Kelsey Banfield
Blog: thenaptimechef.com
Family: Daphne, 4, and husband Duncan
Philosophy: It’s fun (and easier!) to cook while kids are sleeping
What are your favorite shortcuts?
1. Stock the pantry and freezer while you cook. I always double sauce, soup, and spread recipes and freeze half. They come in very handy on the nights when there is no time to cook.
2. Bake now, reheat later. When I’m making a big casserole like lasagna, I often bake the whole thing during naptime and reheat it for dinner. Plus the taste improves with time!
3. Marinate. The absolute easiest thing to do during naptime is put meat or vegetables in a marinade and keep them in the fridge until dinner. In many cases a dish of marinated meat can go straight from fridge to oven at dinnertime. Setting up a marinade in the afternoon takes literally 30 seconds and is guaranteed protection against bland, tasteless food for dinner.
If you had just 20 minutes to make dinner, your go-to dish would be . . . ?
A bowl of piping-hot pasta tossed with whatever homemade sauce I can pull together, cut-up organic chicken sausage quickly cooked on the stovetop, and wilted dark greens like baby spinach or arugula.
