Mis En Place: Cooking Made Easy

You watch the cooking shows, and then you try to do it… and you think to yourself… “30-Minute Meals?!? Yeah RIGHT!”
Why does it seem that the cooking show cooks can do it so much faster than you? Part of the reason, at least for me, is that I can’t chop a carrot in 2 seconds flat. They are so much more skilled at preparing food quickly than we are. I should hope so, because that’s how they make their living!
Where does that leave us? 5:00, not even close to being done with dinner, and a hungry family, I guess it’s another pizza night! So, what can we do to make sure that we will have everything ready so we can make a meal in a short amount of time?
Whenever I prep a meal in the morning, I’m much more likely to make it that night. Another reason those cooking shows are able to accomplish everything so quickly is that they have the recipe “mis en place” which means “Everything in its place.” They have their veggies chopped, the ingredients measured out perfectly, etc.
So sometime during the day, chop all of the veggies and stick ’em in a container in the fridge. Combine all the dry ingredients and stick the bowl in the pantry. Brown the meat, or cook the chicken, if the recipe requires it. There are many things you can do with a recipe prior to the actual cooking of it. Many baked meals can even completely be made during the day and refrigerated until it is time to cook!
So look at your recipe, and make a contest to see how much of it you can make beforehand.