I hate it.
Its 3 p.m. on a weekday and I’m standing in the kitchen staring at the inside of the refrigerator or freezer, lamenting the fact that, once again, I have no idea what to make for dinner. I close the door and open it again as if some fully-made, gourmet meal will have magically appeared on the shelf courtesy of the kitchen fairy. Nope, the only visitor to my fridge has been the moldy lettuce troll. No doubt you’ve played out this same scenario a few times, too, and we all know how that story ends…usually in a drive-thru lane! Even the most carefree mom among us needs routine in her life to reduce the stress and allow time for spontaneity in more important areas. One of the easiest ways to take something off your plate, so to speak, is by planning to put something on it.
With as much effort as you’d like to put in, make-ahead or freezer meals can be the answer for the harried mom and it’s not just for dinner! Thanks to Al Gore’s fabulous invention – the internet – we can watch over the shoulders of more experienced Make-Ahead Meal moms. Let’s take a tour of a few ways to make meals ahead of time. With some advanced planning, you, too, can be cool as a cucumber as you serve your family a nutritious dish when mealtime rolls around. Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy family meals for a change instead of dreading them?
Meal-Planning
The beginning of any make-ahead meal plan is the PLAN. Whether you’re making meals for three days, a week, a month or a whole summer (yes, there are moms who do that!), you must plan what you are going to eat. According to Cynthia over at Organized Home, if we aren’t used to making a meal plan, we should start slow. Here are a few tips for getting started:
· Start small. Before planning a big “cook day” for a summer’s worth of freezer meals, plan a menu to make meals each day for the upcoming week.
· Print out a blank calendar page or a copy of your calendar from Outlook or Google. You should know what you have on the family schedule for the week so that you can plan meals appropriately. (for some great printable planning pages check out Organized Home’s Notebook pages)
· Using the flyers from your favorite grocery stores, make a list of meal ideas, salads and side dishes included, based on the weekly sales and your family’s schedule. This will help you get the most value for your weekly shopping trip.
· Do an inventory check of your refrigerator and freezer contents to see if there are any items that you can use up before buying something new. Modify your menu plan accordingly.
· Try to overlap ingredients into several recipes. If a recipe you have chosen only calls for ¼ cup of sour cream, find another recipe for later in the week that will use up the leftover sour cream. This will save you from wasting money on ingredients that sit in the back of your refrigerator transforming themselves into your kid’s next science fair project.
· Make a grocery list based on the ingredients in your meals. If you are making several meals out of one dish be sure to write down the correct amounts on your grocery list so you don’t come up short in the middle of cooking.
· Be flexible. While you are shopping you might find a better deal on a different cut of meat than you had planned to use or that the chicken you had planned to buy is out of stock. Be prepared to make some changes or to get a raincheck for great sales if needed.
· When you get home, post the weekly meal plan on the refrigerator for the family to see and help remind you of the week’s schedule.
Double-up
An easy way to start making meals to stock your freezer is to double or triple a recipe that you are already making for dinner one night during the week. For example, if you are assembling a lasagna, buy extra ingredients and some disposable baking pans to make three at the same time. Cover the extra two pans with plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Label them with the name of the entrée and the baking instructions and place in the freezer. Voila! You have two more dinners ready to go! You will also have a quick meal available for unexpected guests or to deliver to a sick friend. Do this once or twice a week and you will begin to have a healthy stockpile of dinners available in your freezer for those “emergencies”.
Once-a-Month/Once a Week Meals
Once you’re sailing through making larger portions of your favorite recipes, it’s time to move on to scheduling a Once-a-Month or Once-a-Week Cook Day. The idea is that you spend one day a month (or week) making large amounts of various meals and freezing them to be eaten throughout the week or month. During the week you will simply have to thaw the chosen entrée. Perhaps you’ll need to add a few fresh ingredients but with the initial prep out of the way you will save time with cooking and clean-up. The big “cook day” sounds intimidating but, once you get the hang of it, you’ll be coasting through it with ease. For detailed instructions visit the sites listed below. Each once-a-month cook has a slightly different technique and varying suggestions but, with a little research and experimentation, you can combine them to find a routine that best fits your family.
Dinner Co-op
Some moms prefer to share the work and the wealth. Instead of deciding on all of the recipes and shopping for various different ingredients for each recipe for their families alone, these moms join forces with other moms. Once a month, each mom makes one entrée. She multiplies the amount of the recipe based on the number of participants in the group and cooks it according to the guidelines that the group has established in advance. The participants then meet and exchange the meals so that each participant leaves with a variety of fully prepared meals to feed her family throughout the month. If you are interested in beginning a co-op with your friends you can check out how some of these groups do it to get an idea for your group:
Express Meal Restaurants
Another option for make-ahead meals is to find a do-it-yourself meal preparation “restaurant” in your local area. These establishments provide all of the ingredients and a list of meal options. The patrons simply assemble several meals for themselves to take home and freeze. The expense of this option depends on each family’s budget. If you are used to eating out three to four nights a week because you are too busy to make dinner then this option may save you money and calories. However, if you are already used to making your own dinners from scratch and you’re simply looking for a more efficient way to do it this may not be the most economical decision for you. You will have to weigh the pros and cons of cost and control over your own ingredients versus the time-saved on shopping and recipe preparation.
No matter which method you chose to prepare meals for your family, whether you're a work or stay-at-home mom, or you work outside of the home, a minimal amount of advanced planning can go a long way toward easing the stress at home when breakfast, lunch or dinnertime rears its ugly head. Do yourself a favor and find a routine for preparing your family meals. Everyone in your family will thank you…the woman in the mirror, most of all.
