Keeping Dinner Simple

Dinner prep is crazy at our house. The stress of getting everything done at the time of day where I'm either coming home from work or dealing with someone who is fussy because she is hungry has proven to be a challenge.  Here are some ideas of ways to make dinner prep easier.

• Supper Swapping - Get a group together who has the same size family and likes the same types of foods. Each member cooks enough of a meal for all the families in the group and you swap out your meals. This gives you enough meals for a week with only "cooking" once. You can choose to do only the main dish (I would highly recommend this if you have a large group) or you can do the entire meal. Make your plan best suit your group. Trello is a great resource to make boards and keep track of what everyone is cooking.

• Weekend Prep - Over the weekend cook all the meats that your family will eat for that week. Then all you have to do each evening is reheat the meat and make sides to go with it.

• Doubling up - When you make a meal double it, or at least make enough for your family to eat that meal twice that week. This way with cooking about 3 meals you have enough food to last for the entire week.

• Freezer cooking - There is so much that can be done with freezer cooking.  Your first option goes a long with doubling up. When you make a meal, double the recipe and freeze one of the meals. Then all you have to do is pull it out when you are ready to eat it. Let me remind you to do your research though, not ever recipe will freeze well. Another way to take advantage of your freezer is to take a day or two at once to prep all the meals you want to fill your freezer with.  I do both cooking and non cooking methods to fill my freezer.

        ~ brown ground beef and freeze it to use at a later date
        ~ mix meatloaf, meatballs,  and hamburgers and freeze them before cooking them
        ~ meatloaf, meatballs, and hamburgers could also be cooked and then frozen
        ~ clean and cut chicken/pork into pieces, then freeze them in a with marinade
        ~ marinade and cook chicken/pork, then freeze
        ~ coat and fry chicken and then freeze
        ~ you can find many recipes for chicken that you can coat and then freeze before cooking
        ~ boil chicken and then freeze it
        ~ make a  large pot of tomato sauce and freeze in smaller containers

Hope this gives you some great ideas for easier dinner prep. Plan ahead and you will benefit.

What do you do that helps make dinner prep easier?