to package everything well in airtight freezer containers or wraps and label them clearly. (I wondered why my Maple Shortbread tasted so peanut buttery last year!)
7. Just pull your goodies out of the freezer and bake as and when they are needed. Most recipes can be baked straight from the freezer but be sure to allow additional baking time.

No more marathon baking sessions three days before your party or giving away stale cookies because you couldn’t get them delivered right away. Bake only what you need, package them up and deliver them fresh from your oven straight to your boss’ desk. Can you say “Christmas bonus?”