How do YOU make cooking easier for your family?

Question

i have a few tricks that get me through the work week, like using a menu plan so i never have to ask myself "what am i going to make for supper?" i also spend 15 minutes in my kitchen on sunday (the only day i do not cook for everyone in the house) doing some prep like dicing a container of onions and grating a bag of cheese to use during the week. i also post the meal plan on the fridge, including the recipes, and the last one out of the house takes the meat out of the freezer. So what do you do to make making dinnertime easier on yourselves?

yep when i buy a family pack of ground beef i cook it all at once and then freeze it in ziplocs. cuts the time to make meals during the week provided someone takes it out. Also when i freeze my meats i make them as flat as possible to make thawing time really quick. same with sauces and stuff.

Answer 1

You sound like a very organized person, and your suggestions are very helpful. The menu plan is great, but you first need to start at the grocery store so you'll be sure to have the items and ingredients you'll be needing. I also do a lot of prep work to save time. I cut cubes of cheese ahead of time. If there's anything I hate, it's being in a hurry and having to struggle with the packaging, peeling the onions, and doing other prep work while everyone is hungry, including the cat. It's best to have that stuff all done ahead of time. Your family is so lucky to have you. You're a lady after my own heart. I really love your suggestions about doing things ahead of time when things are more relaxed. Takes the "hectic" out of cooking, especially for a working mom.

Answer 2

It sounds like you're on the right track.

Honestly, one of the things that I do is delegate. I want my kids to know how to cook by the time they leave home so my teen cooks dinner once a week and once a week he cooks with my younger son. Once a week we all cook together too.

When they were younger and we were even busier, we all worked together and did this one day a week:

Browned 5 lbs. of hamburger and put into 1 lb. bags and stored in the freezer.
Boiled 10 chicken thighs and put 3 in per bag and stored in freezer. (yes, I ate one while doing the rest of this!)

Then I used the water that I'd boiled the chicken in to start a soup. Added some Better Than Boullion - chicken flavor, carrots, onions, celery, green onions, leeks, garlic, etc.

Chopped up 4 onions, 2 green peppers, 2 red peppers, lettuce, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, any other veggies we had. Put them in individual containers and stored in fridge.

Boiled 4 cups of rice, made a big batch of sticky rice, and did two loaves of bread in the bread maker.

This production usually took about 4 hours, BUT it was family time so we all enjoyed it and spent the time chatting and sharing tricks about slicing and dicing, cooking and prepping.

If your kids are too little, you can also have 1 Saturday a month that you get together with friends who are in the same boat. Take a big trip to Sam's club, buy in bulk and then do the prep work together.

Our choices from this included:
Spaghetti - boil noodles and toss on some Prego with ground beef - about 15 minutes.
Taco's - put out individual containers of veggies with ground beef - about 10 minutes.
Chicken salad - cut up chicken, add grapes, walnuts and paprika with mayo, salt and pepper. Serve with bread. About 10 minutes.
Chicken soup.
Chili - defrost beef, add kidney beans, stewed tomatoes and spices. We do it in the crock pot so it's about 10 minutes in the morning and then it's ready when we walk in the door.
Chicken with rice, snap peas and carrots.
Stir fried veggies with chicken or ground beef and rice.
Ke-bobs with rice.

There are a lot of other things you can do as well.

Then there's going super low maintanence:
Buy the cheese pre-shredded, get cold cuts, buy canned soup and boxed food. It's not as healthy but we generally keep some of this around to use in a pinch.

Have fun!

Answer 3

Hit the store close to one of my days off from work and buy alot of meat and stuff to make several dinner options to freeze. There is just the two of us and we use leftovers to take in our lunch at work. I make meatloaf from hamburg or turkey, make up small pans of lasagna, place raw meat in a ziplock bag with marinade and freeze (it marinates well too), any kind of easy side or casserole and freeze so it has to be thawed and tossed in the oven to heat up (since I already cooked it previously). Easy quick meals are also tater tots and hot dogs both baked in the oven, a can of ravioli or Beefaroni with some Jiffy cornbread (takes about 20 minutes to prepare and then ready to serve), have breakfast for dinner-scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage, fried potatoes can be reheated in microwave if made up a day early. Also, having everything ready to throw in the crock pot in the morning can be ready for a great dinner that evening.

Answer 4

I have a menu plan for a two week period. This way I can make sure I will have all the ingredients on hand when I need them. Also I make double batches of certain foods and freeze them so I have something premade when I don't feel like cooking.

Answer 5

after christmas i received an ice chest full of deer meat. i've gone off cow meat. anyway, i roasted all the backstraps, and loin cuts in one huge roaster. at the same time in a seperate slowcooker i had all the deer sausage cooking. this deer sausage is minced like ground round. so i cooked it with salt and pepper and then cooled it, stored it in bags. but usually i like to buy the bags of chicken tenders. they are chicken breast cut into tenders and flash frozen and sold in a ziploc type bag. there is nothing artificial! it's just flash frozen so you can take out pieces and reseal. that's what i love about it. no perservatives as it is real chicken, unprocessed. anyway i cook alot with that type of chicken, to make casseroles and i ALWAYS have atleast 6 cans of cream of mushroom, cream of chicken or cream of onion on hand. added to pasta or rice these can make aswesome casseroles. the box casseroles are full of junk. also i buy the bulk bag of mixed veggies. i'm a single mom of four and i have to make things simple or i'll lose my mind! lol :o)

Answer 6

i buy schwans frozen foods they get me through in a pinch everytime but twice a week I plan outan elaborate dinner like lasagna or pot roast an it makes up for all the frozen but delicious foods the rest of the week yes i know i cheat but my kids are 7 5 an 4 lol

Answer 7

I also plan my menu, and shop, ahead of time. One other thing I do, to make it easier for ME, is to not cook different things for different people.

I make dinner and if anyone doesn't like it, there's cereal in the cupboard. I don't remember my Mom *ever* making a different dinner for each of us and I'm not about to start either.

Answer 8

I cook certain things ahead of time and save them for days ahead

Answer 9

Crockpot cooking. Put the stuff in and it cooks itself. Here is a great crockpot site.

Answer 10

I always cook the ever loving macaroni&cheese,broccoli,and ham bake it is the best my kids loves it my little grand son always put more broccoli in mine beacause I love broccoli grandma.