Even though I am a stay at home mom, dinner can still be hectic around here. When you work outside of the home, you usually have to come home and prepare dinner the first thing. So how can we make this task easier for everyone? Plan ahead. Here are some tips to make the week go easier. Try them and see if they help your household. Let me know.
For Monday and Wednesday, fix simple meals. This could be hamburgers and French fries. The reason you want to keep these meals simple is because Monday is usually exhausting to everyone. There is no reason to complicate the evening. Instead, enjoy it. Wednesday is the middle of the week and this should be a celebration.
For Tuesday, fix chicken. There are several different ways to fix chicken and it doesn’t take many ingredients to make it a delightful dish.
For Thursday, make it pork. You can make some simple ribs in barbeque sauce, a baked potato, and an ear of corn and you have a wonderful and easy to fix meal. You can even put your pork in the crock pot to simmer all day. You may want to consider having breakfast for dinner.
For Friday, you can make what ever you want to. If you feel like having a four course meal, then do so. If you want hot ham and cheese sandwiches, that would be great. Try Spaghetti, buttered potatoes, garlic bread and a tossed salad. This meal takes about an hour to fix and everyone loves it.
Over the weekend, make soups or stews. Be sure to make enough for two days. Then you don’t have to stand in front of the stove all day on Sunday and everyone can help themselves when they get hungry.
To make this work, take a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon to plan and prepare. Post your menu on the refrigerator for the week.
Then, chop, slice or dice onions, tomatoes, celery, etc. You can also cut, slice or divide meats into appropriate portions. When you get ready to fix dinners during the week, it will save you time. It will be already prepared in your refrigerator.
Use paper plates, cups and silverware on the easy nights. You don’t want to save time cooking easy dinners and have to clean up for two hours afterwards.
Dinner should be enjoyable for everyone. It is a time for everyone to talk about their day. It will be easier for you to enjoy dinner too.