TIPS FOR EASY FOR MEAL PLANNING
Some of my friends wonder why and how I have the time to cook a homemade meal almost daily. Well, there are ways to make it possible for everyone. It really does not matter if you work at home or away from home. There are ways that you can make it easier for yourself.
I found it really important when my children were young to have dinner at the table. I also found it essential to have a good well-balanced meal for my growing children. My children are grown and on their own now but I still find it important to make meals with my hands and good ingredients. I love having people at my table. My husband has good memories of visiting his dad and sitting around the table to visit. I promise you with a few steps and tips you can cook a good meal regardless of your work or family's schedule.
As you guys know I love things that are easy and simple. I do not think all things good must be something that is long, involved or time-consuming. DO not get me wrong I have no problem taking most of the day to prepare a gourmet meal but simple honest food is just as good.
It does not matter if you want to be healthier or want to make things easier these tips are crucial in making life easier. Who does not want to make things easier? I think we all would agree that life is nicer when things are simple and easy.
You do not have to be a grand cook or top-notch chef. You may not even like to cook. Or you may love to cook and be one of the best around. Simple steps and with these tips, you will be able to make your cooking time fun and easy. Each tip I am going to share are things that I learned when I worked 2 jobs and was raising 2 children. I had to learn or my kids would not have family meals. I grew up with gathering around the table with my family each evening. I felt it was important to give my children the same thing.
First, I think you should have a well-stocked pantry. I am not saying you have to spend tons of money in doing that. I am the queen of frugal. I hate waste. Having a well-stocked pantry allows you to have ingredients on hand.
Herbs and spices are important to have as well. This is another area to have well stocked. Again you do not have to spend tons of money. I have a herb garden that I start every spring. I try to keep and dry my herbs so I can have them in the winter months. Herbs and spices help to enhance your food. You do not have to have an herb garden. You can grow herbs in pots around the house. Whether you do it inside or out. If you just do not have the time to grow herbs or feel like you can not take care of them, stock up on them from the store. Plus there are things you just can not grow. You do not have to spend tons of money at the grocery store. Do a bit of research. I have found that at our Farmer's Market there's a store that has spices and herbs much cheaper than the grocery store. We also have a few Amish stores around that we can buy spices or herbs in bulk at a fraction of the cost than what you can buy them in the store.
I think scanning the grocery store sale ads is extremely wise. This can allow you to help stock the pantry and herb/spice cabinet. Stocking up is a great way to have things at a later date.
Now let's talk about your freezer. If you are fortunate you will have a freezer, not just the freezer that is attached to your fridge. Having a well-stocked freezer is wonderful. This one ties in with scanning the sale ads. You can buy while things are on sale and freeze quite a bit of stuff. I do this all the time. We are fortunate in the fact we have 2 stand up freezers. Anytime I see meat at an incredible price I stock up. For instance, I found boneless skinless chicken breast for .89 a pound a couple of weeks ago. This is unheard of in our area.
Research is pretty important too. We get in a rut sometimes and get tired of fixing the same meals every week. Spending 15 minutes looking through a cookbook or doing some research online can help. You wanna make something new find a recipe. Plan it and make it. Talk to your friends and get ideas from them. Just remember when you are making something for the first time you might want to have some extra time. I am terrible when I decide to make something new to make it early in the day. I mean that way I have time to adjust my dinner if the meal does not come out well.
Inventory. Yes, having an inventory of what you have in your freezer, pantry or cabinets is important. Knowing what you have will make you more efficient. It also saves you time. Sometime this past summer I mentioned that I have an inventory of my freezers and people thought I was crazy. Well, again I have 2 freezers and they are both full. If I know what I have an in what freezer it is located, I will know how to meal plan a bit easier. I will not waste time looking or buying something I already have. I am not saying my cabinets or pantry is inventoried on paper but I know what I have in them.
Meal planning, in general, is a key. I use to go through my cabinets and see what I had and what needed to be used, then I would sit down and come up with what 6 to 7 meals for the next week. Again if you have an inventory you will not have to do that legwork. I was on a budget and it was not a lot of a budget so I found if I would sit down and come up with an entire meal on paper for each day of the week it would save me money. Knowing what I had on hand and what needed to be used helped me to meal plan. Knowledge is power. Also knowing what was on sale helps to meal plan. I would figure out the main course or meat course I was making then go from there to figure out the rest of the meal.
When my kids were small I always attempted to have a side dish that each of my children liked. One of my kids liked greens beans and the other liked corn. So, we would have both. I felt if I had something they liked they would be more willing to eat what I served. I know that is kind of like meal planning but having food on hand that everyone likes and enjoys makes dinner time more enjoyable and less stressful. Who likes to sit down to whiny kids complaining about what is for dinner? Especially after you have worked all day and you are exhausted.
I use to do my meal planning just prior to doing my grocery shopping. I would look at what I had, plan my meals, make a grocery list of what I needed for the week and do my shopping. Doing this saved me tons of money. I had a list that I went strictly by when doing my food shopping. I rarely bought things that were not on my list. Making a list and really do check it twice or more. Having a list when you go shopping not only saves you money but it saves you time.
Prep work. Yeah, I said it. No one really likes to do it but it helps. If you meal prep on your day off it will save you time on the days you work. Let's be honest, after working all day coming home and having to work even more is stressful. If you spend 1 to 2 hours on your day off doing prep work for your meals it will help make things more simple. Both of my kids played sports. Heck, we were not home a lot. I still found it important to give them good meals each night. If I was going to have something with cooked ground beef such as tacos, I would cook the ground beef and put it in the fridge so that step was done for me. My kids loved chicken pie. Of course, my daughter liked chicken pot pie and my son liked Moravian style chicken pie. I would boil chicken and have it ready to make whatever pie that week.
My kids packed lunch most of the time when they were in school. If they wanted to eat at school they could but I made sure if they were eating at school they chose the days they would eat by what was being served. That way I knew they were going to eat their lunch and not go hungry. However, most of the time the preferred to pack. I did not buy the convent packages of single serve chips. A lot of times when you do that you are stuck with something in the pack that no one will eat. I found it easier for my kids to pick what chips or sweet that wanted. I bought a big bag and we would put a serving in Ziploc bags. By doing this, I knew they had something they would eat. I never wanted my children to go to school and not have food they would eat. Children need to eat in order to be alert. My children had to help too. I had them help not just because it saved time but to teach them the skills they needed to know. Also in planning their lunches, we would discuss what they would like to have. They really did not have access to a microwave so most everything was cold or room temperature foods. By going over the month's food calendar the school sent home we were able to figure out which days they needed to pack. We packed lunches the night before. That way I knew they had a lunch ready for the next day.
Another way to create meals is by using your leftovers. A lot of times on Sunday we would have a roast. So, on Monday I could take the leftover roast and make soup. Or if I made beef stew, I could make soup with the leftovers as well. If I made a baked chicken I could use the leftover chicken to make chicken pie. Not only did this save money it saved time. Kind of like meal prepping. I purposely would cook this way to make things easier. If the leftovers were not to be used towards another meal that would be lunch the next day. I worked at a High School and I was not supposed to leave during the day.
Breakfast was normally something easy during the week. I left for work before my kids ate breakfast so it had to be something quick. I can not say it was always nutritious but they had food. On weekends if we did not have to run to a game or practice we would have a sit-down home cooked breakfast. If I was making pancakes, I would make extra so I could put them in the fridge for breakfast during the week for the kids. It was something quick and easy that could be warmed up. My kids were never huge on breakfast foods so a grill cheese sandwich would make them happy.
Honestly, if you do these things it will make your life easier. You can have healthier meals by taking just a few steps. It does not matter if you are going to put a homemade meal on the table every day or just a couple of days. Making life easier with the hectic schedules all of us have makes things less stressful and more simple. You see it is possible to have a meal most evenings without killing yourself to do it. Just a few steps make cooking easier and frankly more fun. Yes, fun!! You need to have fun when you are cooking otherwise it will become a chore. Play some music. Have your spouse help in the kitchen. Cook together as a couple of a family. Pour a glass of wine or soda and enjoy.
It really is the simple things you do that can help to prepare you for making a good made from scratch meal. As I said earlier, you do not have to make an elaborate meal every night. Who really wants a lot of rich food every night of the week? Chicken tacos, rice, and corn are good with me. It is simple and really quick to make. However, when I have the time it is nice to spend the day making an Italian marinara for dinner or Italian meatballs. I enjoy making homemade sourdough bread. Golumpkis or perogies are wonderful but that is a day of cooking. If you are going to make something that is going to take a while to make, plan it!!! Plan to have the time to make and cook it. Stress stops people from cooking. Plus it can be overwhelming to make a cooked from scratch meal on a regular basis.
As the year begins why not start to meal plan? Why not figure out how to make that more simple and less stressful. If you want to be healthier it is easier when you meal plan. It keeps you straight on what you are eating. All of the above tips, hints or steps is a great start.
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