working moms - dinner

jaynalawayna

I plan my meals out for the week based on the weekend sales ads for the grocery stores in my area. I generally plan meals that can be reheated a second time and also eaten for lunch. My 16 year old daughter is a vegetarian so I need to be mindful of that - I have type 2 diabetes so I have to be mindful of my carbohydrate consumption. I generally plan a soup for one night, a pasta for one night, one night I plan a meal for her that I can't eat (grilled cheese/tomato soup combo) and I will cook myself a nice piece of salmon and microwave some green beans or spinach. Quiche is another easy dish that is easy and will produce leftovers and can be done with vegetable only (I serve it with a salad). When we used to share a home with another Mother and Daughter I would cook a chicken on Sunday night and serve half of it with a veggie and a starch then serve the rest of the meat in quesadillas or tacos later in the week.

caspergirl7

I love my crockpot and I'm a stay at home mom. It is so nice to know that come dinner time we will have hot dinner ready to go instead of me spending an hour in the kitchen making something. I would search crockpot recipes and start trying some of them. Good Luck!!!

^^This... so easy turn on before you go to work & you have dinner ready when you get home.

HealthyinAZ

I do a lot of crock pot meals - before work I'll throw chicken, veges, whatever else in, stick it on low, and it's done to be put over noodles or rice etc when I get home.

boggsmroz

Turkey burgers, tacos, baked chicken, chili or soup in the crock pot, grilled cheese and tomato soup, breakfast for dinner...
We usually order pizza once a week and do a left over night once a week...usually I only have to cook 3-4 times.
When I make things that can be frozen....I'll either make 2 of that item or we'll only eat half...then freeze the other half...pull it out in 2-3 weeks and just reheat You can do this with things like lasagna, shepherds pie, I've even done breakfast sandwiches and black bean burritos.

Confuzzled4ever

I make a ton of different foods..

I work full time, workout 90 mins or so a day and cook from scratch.

Open diary.. my kid eats what I do.. he's a bit older, but it was easier to get him to eat when he was younger. LOL

DeeBrownBaker

I love my crockpot!! The kids love my white bean chicken chili .... half a rotisserie chicken, 3 cans of great northern beans, seasonings, a can of rotel and half cup of water... give it a stir, put it on low and forget it till time to eat! throw a salad together and some Crystal lite tea... my kids (who are all very picky!) LOVE it!

Koldnomore

It takes me no more than half an hour to make dinner so possibly just need to keep it a little more simple. I try to plan my meals so that any meat that needs to be thawed is put into the fridge a couple days ahead so its ready to cook when I come home. This week we ate pulled pork that I made on the weekend and just froze, butter chicken - just cut up the chicken and onions, toss in the spices, yogurt and tomato paste, cook 20 min and eat, salmon fillet & couscous vegetable fried rice, tonight is spaghetti and meatballs (made over the weekend and frozen). I don't generally use caned things when I cook save the tomatoes for my sauce since I don't yet have a garden capable of keeping up with my demand. We had hamburgers (same meat as the meatballs, made on the weekend) and Greek pork cutlets with salad. I find if you know what you are cooking when you get home it makes it much faster than having to decide when you get home

vedra_b

on sunday i make either 2 big roast or 2 big roast chickens then through the week i can make a few things.

Roast sunday
stew
fajitas
shepards pie
take the stew thicken it up and make beef pot pie
sandwiches

Chicken
chicken noodle soup or dumplings
chicken tacos
chicken cassarole
chicken cesar salad
chicken pot pie
chicken and gravy over brown rice
sandwiches

RuthRW

Bumping to save- great ideas, thanks!

LastMinuteMama

Thursday evening I go through my 4,345,746,999 Pinterest food recipes. I pick out 5 meals based mostly on what I have on hand at home. I email them to myself so I can look at them on my phone. I make a grocery list of things I don't have that I'll handle sometime Thursday, or any day thereafter. On Sunday, I spend about 2-3 hours chopping, slicing, grating, mincing, measuring, thawing, marinating, meatball forming, putting into containers, making sauces and rice ahead of time, and sticking it back into the fridge to be made that week.

I make the recipe for the items that would taste better right away. So fresh seafood is Monday - Tuesday, and the marinated things are last because they're tastier. I have one really simple throw-together pasta type dish for whatever day I need to be even easier than usual.

This is great!!! I remember a time when I planned out my meals like this - schedule changes = broken routine :sad: Time to get back to it, because this is the best way to do it! Thanks for the reminder!

flexdirectcpr

These sound great. Bump for later.

leighann881

My go-to favorites:

Meaty Monday: Steak, veggies and rice

Taco Tuesday: Tacos and salad

Wacky Wednesday: I let the kids choose whatever they want - ham sandwiches, meatballs and pasta, pork roast and cinnamon apples, broccoli and beef, bacon wrapped chicken,

Thoughtless Thursday: Crockpot dinner of some sort - pulled pork/chicken sandwiches, roast beef, Bleu Cheese Flank Steak, ravioli and spinach, Applesauce chicken, Pinapple Chicken (BIG FAVORITE: Chicken--can of pineapple chunks--1/4 cup soy sauce (Tamari wheat free or La Choy are gluten free)--1 t red pepper flakes--SET AND FORGET IT!), Sweet potato chili

Friday: Dominos pizza

theresamay

I prepare food on Sundays - I plan out the week and make a menu that stays on my fridge, I do a lot of crock pot cooking also - or i make it up on Sunday and freeze it - I use the sites below a LOT


skinnytaste.com

http://pinterest.com/rhondawhittaker/healthy-recipes/

http://pinterest.com/rhondawhittaker/crockpot-recipes/

You're pinterest will probably look like I'm stalking you! I repinned a bunch of recipes!

bellyboosmom

A friend of mine taught me a great trick some time back. I knew I needed to do menu planning, but honestly what single, working mom has time for that? Then, she taught me an easy way. Every week we eat the same type of food on any given night. This way, I can get whatever looks fresh at the grocery store on the weekend, and still stick to my plan. I don't write up a whole month and say on the 1st we'll have steak, on the 2nd we'll have macaroni. I would never be able to stick to that. Here is what my menu looks like.

Monday-meat & potatoes (steak & baked, chops & mashed, grilled chicken & home fries) I always grill extra meat and make extra veggies to throw in the freezer for soups.

Tuesday- Mexican (quesadillas, tacos, burritos, enchiladas, taco salad, etc...)

Wednesday-I alternate weeks. Weeks 1&3 are breakfast, and weeks 2&4 are sandwiches and homemade soup. I usually have leftover meat from Monday that I can use for a soupbase, or for the sandwiches.

Thursday-Italian/or pasta night (spaghetti, shrimp linguini, ravioli, any type of pasta with homemade marinara made from roma tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, garlic, & onions...it takes longer to boil the pasta than it does to make the sauce!) I have also been known to do mac & cheese with turkey kielbasa on pasta night

Friday-weeks 1 & 3 are pizza (homemade) and weeks 2 & 4 are seafood. (tilapia, crab cakes, shrimp scampi. I chose Friday for this as I am Catholic, and it made it easy to not eat meat on Friday's during Lent, if I just didn't eat it all year I make veggie pizzas during Lent, and build your own pizzas the rest of the week.

This makes it easy for me. Every morning as I am putting on my coffee, I think about which day it is, and what I can throw together that night. I lay out ground beef or turkey for tacos, or put the pasta on the counter that I plan to make when I get home. Easy, peasy, lemon-squeezy :P

lheyens

During the week my crockpot! weekends I cook a lot and freeze it. pull it out as necessarily. I like to make my food go far haha.
Pizza nights are always fun also for a friday night, make some pizza with the kids
Big salads with fruit in it, my son loves buns so Ill do burgers or our new favourite is a sweet potato burger.

danifo0811

save for later!