Fit a Dinner Party in Your Menu Plan

By Kathy Hester

When you’re rushing around to the store last minute every night there is never enough time to entertain. If you are already doing a menu plan and shopping once a week, you are way ahead of the game. So, go ahead and wash your up best dinnerware and send out an evite to your friends. It’s time for a dinner party!

The menu can be as simple as you want. You can make a lasagna with seasonal veggies like Swiss chard and mushrooms at the beginning of the week and heat it up on the day of the party. Another option is make it in the slow cooker and when you come home from work all you have to do is throw together a salad.

You can also plan way ahead for a party and freeze your pre-made dish in an oven safe Pyrex dish. I always have a few of these stored in the freezer just in case I feel like having people over. Make sure to defrost in the fridge overnight or add extra cooking time.

Not into lasagna? A warm weather dinner can be a chilled soup that you make the day before. I like gazpacho, yogurt dill, or a cold borscht for a refreshing summer treat. Pair it with a salad made of mixed greens from the farmers market and topped with julienned veggies that you’ve marinated overnight in a balsamic vinaigrette.

If you have a sweet tooth like I do, you’ll want to serve a dessert. It can be as simple as a store bought vanilla greek yogurt topped with in season berries. Serve it in a martini glass placed on a square dinnerware salad plate and drizzle some melted chocolate over the top.

Make sure to start the party with an empty dishwasher and your clean up will be a breeze too.

Meal Planning Tips

Meal planning can save you a lot of time throughout the week and month, as well as money.  If you are not used to sitting down at the beginning of the week and planning your meals, it can be a frustrating process.  Here are some tips to help you get started:

• Ask For Suggestions: Simply figuring out what to make for dinner can be harder than the cooking and cleaning up.  It isn’t easy trying to think of something that everyone will like, and that you haven’t already ate three times in the last month.  If you run out of ideas for what to cook, ask your family for suggestions.  Getting them involved decreases your stress level and you are more likely to have food created that your family will also eat.

• Watch Cooking Shows: Watching the shows on the Food Network can be a great way to learn new cooking methods and techniques, inspire ideas for new recipes, and can simply be quite relaxing.  If you haven’t already got a favorite cooking program or “TV chef,” tune in and see what new tips you can learn.  My family and I watch a lot of the Food Network.  From extravagant gourmet shows to quick, low ingredient one’s.  There are tips and menu ideas we pick up from each of them.

• Experiment And Have Fun: Preparing your family’s meals doesn’t have to be a chore; it can actually be quite fun.  As you plan your meals, experiment with new foods, flavors, and textures.  If you normally have sandwiches for lunch, try wraps instead.  If your family’s routine was stuck in a rut of hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza and spaghetti, break out of that routine in a big way and try Pasta Primavera or a Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry. You’ll never know what your family will and will not like until you try it.

• Get Everyone Involved: One of the best benefits to meal planning is that you will have more family time.  Studies show that families who eat meals together are happier and more connected.  Get your family involved in the process, whether it is helping you cross items off the list at the grocery store, chopping vegetables, setting the table or washing the dishes.  Everyone should be doing their part!

• Have Theme Nights: Since you are planning your meals and know what you will be having for dinner from one day to the next, you can get creative and have “Theme Nights”.  If you are going to have a Chinese-inspired entrée, create a fun environment by setting out chopsticks and hanging paper lanterns.  Having a Mexican dinner? You can find a piñata at a party supply store and fill it with a few small treats and let your kids have fun whacking it open.

It may take a few weeks, but sooner or later you will get into a rhythm of meal planning.  You will find ways to add your family’s personality into the process, and that can add up to a lot of fun, family dinners.

Freezer Cooking Storage Tips

If you have wanted to try out freezer cooking but thought you would have to purchase 30 freezer-safe casserole dishes beforehand, you are in luck.  As it turns out you only need one or two of them! Here are some tips on how to freeze and store all of your meals:

• Stock up on aluminum foil, jumbo sized plastic storage bags, and both gallon and quart sized plastic freezer bags.  Around the holidays the aluminum pans go on major sales.  We shop at Costco for our storage bags, buying in bulk saves a lot.  No room to store bags in bulk? Go in with a friend to share the boxes and still get the discount.

• To make the most of your freezer space, try to freeze your foods as flatly as possibly.  You will be able to stack them on top of each other and fit more food into your freezer.

• To freeze casseroles, you’ll simply line the casserole dishes with enough aluminum foil to come up over the sides of the dish.  After the casserole is assembled, bring the foil up and cover the casserole tightly, and then wrap it in a second freezer bag.

• Once the casserole is frozen, remove it from the outer bag, pop the frozen casserole out of the dish, and place the aluminum foil wrapped casserole back into the freezer bag.  When it is time to cook the casserole, remove it from the freezer and place in the same baking dish to thaw.  Once thawed, take it out of the freezer bag and cook.  Since it is lined with the aluminum foil, clean up will be a breeze!  Simply throw the foil out and wash the dish!

• As you know, a full freezer is more efficient.  To prepare your freezer to freeze all the food, wash out your empty milk gallons and fill with water.  Place them in your freezer.  And if you wanted to quick-freeze something on your cooking day, all you need to do is take out one of the frozen gallon jugs and smack it on some cement to start cracking the ice.  Place the cracked ice and the items you want quick-frozen into a smaller camping-type cooler.  They’ll be frozen in no time!

• Make it a point to label each freezer bag.  You can write the name of the entrée and the reheating instructions on a piece of paper and stick it inside the bag, on top of the aluminum foil covered casserole or write the instructions on the bag with a permanent marker.  Another idea is to print out the information on packing slip labels ahead of time and just peel and stick as you cook and freeze your items.

• Keep track of the meals you have on hand by placing a magnet mounted whiteboard on your freezer door.  If you add three lasagnas, two portions of chicken fajita meat, two beef stews and one ham casserole, write them on your board.  As you take things out of the freezer to thaw, erase them.  It can be easy to forget what you have previously made, and if you don’t remember it’s there, you’ll never be able to use it!

• If you don’t have a deep freeze, try bulk cooking in two-week inventories.  By freezing things flatly you should be able to store two weeks worth of food in a normal sized freezer.  Our menu plan is set up for very small spaces and weekly freezer cooking.

Menu Planning Tips for Busy Moms

Dinner is the last meal of the day and a time when families can get together and discuss their day. It is also a hectic meal for busy moms who are just getting off of work or who have been busy with other activities all day. If you are a busy mom or you know a busy mom, here are some menu planning tips to help make dinner meals easy and even fun.

1. Schedule your meals a week in advance. This is one of the most important planning tips for meals. Knowing what you are going to eat throughout the week means less chance that you will stop off at the closest fast food joint for a convenient, but unhealthy meal. Decide on the last day of the previous week (let’s say Saturday for the sake of argument) what the menu will be for the following week. Create your shopping list from the list of ingredients to avoid buying what you don’t need at the grocery store.

2. Look for bargains. Clip coupons, read advertising circulars and the like to decide where the best grocery to shop is for your menu items. If one ingredient is a common denominator in many meals, consider buying in bulk to save money. Common staples like milk, eggs, bread and sugar can be bought in bulk as well. Some stores will have double or triple coupon days when you can save even more.

3. Search online. After a while your family will get tired of chicken and rice every Thursday. You can get into a menu rut sometimes. Use the Internet to search for new and exciting recipes. Learn to put a twist on old recipes for a new taste. This is a great idea to look into menu plan memberships to liven your taste buds.

4. Have a leftover night. After preparing meals for five or six days, there is bound to be some food left over. Designate one night to be leftover night and let everyone mix and match for dinner. It saves mom from having to throw away any food.

5. Cook your meals in advance. After deciding on a menu plan for the week, go ahead and fix as many meals as you can. Choose a day when the entire family can help like Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon. Each person can take one meal and fix it for the following week. Once everything has cooled, store it in sealed containers or casserole dishes to be frozen until the night it is needed.

6. Do prep work in advance. You may not be able to cook all your meals ahead and some foods just taste better freshly prepared. For them, do as much prep work in advance as you can. Enlist your kids to help chop (give them the kitchen shears instead) vegetables, dice cooked meat and mix together dry ingredients. The night of the meal, all that is needed is to add the wet ingredients and bake.

Meal time doesn’t have to be all on mom. The entire family can help with dinner so it is a relaxing meal for everyone.

Quick and Healthy Breakfast Ideas

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Unfortunately, many of us neglect breakfast.  And there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that your body and mind will suffer unless you have a healthy breakfast each morning.

You spend six to eight hours sleeping.  After that time, your body needs fuel to keep going.  Without breakfast at home, your options for on the run nutrition may amount to too much fat, too much sugar and too many carbs.  And, that convenient run to the fast food joint is not as convenient and time saving as you think if everyone else has the same idea.  The fifteen or twenty minutes spent in line could have been used to fill your belly with something good at home.

If you are the type to skip breakfast, here is a solution to starting the day with a good breakfast which will help you keep hunger in check as well as give you the natural energy boost to start your day.

1. Oatmeal – This food makes a good hot meal that contains lots of filling fiber to keep you from getting hungry later on in the morning.  Depending on your taste, you can take five minutes to fix it on the stove or use the microwave for instant oatmeal.  Kids tend to like the variety of flavors that come with instant oatmeal.  The night before, put together a container of add-ins like blueberries, strawberries and bananas that can be tossed on top for a bit of antioxidant power.

2. Fruit smoothies – These are good any morning but particularly on a hot day.  You’ll have to blend the ingredients together in the morning, but the prep work can be done at night.  Cube your fruit and place it into a container.  Instead of frozen yogurt in the morning, use a cup of plain yogurt.  Add ice cubes, a little water, a scoop of prptein powder and blend.

3. Egg sandwich – The eggs can be cooked the night before and placed in a sealed container.  In the morning, warm up the eggs in the microwave.  If you want, add some chopped veggies or shredded cheese.  Serve on toasted wheat bread.  The night before, place two pieces of bread into a Ziploc bag for each family member.  They can toast their bread as they get up and place the sandwich in the bag for easy transport in the car to work or school.

4. Yogurt with granola and fruit – Some people like to eat yogurt.  But, yogurt by itself won’t keep you from being hungry for long.  Add some granola and a few blueberries to the mix.  This makes a great breakfast idea for those mornings when you are running late.  Keep small bags of granola and blueberries in the fridge next to the yogurt so you can grab them and run.

Are you fighting the breakfast battle?  To get a filling meal you don’t have to opt for too much fat, calories or carbs.  These quick and easy breakfast ideas can be made within minutes and are a much healthier alternative to skipping breakfast or grabbing a high fat alternative.

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