the new and improved, oh-so-organized wonder mom!

[houseelf]

I have to admit that I have been pretty lazy in the kitchen lately. Who has time to go to the grocery store, let alone cook?

I decided that this had to change because this has been horrible on our waist lines and pocket book. I am now trying to sit down and realistically make a rough sketch meal plan for the week ahead before I go to the store. Last night, we had tacos and we will use the remaining lettuce for salad and the rest of the cooked ground beef for sphagetti tonight. This weekend I'm going to double recipes and freeze a portion for future use.

I'm usually pretty organized, but for whatever reason, I have a hard time feeling inspired in the kitchen. Does anyone have any success stories of how they got control over the dinner hour? I'm a little shaky in this department.

Kelly

I get the grocery ads in the mail usually on a Tuesday and the advertised prices start the next day. I look at everything that's on sale and plan a weekly menu from it. I try to only go grocery shopping once a week. That way I spend less and it forces me to plan ahead.

I think it's very good to also have some basic staples in your pantry - pastas, rice, spices, sauces, broth etc available. Whenever they're on sale, I stock up so I don't have to buy them at regular prices when I do need them.

I also buy stuff like skinless boneless chicken breasts in the big family packages when they're on sale (like $1.79/lb) and divvy them up in smaller portions when I get home and freeze them.

Lately we've been doing a lot of soups and salads. They're easy to throw together, pretty healthy and easy on the pocketbook. It helps that I've got a ton of cookbooks, subscribe to Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, Gourmet, Sunset, and Saveur (am I a freak or what?) and am always on the lookout for good easy recipes in addition to ones for entertaining. Actually I only pay for Bon Appetit - the others are free trials that I get for a year and then cancel. Let me know if you'd like me to pass any recipes on!

[mommax3]

We get Cooking Light and Quick Cooking, and they serve as my inspiration each month, besides the old stand-bys that I rely on in a pinch. I usually eat Lean Cuisines anyway, not that it does me a whole lot of good.

Cooking Light has recipes that are delicious and healthy -- even a little on the gourmet side, which means that my kids usually won't eat them. They do have a regular feature with really fast recipes, too. I think they have a website -- someone here has mentioned it in the past.

Quick Cooking (which comes only every other month, but has no ads, so it is cram-packed with stuff) has a variety of things. Some are pretty high in fat, (it is easy to get a meal on the table fast if you load it up with cream soup and cheese!) but I substitute low- or no-fat stuff and it is usually okay. There is also a section for healthy recipes and low-cost meals.

One of my favorite quick recipes from med school and early residency was Salsa Chicken -- take chicken breasts, marinate them in your favorite salsa (peach salsa is delicious if you can find it where you are) bake them at 350 for 30 to 40 minutes, (put some shredded cheese on at the end if you want) and serve with salad and some kind of rice. You can shred the leftovers for tacos, burritos, quesadillas, or enchiladas, or for a taco-type salad, and you could freeze the leftover meat, too.

I also try to keep my pantry stocked with soups, rice, and lots of different kinds of pasta. I try to keep at least a couple of pounds of ground beef and some skinless, boneless breasts in the freezer. My newest freezer must-have is frozen meatballs. There are millions of things to do with these meatballs besides pour spaghetti sauce over them. I made soup with them once, using a recipe from Cooking Light (they included a recipe for the meatballs, but I didn't have time) and it was great!

Of course, if all else fails, we always have string cheese, cheap macaroni and cheese, Red Baron thin crust cheese pizza, and peanut butter and jelly. And of course, baby carrots -- the only vegetable my kids get most days. I am the "best mom in the world" any time I fix one of these for dinner.

The longer I spend cooking, the more time I feel I deserve to spend eating, so keeping it simple is key for me. I cook a good, balanced meal (usually including steamed broccoli with lemon juice, which luckily my kids love) probably twice a week. My husband and I go out once a week, we go out as a family once a week (at least! ) and the rest of the time, we eat leftovers or some of the standbys I described above.

I do better when I plan ahead before I go shopping -- so I pull out my magazines and think about what we haven't had in a while before I make my lists if I can, but a lot of times, I do it on the fly and just get the same stuff I always get, and we muddle through. It has not gotten easier through the years, unfortunately.

Sally


P.S. Here is my newest fast and easy favorite, a salad:

Get a pre-packaged salad mix (like spring mix), some Sunkist Almond Accents, the honey roasted flavor, some feta cheese, and balsamic viniagrette. Mix it up and you've got a great salad. Just be sure to go heavy on the greens and lighter on the other three ingredients.

I pretty much do the same. I have subscriptions to Bon Appetit and Fine Cooking and pick up Cooking Light or Food & Wine when it looks interesting. I like Fine Cooking because (like Cooking Light) it has nutritional (fat & cal) info for each recipe. I modify those that are high fat with good success. I don't think I will renew my Bon Appetit subscription because the recipes have seemed really heavy and fatty for the last year or so. I can only modify so much!
On an ideal week, I will use those mags, cookbooks, etc to plan about 5 meals per week. One night we usually go out and another we eat leftovers. If I am really organized, I will use the same ingredients across recipes. That way, I don't use half a package of fresh basil or have sour cream sitting in the fridge for ages. Example: this week we will have salmon w/ a dill sour cream sauce, fish tacos, and baked potato soup. All three use sour cream (low fat, of course!) and the fish recipe uses up the fresh dill I bought for a different recipe. This is best case scenario!
It does take some planning but it is so convenient to have meals planned out and I think it saves $$$ too.
TiredandPoor -- how do you get those free subscriptions? I remember having one for Saveur long ago but forgot how I did it. All I remember is that getting the charge off my credit card for the second year of the subscription was a pain (they never sent a renewal notice for me to cancel).

I get the free subscriptions a couple of ways. I signed up with MyPoints,which is free, and basically every once in a while you get invitations to try out up to 3 magazine subs for 6 months to a year. When I see the charge on my credit card, I call and cancel but still get the remainder free. I'll email you the link to mypoints and you can see if you're interested.

Another way is through Half.com. My husband loves getting cheap used cd's off that site and alot of times after a purchase they let you pick up to 3 free magazine subs as a thank you. You do have to supply a credit card number and again when I see the charge, I call and cancel and still get the promised issues free.

[DCJenn]

Keeping the staples on hand is definitely true. I always have a couple different shapes of pasta, some spaghetti sauce, rice (boil in a bag brown rice is a mainstay plus we always have some of the longer cooking kinds).

Because it's only the two of us, I find that the larger packages of meat, even divided, don't work too well. I do stock up when things are on sale but we try to eat them the week we purchase them. In the freezer I always have a couple bags of those pasta side dishes, a couple of the stir fry veggies and I always have a bag of mixed corn, carrots, peas.

My quickie meal is 'fried rice'- you take two packages of boil in the bag, ((cooked) brown rice and half a big bag of the mixed veggies (corn, peas, carrots) and mix them together with some asian spices- add a scrambled egg or two and serve. If I have flavored tofu on hand I'll toss that in as well. It makes a ton and we each take it the following day for lunch.

Jenn

[houseelf]

These are all great ideas...I really need some inspiration in the cooking department.

Jenn, we tried fried rice last night and it was sooooo easy! We have a rice cooker so I just put the rice cooker on before we went out to play and came back and threw all the ingredients in our wok. Awesome! I realize, however, that Chinese restaurants must soak the rice in peanut oil to get that texture and flavorful taste...I will not be ordering this anymore.

I'm going to try Sally's salsafied chicken breasts tomorrow night. I want to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible and this sounds like a winner.

This month's Taste of Home has a great recipe for cube steaks that took very little time to make:

cook cube steaks in a frying pan with a little bit of butter. Mix up a couple ounces of white grape juice, four teaspoons of dijon mustard, and add some Worchester sauce. Place this mixture in the skillet with the steaks and bring to a boil. Voila...dinner is done and the gravy on these steaks rock!

Let's keep talking about dinner ideas. I'm so uninspired right now.

Kelly