Half of the battle when it comes to cooking is with your attitude. Anybody who has the ability to read a cookbook is capable of preparing nutritious, healthy meals. If you maximise your productivity and time, then you can actually turn cooking into an enjoyable pastime.

The trick is to look at your recipes and menus for the week, and decide how much preparation you can do ahead of time. A good idea is to do most of your food prep work on a lazy Sunday. This will ensure the cooking for the rest of the week will be very simple.

Give your products a good wash. Look at your recipes and decide which fresh vegetables you will need and process them as required. Repeat the same process for all of your fresh products. If you use a vacuum sealer, then all the chopping and slicing can be done for the entire week in just the one afternoon. There will be no loss of food quality or taste, due to the vacuum pouches.

The next thing to do is divide up your meat into portions that are meal sized. Vacuum seal the portions into pouches and freeze it for later use in the coming week.

Once all your ingredients are prepared and packaged, label the meals for whatever day of the week you are planning on having them. The night before a certain meal, take out the required package from the freezer and put with the package of other ingredients. The meat should defrost during the next day, ready for your evening meal. This will mean that your dinner can be made in less than half an hour, just enough time for your kids to wash their hands and your partner to set the table.

When you have done all the washing up, the last thing you should do is move the next day's food pouch into the next day's meal bag in the refrigerator, ready for it to defrost overnight. This means that all the next day's ingredients will be in the same place, ready to be made.