Hints from a working mother

The past couple nights I've been cooking dinner and meal multitasking.
I'll be the first to admit that I get lazy, a lot.
I have many nights that I don't feel like making anything, or just dread defrosting whatever meat may be called for in my latest recipe.
So last night as Nick was cutting up chicken for chicken tacos, and I had him cut up a couple extra breasts. All the extra effort to do that was taking 2 extra breasts out as the same time as the chicken for the tacos, and then like 5 minutes maybe to dice it up, along with the other chicken.
The results: Prep time was cut for dinner tonight: Chicken Pot Pie. I didn't have to dread cutting or cooking the chicken (I could have cooked it with the taco chicken before I added the taco sauce to it and saved even more time). Plus knowing that I had raw chicken in the fridge that would go bad if it stayed there too long was motivation enough to cook it right away tonight.

I'm constantly amazed at how easy it is to get two meals out of one dish, or even to take one step out of the next nights meals and encourage myself to cook instead of run out to grab something. This is a lesson I've tried to show my brother time and time again, as he complained that cooking for one was really hard. Yes, you may not want to eat meatloaf for a week the same way, but there are way to turn that meatloaf into other meals like spaghetti and meatballs, meatloaf sandwiches, Italian subs etc.

So here are some examples of way to make homemade easier for you:

Example #1: Spaghetti and meatballs with a side salad...great for one night..not so great over and over, so I'd have spaghetti and meatballs the first night, the next night (or skip a day so you don't get burned out, they'll keep), Meatball Subs- heat up the meatball and sauce (or add a little extra sauce) and serve them on toasted sub rolls with melted mozzarella cheese. Then have the salad with lunch and add a little turkey, cheese, or extra veggies like avacado if you like that, or even leftover taco meat from another dinner and tortilla chips.  You just got a lunch, and two dinners out of one meal, and that's not even counting if you ate the dinners as lunches or dinner as a repeat.

Example #2: I love breakfast for dinner..love it!! As a mom its a night of no whining and clean plates. Plus leftover pancakes, waffles or french toast for the morning. So the other night we had breakfast for dinner. We had eggs, hash browns, fruit salad, and french toast. There were leftovers (on purpose), so I was able to have french toast in the morning for Izzy, fruit salad to go in her lunch, and mix in for Nick's yogurt, and some for a small smoothie in the morning for me. Then eggs were used in fried rice, I had leftover rice from the day before that I just put in a pan with salt and pepper, soy sauce, the leftover egg, and a little cubed ham, and green onions. Then hash browns were combined with the leftover ham (that was used in the fried rice) and an au gratin sauce and that made a hash brown and ham casserole.

Are you getting my drift? This way you are able to make all your food and dinners stretch into lunches, breakfast or snacks, and sometimes into another dinner. In times where food prices soar, and laziness prevails, its nice to think of ways to make it all work but without much effort at the same time.

If you don't want to try this method...fine. Atleast make it easier on yourself and take steps out of tomorrow's meals, and do prep when you can the night before. Make bacon for breakfast and cook the whole package and use it on club or BLT sandwiches, or crumble it and put it in potato soup, or on potatoes with cheese. Cut up extra chicken so you don't have to worry about it later. Make your budget and creativity stretch and you'll be pleasantly surprised. I promise! This is a lesson I've seen my mother use, and I now actively enjoy. I actually enjoy it! Just try it when you make you meal list this week...I bet you'll throw away a lot less.