One of our apostles, Dallin H. Oaks has said the following:
"The number of those who report that their “whole family
usually eats dinner together” has declined 33 percent. This is most concerning
because the time a family spends together “eating meals at home [is] the
strongest predictor of children’s academic achievement and psychological
adjustment.” Family mealtimes have also been shown to be a strong bulwark
against children’s smoking, drinking, or using drugs. A poll was taken by the
Reader’s Digest magazine to determine what factors contributed most to a
child’s success in school. Surprisingly, one thing they found was that
“students who regularly shared mealtimes with their families tested better than
those who didn’t” (Rachel Wildavsky, “What’s Behind Success in School?”
Reader’s Digest, Oct. 1994, 49). Simple questions during dinner conversation
about a child’s performance in school motivated children to work harder and do
better in their studies. In fact, families who eat together are more likely to
take an interest in what all family members are doing. Family mealtimes have also
been shown to be a strong bulwark against children’s smoking, drinking, or
using drugs. There is inspired wisdom
in this advice to parents: what your children really want for dinner is you."
I was really fortunate to have a mother who cooked us amazingly delicious and healthy meals every night for dinner. My father was usually home for dinner and we all sat down together to eat. I believe that part of the reason I am so close to my family and all of my siblings is largely due to the fact that my mother made sure we spent time together daily as a family around the dinner table where we had nothing else to do but eat and talk to each other. It feels like times are changing a little........I see friends rushing their children to a million different activities and sports practices into all hours of the evening (basketball practice at 7pm?! What is this world coming to?). A 9-5pm workday is not as typical as it used to be. Finding time to sit down as a family for dinner is HARD and sometimes finding time to prepare nutritious meals is even harder. Preparing this class couldn't have come at a better time for our family as we already seem to be busy and often struggle to make family mealtime consistent and organized. Hopefully after this class I'll be a much better reflection of my own mother's awesomeness when it comes to family dinner.
So at the request of a few friends who weren't able to attend my class (kind of hard when you live out of state), I thought I'd post what I shared (and learned) while preparing my class. It's a lot, so I'll break it up into a few posts. :)
Meal Planning/Preparation Tips and Tricks
~ Have a meal list.
It’s helpful to have a complete list of all the family’s favorite meals
on hand when planning your weekly/monthly menu. You may organize this list by protein category, how fast or
long the meal takes to prepare, whether or not it requires the BBQ, oven,
stove, crock pot, etc.
~ Pick a designated time to do your meal planning. Some people swear by a monthly meal
planning session, some plan their meals at the beginning of every week. Do whatever works for you, but meal
planning ahead of time does save money, time, and the afternoon
“what-should-I-make-for-dinner headache”.
~ Start today and work with what you’ve got. Take a look through your fridge and
pantry. What meals could you make
out of the items that you currently have?
You might be surprised by how many good meals you can prepare when it
seems like you have nothing to make a meal with.
~ Once you’ve set your meals for the week/month, make a
detailed and organized grocery list so that going through the store will be as
quick and painless as possible (because if you’re like me and have three tiny
kids, grocery shopping gets pretty painful sometimes). Organized grocery trips with planned
menus also helps keep down on the number of grocery runs and fewer grocery
trips = less money spent.
~ If you’ve fallen off the meal planning wagon (we’ve all
been there, and some of us actually live there quite frequently), it helps to
keep your fridge and pantry always stocked with ingredients for a few favorite,
go-to meals: ingredients for tacos, egg burritos, spaghetti, etc.
~ When doing your meal planning, consider having a category
for each day of the week: Macaroni Monday (pasta/Italian food), Taco Tuesday
(Mexican food), Waffle Wednesday (breakfast for dinner), etc. Saturdays can be reserved for fancy
sandwiches/paninis, you can make Sundays “Soup Sundays”, etc. Just a little something that can narrow
down decisions when meal planning.
~ If you have children who are old enough to help in the kitchen, plan to cook a few easy-to-make-meals every week so that they can join in with the meal prep! I have started doing this with my girls the past few months. I notice that they are 10X more likely to enjoy and eat dinner when they helped make it and it has been a great bonding time for us.
~ Always have some salad fixings stocked in the refrigerator
so a salad can accompany your main course. My go-to salad ingredients include: lettuce, carrots,
apples, craisins, feta cheese, celery, sunflower seeds, and dressing. The ingredients keep for a while and
are easy on the pocket book when fresh produce (like tomatoes, peas, broccoli,
etc) gets pricier during the winter.
~ When chopping up a salad, make a HUGE salad that will last
for a few meals, saving you meal-prep time for the next night’s dinner. (I definitely always do this because for some reason I absolutely hate chopping up veggies for salad but I love eating salad)
~ If I know I’m going to have a busy week, I’ll make sure to
double the recipe when making dinner so that I know I will already have dinner
for another night that week that will only need to be heated up.
~ If you don’t LOVE cooking everyday, consider doing freezer
meals a few times a week. It makes
the days you do take extra time to prepare a meal much more enjoyable.
~ Make and freeze some “white sauce balls” to have on hand
when making creamy sauces and soups for meals that call for cream of
chicken/mushroom soup:
2
cups flour 2
T salt
2
cups butter
Line
2 baking sheets with wax paper, set aside. In a sifter or bowl combine flour and salt. Use an electric mixer to cream in
butter until smooth. Drop by
cookie sheet onto baking sheets.
Place in freezer until balls are frozen. Remove from sheets and place in Ziploc freezer bag. To make sauce to use in a recipe that
calls for cream soup, place 4 frozen balls and 1 1/3 cups milk in a
saucepan. Heat, stirring with a
whisk over medium heat until thick and bubbly. Add appropriate seasonings and as in place of cream
soup. You can make a thinner
cheese sauce by adding more milk and cheese for quick, homemade macaroni and
cheese!
~ Create a stock of your own blends of spices to put on
chicken, fish, etc. For example, I
mix up a big bag of spices for days when I want to quickly throw together
blackened chicken/salmon. I also
always have some homemade fajita seasoning on hand for making some quick
chicken fajitas. The spice blends
use a lot of common spices so it’s not too tricky but a time-saver for
meal-prep and cheaper than buying seasoning packets.
Fajita
Seasoning Mix (equals 3 packets of commercial fajita seasoning)
3
Tbsp cornstarch
2
Tbsp chili powder
1
Tbsp salt
1
Tbsp paprika
1
Tbsp sugar
2
½ tsp crushed chicken bouillon cube
1
½ tsp onion powder
½
tsp garlic powder
½
tsp cayenne pepper
¼
tsp crushed red pepper flakes
½
tsp cumin
Blackened
Seasoning (if you do a lot of Cajun cooking, you can double, triple, or
quadruple this blend and keep in a small container in your pantry)
1
heaping tablespoon paprika
2
teaspoons salt
1
heaping teaspoon garlic powder
1
heaping teaspoon onion powder
1/4
to 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
2
teaspoons black pepper
1/2
teaspoon thyme
1/2
teaspoon oregano
~ Is sitting down all together as a family for dinner an absolute impossibility in your
house? They usually are in ours as my husband usually isn’t home until after the kids are in bed, so we make it a point
to have family breakfast together in the mornings. A few of our tricks to sitting down as a family for a nice
breakfast when mornings are crazy:
- If
you bake or buy extra loaves of bread, you can pre-make French toast, freeze
each piece individually on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper, then remove
once frozen and place them in a large Ziploc freezer bag. Then just pop individual pieces into
the toaster for a quick breakfast.
- German
puff pancakes are a quick, favorite breakfast that the kids think are
fancy. Preheat oven to 425
degrees, and melt ¾ stick butter in bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish. In blender or with an electric mixer,
beat together 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour, and 6 eggs. Pour batter into casserole dish and cook for 15
minutes. Remove from oven, cut
into squares, and serve with syrup.
I like to dress up the pancakes by adding cinnamon sprinkled apples or
berries on top of the melted butter before I pour the batter in.
- Have
fresh fruit on hand to serve with breakfast.
- Buy
large bags of frozen fruit/berries and whip up a few healthy smoothies to go
with breakfast.
(Even though I still prepare and sit down with the kids for dinner every night, I notice a huge difference in our day when we've started it off with breakfast where we're ALL together, Daddy included.)
Here are a few great websites with meal planning tips, recipes,
freezer meal ideas, grocery list templates, and meal planning calendars:
No comments:
Post a Comment