Save Time & Money in the Kitchen

Is your idea of a quick meal stopping at a fast-food restaurant on your way home from work? Maybe you think that between your children's extra curricular activities and homework, you just do not have the time to cook a delicious and nutritious meal.

The most important time saver is planning. Plan an entire week's menu and generate a grocery accordingly.

Having all of the items that you need on hand for completing each meal will eliminate multiple trips to the grocery store, where it would be easy to purchase more than you need.

Meal planning does not have to be difficult, choose simple meals that your family enjoys.

• Prevents multiple trips to the supermarket to locate missing ingredients, therefore saving time and money;
• Saves time in knowing what you will cook eliminating last-minute decision making;
• Gives you the opportunity to enhance nutritional value of each meal by considering healthier choices.

It does not require much more effort to cook twice the amount of a main dish. So double or triple up on recipes and freeze the others for evenings when you just do not feel like cooking.

Preparing, cooking and freezing meals ahead of time is an excellent way to save time. Some people take one day a month to do an entire months worth of cooking.

Cook twice the amount of a entrée to swap with a family member, friend, coworker or neighbor. This way you have dinner without having to cook at all. Just heat and serve.

Enlist other family members to help with meal preparation. Children learn and have a sense responsibility when performing duties in the kitchen. Make sure to distribute chores to children that are age appropriate.

Cook the entrée in a slow cooker or crock pot. There is a multitude of delicious recipes featuring this way of cooking on the Internet from stew to meatloaf and everything inbetween.

Assemble your meal in the crock pot before leaving for work and when you arrive home, dinner will be done.

Avoid prepackaged or frozen convenience foods. Slice, dice and shred it yourself. For a few minutes time, you can chop an entire week's supply of onions, bell pepper and celery. Store it in a zipper baggie and place a folded paper towel inside to keep the vegetables from becoming watery.