Plan Ahead

Before you start reading, please pay attention because I've added quite a few links in this post to recipes I use often.  Click on the link to view the recipe.  Okay, proceed.

The most important part of being able to cook from scratch food even on the busiest night is this: planning ahead.  Even those of us who work outside of the home beyond juggling all the at-home chores have an obligation to cook nutritious food for our families.  Food is fuel.  Food is disease prevention (or causation).  Food is happiness.  Food is a big deal, and planning meals ahead of time makes from-scratch cooking so much easier.

I generally only plan meals a couple of days in advance, but sometimes I get really crazy and plan a whole week in advance.  You'll notice many of my recipes allow me to cook meat from frozen because I generally forget to thaw it.  I spend a chunk of my Sunday doing some quick planning, usually baking some bread, and maybe making granola bars and/or muffins and/or tortillas.  I also sort out what's getting low in the fridge or pantry.

So, here's a typical supper plan for me...

Tonight I made beef stroganoff for the kids and Colby.  Colby (beers with friends) and Dade (pep band) are both gone this evening, so I needed to cook something that reheats easily.  Stroganoff is fast and reheatable.  Perfect.  My recipe is simple: Start by cooking one cup of rice (we like jasmine) with two cups of water or broth.  While that is cooking, brown one pound of ground beef.  Once it is browned, stir in two tablespoons of flour and one packet of onion soup mix.  I know, onion soup mix isn't the healthiest, but remember what I said about choosing your battles.  Add in about 3/4 cup of water and one cup of sour cream (or non-dairy sour cream).  When it is warmed through, dump in the rice.  Stir and add in more water if you want.  I used to add mushrooms to the stroganoff, but the kids prefer it without.  That's it.  Thirty minutes from pan to table even if you forgot to thaw the ground beef.

If this one eats my stroganoff then you know it's good!

Non-dairy sour cream...this one is our favorite.

Lots going on here...

Evelyn hard at work.  

While the stroganoff was cooking, I was also making some vegetable soup for myself.   I used purple potatoes and a bag of frozen mixed veggies and my homemade chicken broth.  Speaking of chicken broth, I saved all the scraps from chopping veggies as well as some random veggies sitting in the fridge waiting to be eaten because tomorrow night I'm roasting a chicken.  And what happens when I roast a chicken??  Broth.

Hello, veggie scraps

Hello, soup

Oh, look...see that planning thing I told you about?  I have some soup for the freezer for the future and some in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.  This soup is really good, and you can pretty much eat as much of it as you want without feeling guilty.

Hello, lunch

So, I'm using the veggie scraps from my soup in the broth I will be making tomorrow night after roasting a  chicken.  Hey, I don't even have to thaw the whole chicken before I roast it.  I can toss that frozen son of a gun into the slow cooker in the morning and BAM!  Dinner is served.  If you have an extra slow cooker you can put a chicken in one and bake potatoes in the other.  Double BAM!  Or just roast two chickens and have tons of leftovers to help you out with that whole planning thing.

My family will eat the whole chicken, but if you have leftovers you can plan yet another meal with the leftover chicken (chicken wraps, chicken on salad greens, these amazeballs nachos, bbq chicken pizza on homemade crust, chicken and dumplings, etc.).  The possibilities are endless!  This planning thing is pretty.freaking.sweet.