Fewer dishes are easier to clean

Make meals, and any other project, without making a mess

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that fewer dishes are easier to clean. With

(00:23):
any project, thinking about the full process can help make
it more efficient. So I recently answered a question on
my blog from someone who wanted to take her kids
outside after dinner, doing toad time, as we like to
call it, tad or time outside after dinner. One of

(00:45):
the challenges, though, is that getting shoes on and jackets
took a lot of effort, and there was a limited
window before the toddler's bedtime, and of course the dishes
had to be done. I don't deny that getting shoes
use on little kids can be a hassle. However, dishes
can be highly variable. In this listener's case, I suggested

(01:08):
if there were two adults around, one adult could do
the dishes and the other could take the kids outside,
and then the dish doing adult could join the rest
if they were still out there. If she was on
her own, she could aim to make as few dishes
as possible. But as I was thinking about this, I
realized that even if you are not on your own,

(01:31):
this general philosophy of making fewer dirty dishes might be wise.
Many perfectly reasonable weeknight dinners can be made with just
a few dishes. There are really no points for using
more dishes when you can do just fine with fewer.
One approach to using this philosophy is to plan sheet

(01:54):
pan dinners. Lots of things can cook on a single
sheet pan. Think some sort of protein, chopped up veggies,
and some sort of marinade, or even just olive oil,
lemon and salt. The possibilities are endless. You could do
chicken thighs and carrotser salmon and broccoli. Someone might like
sausage and peppers and finely chopped potatoes. I'll share a

(02:18):
tip here that even if you have children who are
highly selective eaters, you can just use two sheet pans
and do one with chicken nuggets and fries and the
other with the foods you plant to eat, or even
divide one sheet pan in half. If there aren't that
many of you, we like to do make your own
pizzas as well, and that only gets one cooking sheet dirty.

(02:42):
I am guessing three to four people can fit their
pizzas on one. With seven of us, we sometimes need
two cooking sheets or so, but that's fine. It is
still very limited in terms of dishes. The other approach
is a one to two pot or pan dinner. A
veggie almelet could cook in a skillet and be perfectly good.

(03:04):
Add a bag salad and crusty bread if you want,
and the dishes are still minimal. I like to cook
pasta in one pot and jazz up a jar of
sauce by sauteg some veggies and sausage in a pan
and then adding the sauce. This is dinner with minimal pots.
Getting dirty. Fajitas can likewise be a one pot sort

(03:24):
of thing, as could cheese quesadias. If you're cooking meat
and veggies and then putting them in the quesadia, I
guess this could be a two pan endeavor, but again,
two pans are pretty quick to clean. After all of this,
you can continue to minimize dishes by having people serve
themselves directly from the stove. No point getting another dish

(03:46):
dirty if it is not a formal dinner. We also
grab our own silverware in the family, except for very
little people, because if you decide you don't need a spoon,
then you don't need to get a spoon dirty. Same
with cups. You are welcome to pour yourself something to drink,
but if you are already working your way through a
can of Seltzer from earlier, well, no need to get

(04:07):
another cup dirty. Sometimes it is more fun to do
elaborate meals, but on a regular Tuesday it often isn't
simple is the way to go. By choosing meals with
the goal of making fewer dishes, you can make the
whole process more efficient. This is true for many things

(04:28):
beyond meals. With any project, think about the process at
the beginning. How can it be more efficient? If you
decide that the document will go through two rounds of
edits and then be signed off on. That is more
efficient for everyone than if the answer is unknown and
you are all trying to figure this out. If you

(04:50):
decide to paint all your trim the same white, this
saves time. It is more efficient for procurement than lots
of different whites. If you only put one person's wash
in the washing machine at a time, there is no
need to sort it at the end. Fewer dishes are
easier to clean. Whenever we can plan ahead to make

(05:12):
the process more efficient, we can save time, and feel
more relaxed in general. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've

(05:38):
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

(06:00):
your favorite shows.