Setting A Routine For Meal Preparation
Identify one day and time of the week when you normally are more rested and organize your kitchen. If you schedule a few hours a week to do your prep like peeling garlic, juicing ginger and lemons, soaking your seeds and nuts, and planting your trays you will establish a routine. What always takes more time is shopping, so if, you store non perishable stable ingredients you will have everything at hand and this will make menu planning much easier.
If I have an abundance of fruit I dehydrate it and then store it in glass jars and re-hydrate it when I want to consume it. Culinary herbs and vegetables can also be dehydrated. Set your dehydrator at 115 degrees so that you will preserve as much of the nutrition as possible. Sprouted almonds that are later dehydrated make a great snack with some fresh fruit and are an ideal meal if you are on the go. Dehydrating nuts and fruits, and even sea vegetables, gives the foods a shelf life and a portability that allows us access to healthier snack food.
When I have an abundance of lemons and oranges from my yard I grate the peal. You can use lemon and orange peel to spice up many raw dishes. Just freeze the peel in a container with a label correctly identifying the date and name.
Ginger and lemon juice can be frozen in ice cube trays. Ginger and lemon juice cubes are handy to have around for dressings and tea. Pulp from juicing the ginger and lemon peel can be frozen and used for tea, juicing, stir frys and dressings.
To save time, you can store your sprouts already hulled and washed. You can also keep a variety of frozen or dehydrated fruit to speed up your breakfast smoothies. Food loses some of its nutrition by freezing, but it is important that your food preparation be something viable for you to do. It would be ideal to sit under a tree and wait for the fruit to fall on the ground, but this is not realistic nor practical for most people, although it could be a goal for many of us.
When garlic cloves grow an inner vein they are not fresh. This vein is signaled out to be the culprit in making people repeat garlic so remove this vein when you peel your garlic.
You can peel a couple of heads of garlic and store them in a glass jar in the refrigerator. You can also process the cloves and cover it with olive oil and store in the regeneratorr for weeks. It is very handy to have some peeled garlic around.
Use fresh spices whenever possible. If you purchase spices, get them whole since they are much more aromatic and tasty. Grind them up with a mortar or coffee grinder as needed.
Glass is always preferred to plastic for storing food because they are so much easier to clean and will keep your food fresher for much longer. Many glass containers that are oven and freezer safe.
Identify an area in your kitchen for soaking and sprouting your beans, nuts, grains and seeds. Comfortable shelving will help you get organized and not feel cluttered and cramped for space. Since you will always be soaking something, you need to have designated shelf space so that you will not be bothered with bowls sitting on your counter tops. With a bit of an effort you can create a greenhouse in your laundry room, basement, kitchen or balcony.