6 Tips for Making Easy Dinner Recipes

Do you have the skills to help you transition from drive through mentality to preparing full family dinners? Yes, I laughed at this concept too. The whole idea that I could have the time or energy to make dinner for my family every day is laughable. Then I started implementing these tips and our family life actually changed. I would like to share with you how to make easy dinner recipes work for you on a daily basis.

Tip #1: Get a calendar. This is an organizing tool that works for everyone I know and it's so simple you're going to just say, "Stacy, come on. Do you think we're simpletons?". Not at all. But when you're writing down all of your activities for the day, note what days are going to be crunches and which look not so bad. If Tuesday looks horrid, buy a rotisserie chicken, some great rolls, a bag of Caesar salad and you've got chicken sandwiches in a flash. You'll only go through half the chicken and when Wednesday hits, you have the makings of a great pasta. Your calendar can be your best friend so map out your week in advance and write on each day what dinner is going to be.

Tip #2: Post a shopping list inside your pantry door. This will help you remember the odd items that come up (saran wrap gets me all the time) plus as you're doing your meal planning at the beginning of the week you can easily populate the items you need to make those dinners.

Tip #3: Consolidate. One grocery trip per week period. Don't make life harder than it is. When in doubt, refer to Tip #2 and be diligent with that.

Tip #4: Get everyone else involved. I have two children so they get to pick one meal every two weeks. My daughter picks one week and then my son the next. I find a day that looks good and ask for their choice ahead of time. They get excited to for having dinner at home because it's their choice and I don't have to force anyone to eat anything.

Tip #5: Get tech-y. Subscribe to blogs or websites that have great recipes emailed right to you each week. I have been fortunate enough to subscribe to a program that helps me out tremendously. Not only does it have a huge library of recipes to pick from, but it helps me put the recipes onto a list and then even makes a grocery list for me. I don't know how I ever lived without it. There are quite a few of these sites out there, but the one I use can be found here.

Tip #6: Be flexible. We're not perfect and even the best laid plans sometimes fall apart. An occasional Pizza picked up in desperation is o.k.. We also have scramble nights when the plan has deteriorated and we get to just pick anything from the pantry we want - from a bowl of cereal to left over steak. We're all great with those evenings because we know that tomorrow we'll get back on the program.

I will be posting up some favorite easy dinner recipes here in the next couple of weeks so be sure to bookmark this page.

Happy Eating!
-Stacy