| Hey folks, Efficiency is everything in cooking. The more efficient you are, the more you can enjoy the process of cooking, and the more time you have to do other things—and the less likely you are to resort to eating out. My first tip for efficiency cooking is to start with a clean kitchen. This isn’t just about removing clutter that's physically impeding your ability to cook and move around the kitchen. It’s also about mental decluttering. When you start fresh with clean counters, you have a blank canvas upon which to begin creating. You’ll produce better results and better-tasting food. You’ll come up with more innovative creations in the context of a clean kitchen. Number two, you gotta have sharp knives. Do you want cooking to be a joyous, relaxing endeavor? Cutting an onion, chopping carrots, or slicing steak is a chore with a dull knife. But if you have razor-sharp knives, the simple act of food prep becomes a pleasurable experience; it’s nice to cut a piece of meat and have a knife just slide through without resistance. Reducing any impedance between you and the act of creation will improve the final result and make the work more enjoyable. Sharp knives are also safer than dull knives. Sharp knives cut what you want to cut and where you want to cut. They don’t slip, and they don’t maim. My third tip is to prepare what you can ahead of time. Things like garlic and onions can be chopped ahead of time, and they actually become more nutritious if you give them a little bit of time for the enzymatic action to occur. Pre-cooking potatoes or sweet potatoes makes it really easy to use them in subsequent dishes. You can cut them into fries or dice them into chunks, give them a quick sear in a hot pan, and you’ve got crispy potatoes that only took 10 minutes to make. Eggs can be hard or soft boiled, veggies blanched and spices measured out and put aside. Identify the ingredients that you can prepare ahead of time and always have them on hand, ready to go. Fourth, clean as you go. There's nothing worse than cooking a meal and having a huge mess to deal with at the end. If you clean things as you use them throughout the cooking process, you get to enjoy the meal and a clean kitchen at the end. There's little cleanup because it happened while you were cooking. | 