i have a family member who is sensitive to phlalates. With our hard water, none of the phlalate-free detergents will get our dishes clean. When I wash dishes, the detergent I use forces me to take a lot of extra steps to minimize exposure. Because of this, I have to wash dishes very infrequently, so I'm hyper aware of the dirty dishes I create and go to great lengths to minimize them.
Part Artist/Part Engineer
To be a good cook, you have to be part artist, part engineer. Most people are comfortable with the artistry, but the engineering, for some, can be a struggle. There's a reason why top chefs are renowned for being overbearing control freaks. Everything you do in a kitchen has ramifications. An extra pinch of a particular spice may not be a huge deal, but, if you're making a waffle that takes 4 minutes to cook, you can't leave and come back in 8. Dishes are unbelievably unforgiving. If you dirty a dish, it's not going to wash itself.
Mise En Place Never Ends
Most people can understand the necessity of having your ingredients prepped and in place before you start cooking. But that concept of thinking ahead, of planning at least 4 chess moves in advance, is applicable to everything you do in the kitchen. You grab a spoon to stir a sauce- "how many times will I be stirring this sauce? I better not put the spoon in the sink until I know I'm done with it" "Can I use this spoon to eat the meal with?" "Can I stir the sauce with a utensil that I've already dirtied making something else?" From the moment you walk into the kitchen to start cooking, until the last dish has been put away, you need to be planning ahead, and streamlining the process.
Disposables
I couldn't survive without disposable kitchen wares. I go through probably 10 pairs of plastic gloves a day. I handle meat and cheese with gloves, put away and dispense cooked pasta and rice with gloves. When I'm done with a glove, I'll turn it inside out and use it as a counter protector. Almost every meat that I cook gets baked on foil- including bacon. Dry-ish foods, like cooked rice and pasta go into gallon plastic bags. In addition to re-using plastic gloves as counter protectors, I'll use plastic sandwich bags with a paper towel on top as a stove protector. I drain every meat that I bake on plastic grocery bags with a layer of paper towel. If I'm cutting a lot of things, I'll break out the cutting board, but if it's something small, I'll cut it on two layers of paper plates. If I'm serving a sandwich for lunch, it's going on a paper plate. If the sandwich doesn't soil the plate, I'll save it for use as the bottom layer when cutting.
Are paper plates, paper towels, plastic bags and plastic gloves the most environmentally conscious choices? No. I try to make up for it in other areas of my life, and I try to re-use my disposables as much as possible, but it's an impact that I'm still not completely comfortable with. The alternative- forgoing these products, that's not an option, though.
Engineer Your Dishwasher Space
I used to use beautiful china that had been handed down for generations- but it was large and inefficient and took up too much dishwasher space. I'm pretty much 100% cheap Corelle dishes now. Light, thin and efficient. I also wouldn't be exaggerating to say that I've spent more than 10 hours testing various stacking arrangements to get the most dishes I possibly can into a load while not having them touch/potentially chip and maximizing cleanliness. I've replaced pots with odd handles that haven't played well with my dishwasher My dishwasher is 35 years old. When the motor went, I spent countless hours figuring out how to fix it rather than replace the whole machine because I didn't want to have to start over the arranging process with a new unit. My dishes, right now, fit like a glove.
It's amazing. I've sat there thinking "this absolutely has to be it, I can't fit anything else in here," but, then I rearrange the puzzle one more time and squeeze in one more thing.
Look at everything you're putting into your dishwasher. I guarantee you that you'll find a few things that are space hogs- and that, if replaced, could use space much more efficiently.
Besides replacing pots, pans and dishes that didn't fit well into my dishwasher schematic, I also replaced quite a few hand washable items- and am in the process of replacing more. As we speak, I'm looking for a cheap good machine washable steak knife. For instance, cast iron is wonderful, but you can pretty much match the baking properties with clad stainless- and clad stainless can be put in the washer.
Beyond replacing, there's also re-sizing. I've cut down acrylic cutting boards so they don't hog so much dishwasher space.
Sometimes Re-use/Sometimes Wash/Sometimes Rinse
Know your soils. If you're, say, rinsing broccoli in the colander, you don't need to wash the colander with soap and water. Just a good rinse with very hot water will suffice. If you're measuring dried herbs with measuring spoons, a rinse is fine. A cutting board used for onions or peppers only gets a rinse. A glass used to drink water can be re-used through the day. Soda glasses can be rinsed- a couple of times until the fingerprints start adding up.
Weigh As Much As You Can
If you don't have a digital scale, get one, and use it for everything. The only time I use my measuring cups these days is to scoop and spread pizza sauce. That's pretty much it.
Can I Do This With a Smaller Pan?
I boil a 1 lb. box of macaroni in a Revereware 3 quart covered saucepan. Pasta purists are probably pulling their hair out at such a thought, but I'm happy with my results. I apply this way of thinking to everything. Sometimes my frugality backfires on me, and my pot ends up being too small, and I have to transfer the contents/dirty something else, but, if I write pot sizes down in the recipe, I have less of these mishaps. Spoons are a major pita to load in the dishwasher in such a way to prevent nestling, so if I can achieve the same thing with a knife instead of a spoon, I will.
Bottom line, you always have to maintain a situational awareness as to the current actions you're taking and how they will effect you down the line. I'm not going to lie, maintaining this awareness can be exhausting. But food, no matter which way you cut it, is hard work- mentally and physically. The more thought you give to your kitchen management, though, the less physically back breaking it becomes.
