couponqueenofcorning

Well it’s Tuesday again and time to share with you ten tips. This week I decided to help out all you busy moms and dads who struggle to make dinner after a long day of work or a long day of chasing kids around. Here are my top ten tips for making dinner a snap!

1. Buy chicken in bulk. You can cook up chicken breast, fingers or any other type of chicken you get on sale. After  cooking, you can cut up or leave whole and portion into meal size portions, and stick in the freezer. Make sure you label and date all food you put in the freezer. Then when you need to make a meal, pull the chicken out of the freezer and thaw. Then you can throw it in whatever meal you are making.
2. Do the same thing in number one, but with ground beef / turkey / chicken. I do this a lot. In fact, I just cooked up 3 batches last night and froze them. I can pull  a portion out of the freezer, defrost and throw it in a pan to make tacos, spaghetti, sloppy joes and so much more.
3. I have a problem with onions and peppers going bad. So, now when I buy them I cut them up and portion them into freezer bags. So, when I need them for chili or any other meal I have to do is pull out a bag. Most of the time I don’t even thaw them out, because they will have plenty of time to thaw and cook in most meals.
4. Make up meal packets. This is where you take all the ingredients for a recipe and package  the ingredients seperate. Then when you are ready to make it, you just add ingredients together. For example, if you want to do one for tacos, you would cook the ground meat in the taco seasoning, shred the cheddar cheese and cut up tomatoes. You then freeze the taco meat, cheddar and tomatoes in separate quart-sized bags and then put them all together in a gallon-sized freezer bag. On the freezer bag write the name of the dinner, the date you put the meal in there, any additional ingredients that may be needed (like shredded lettuce and salsa for our taco example) and instructions.
5. Meal plan. I can’t stress this enough. If you plan your meals for the week and go shopping with those meals in mind, your life will be much easier. No longer will you be standing at the fridge asking the time old question “What am I going to make for dinner?”. All you will have to do is look at your list, which you will probably have on your fridge!! LOL. This also helps you spend less at the grocery store
6. OAMC - or Once a Month Cooking. This is a great idea but I don’t have time or money to do a whole month’s worth of food. You can modify this for a week though. If you have time on the weekend, you can prepare and freeze / refrigerate your meals for the week.
7. When you make meals, make a double batch. Take the extra batch and freeze it. This will help you have meals in the freezer for those busy nights.
8. Keep a recipe binder with those recipes you use the most. That way you don’t have to hunt through your cookbooks or online recipes for those recipes you love to make.
9. Check out Kraft recipes online. They have TONS of easy to make dinners that often use such things as stuffing, rice and cheese.
10. Don’t forget to try new recipes once in a while. I challenge myself to make and try one new recipe a month. You can check online recipes at Kraft, Allrecipes ,Food Network , and so many other sites.

So that’s it for Ten Tips Tuesday. If you have any tips you’d like to add to my list, please leave me a comment.

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