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Soccer Mom Cooking - the Steps to a Productive Kitchen
What's for Dinner? Those three dreaded words...I never appreciated their power until I became responsible for making dinner myself (sorry, Mom). So between taking care of the kids, the demands of the 9-5 job, mountains of laundry, driving all over the place, and everything else, we're expected to make a delicious and nutritious meal that will appeal to everyone? (you can stop laughing now.) Other than "making the call" here are some strategies that helped me. A great place to start- the list! A few years ago, I fell into a cooking rut- I felt like I was making the same thing over and over again. Being the queen of list-making, I came up with the idea of listing the dinners I typically make. I was pleasantly surprised how many different meals I came up with in a short amount of time. I loved adding some recipes that I had been wanting to try. If your children are old enough have them pick out new recipes or old favorites that may have been overlooked- that keeps them involved and happy. I like to plan for a few double-duty meals: meals that you can make once and use again as either a I-don't-feel-like-cooking day by freezing a portion or for creating a "new" meals from left-overs (but no one will know they are left-overs). Another thing that I try to plan for is a few slow-cooker (crock-pot) recipes- there's just something about having dinner already accounted for when coming home after a long day at work, transporting the kids and/or running errands. Once I had the list, I developed a schedule of dinners on a make-shift calendar to organize the meals, either for just one or two weeks, or for the whole month. You don't need to follow this strictly, just having the ideas out there is more than half the battle. I typically try to vary the meals to avoid the "Not chicken again?" refrain and limit one new recipe a week (for practicality and to keep the natives calm). The next step is the next list- the shopping list. Go through your recipes and make a list of the ingredients you will need for each one. Non-perishable items are great to stock-up on and have on hand; purchase your perishable items with care- you don't want these items to expire before you get around to making the recipe.
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