FAST Meal Planning 101

If you don’t already have a bunch of super-fast recipes in your cooking repertoire, it’s time to get some!

Young families with children who swear they are starving to DEATH can be pretty aggravating as you scramble to boil or fry as fast as you can! Let’s face it, we can’t live on TV dinners, so let’s make the best of the whole situation and come up with a strategy for the dinner scrum: have a PLAN.

UMMMMM… HAVE A PLAN!

Redundant and obvious, and even ridiculous as it may seem, that is where you start — just THINKING about the chore ahead of time and writing it down, is the key to avoiding the work-week-dinner-scrum. Minutes — which seem like hours when you are exhausted from work and the kids are whining – can be shaved off the decision-making and execution time during the week, if you just take a few (nice, calm) minutes on the weekend or during the week AFTER dinner to SIMPLY MAKE A WEEKLY MEAL PLAN.

Supporting your meal plan is your grocery shopping list — your plan is all in vain if you don’t have the ingredients handy! Adding a grocery-run to your work-day can make a day go from tiring to exasperating. All the other (exasperated) people who had NO PLAN are in that lineup with you, wishing they had THOUGHT AHEAD.

Here is a sample meal plan and grocery list (at the risk of seeming low-brow, several of these include frozen ingredients or comprise frozen, canned, or bottled convenience foods from the supermarket. This is the real world, it’s OK if you don’t cook ‘from scratch’ EVERY day):

This upcoming week’s meal plan:

1. Monday – Spaghetti Bolognese & Side-Salad
2. Tuesday – Chicken Stir-Fry
3. Wednesday – Fish or Chicken  Nuggets & Peas & Rice
4. Thursday – Cheese Tortellini & Side-Salad
5. Friday – Pimped-Out Frozen Pizzas & Popcorn & Some Videos!

This weekend’s grocery shopping list (buy or MAKE SURE you have ingredients on hand):

• spaghetti
• parmesan cheese
• ground beef
• mushrooms
• green peppers
• onions
• garlic
• pasta sauce (always buy more bottles of this than you think you’ll need – you can store unopened bottles on the shelf)
• bag-salad (you can jazz it up with olives, etc)
• bottled salad dressing
• boneless, skinless chicken breasts (EASY to deal with for stir-frying etc.)
• pre-cut stir-fry vegetables (or separately broccoli & carrots, etc. if they don’t have pre-cut at your store)
• frozen fish fingers or chicken nuggets
• rice
• cheese tortellini
• frozen peas
• microwave popcorn
• frozen pizzas
• sliced meats, artichoke hearts, anchovies, capers, smoked salmon… whatever people in your family like on their pimped-out pizzas)
• SORRY – the videos, you have to rent on FRIDAY!

PREP WORK

On the weekend, when things are less frantic, is a perfect time to do some prep. work. As mundane as it may sound, pre-chopping some frequently-used foods will save you a lot of agony during the week after a hard day of work.

Just try this!

THIS weekend, DEDICATE some space in your refrigerator to a few plastic containers to be filled with the following (you will LOVE-LOVE-LOVE this if you just try it):

• 1/2 cup – peeled garlic cloves (if you have a garlic press, otherwise, pre-chop the garlic too, and keep it in the plastic container  – but GET A GARLIC PRESS!)
• 1 cup – finely chopped onion
• 2 – green peppers, finely chopped
• 1 cup – chopped fresh tomato
• [these are just a start - whatever you use frequently, start dedicating a tupperware to!]