Friday, April 20, 2012

Quick Cooking: The Lost Art of the Contunuous Kitchen


See the rest of this series here - parts one and two
My kitchen works while I'm sleeping - fermenting Curtido and Jalapeños en Escabeche

A friend came over today and I had so much fun visiting with her. As I put away the leftovers from our lunch, I went ahead and combined the beans and rice into one dish, to make reheating it for lunch tomorrow simple and easy. She saw me do this and asked what I was doing. I explained and then she started talking about a phrase she had just read in a vintage cookbook called the "continuous kitchen". 


That really struck a chord with me. When I'm keeping up in the kitchen like I ought to be, I make menu plans, alter the plans to use up leftovers, and think several meals ahead to do prep work in small steps throughout the week. I don't step into the kitchen right before mealtime and try to pull a meal out of thin air.

Broccoli pizza - I'm a mean mama
To cook real foods quickly you *must* establish a continuous kitchen. It won't come naturally to you at first. If you aren't a natural planner, it is going to be hard. (I'm sorry if that sounds discouraging. Hang in there!) But the good news is that like any skilled task (reading, math, crochet, computer programming, swimming, baseball, etc), the more effort you put into it, and the longer you practice it, the easier it becomes. Eventually you will realize that cooking like this feels natural and even -gasp- easy.

Have you mastered the art of the continuous kitchen yet?

Jack spilled the beans on my birthday bouquet a day early!

Shared with Monday Mania  

6 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday!!! I like the idea of the continuous kitchen...I like to think of it as re-purposing!!

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    1. Thank you! Yes, I do a lot of repurposing. Leftover bones into stock, dinner becomes the next days lunch, soggy steamed veg gets blended into meatloaf or chicken nuggets.

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  2. So true! Great post. I am still working on mastering this, but I try!

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    1. Thanks! I think the hardest part of a continuous kitchen, for me, is the planning. I would rather cook what I feel like cooking, not what I need to cook so that the veggies don't spoil.

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  3. Happy Birthday Holly! What vintage cookbook did you find 'continuous kitchen' in? I love vintage cookbooks and this sounds like my kinda cookbook! The idea of a continuous kitchen sounds like it fits with the routine building in my new ebooklet. I LOVE broccoli pizza btw, though I'm in the minority at my house :-(

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    1. Thank you! I wish I knew what cookbook, I'll have to ask my friend. As for the broccoli pizza, I can only get Jack to eat it if he helps make it. Which isn't that big of a deal really, it just slows me down a tad.

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