Dinner Shortcuts: Quick Tips for Getting a Healthy Dinner on the Table
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Terrific New eBook On How To Broil Delicious Foods If you think you don’t have time to make dinner, think again. With these ideas, you'll be a professional at-home chef in no time. Plan ahead. Each morning, decide what you’ll make for dinner that night. At this time, you might decide to put any meat that needs to defrost in the refrigerator, and double check that you’ve all of the ingredients. Review the recipe and figure out when you'll need to start making dinner in order to have it done on time. Cook some ingredients ahead of time. Keep backups on hand. For those special occasion meals when you need gourmet fare, think about a service that delivers prepared meals or gourmet entrees to your home (such as Home Bistro or Omaha Steaks). This option can get pricey if you use it a lot, but both companies issue online coupons and promotions from time to time. Check here for current Home Bistro Coupons; and here for Omaha Steaks coupons. No Tags
Nothing has people reaching for the take out menu faster than a lack of planning. If you’ve been trying to plan dinner after 5 pm, odds are that you give up on cooking most days. Make sure to plan at least five meals each week before you go to the grocery store for the week, so you’ve the ingredients on hand. (Printable grocery coupons are here.) If you have enough food to make several different types of meals, you’ll be less prone to eat out.
Come up with a system for dinner recipes.
It's simple to make a quick dinner when you have a system that works. Keep your dinners to an easy formula of protein plus carbohydrate plus vegetable and you'll be able to make dinner swiftly. This formula can cover a wide range of possibilities – baked chicken, cheesy noodles and broccoli, grilled steak with peppers and onions served with tortillas, sautéed ground beef with Asian vegetables served over rice. The possibilities are endless!
Save time with frozen vegetables.
Everyone needs more vegetables and serving frozen vegetables are an simple way to get more into your family’s diet. You'll want to stock your freezer with a variety of veggies. You can change the flavor with spices, margarine blended with lemon juice or even Italian dressing. A few minutes in the microwave or on the stovetop with a vegetable steamer and you’ll have vegetables for your meal.
Ground beef can be used in many different recipes, from spaghetti to tacos. It takes just as much time to brown two pounds of beef as it does to brown a half a pound. On a weekend, brown and freeze several pounds of ground beef or ground turkey. This way, the next time you cook a recipe that calls for ground beef you’ll just have to reheat it. You can do the same thing with chicken pieces.
Even the most well planned menu can come undone from time to time. Keep a few frozen meals at the ready. Frozen lasagna, skillet meals and other pre-packaged foods are okay every once in a while. You can improve the nutrition of these processed meals by adding more vegetables and serving health side dishes.
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
Possible Related Posts
The Secret to Quick Dinner RecipesChoose Practical but Stylish DinnerwareQuick Dinner Ideas
