I like to cook and I like eating the fruits of my labor, but I do seek to minimize the "work" time.  How do I do that?  Here are a five tips:

1. Make leftovers-- cook more than you need.  Leftovers mean a second dinner a few days later and decent lunches for work or school.  I always make more Italian gravy then we need and we get several other meals out of it
2. Multi-task-- do a few meals at once.  Many times when I cook, I will be prepping dinner, while making breakfast and making homemade iced tea for later in the day
3. Have "quick and dirty" ingredients and meals-- for fast meals.  Sometimes it pays to have ingredients for quick thrown together meals like eggs or pasta or bacon, lettuce, and tomato (BLTs) or grilled cheese
4. Set it and forget it-- use a slow cooker.  We love slow cooker meals like chili and pot roast
5. Pre-prep and pre-plan-- do the dirty work ahead of time.  Certain things can be done the night before or even days before.  Menus can be planned a week in advance

I also make good use of the freezer-- more on that in future posts.