Jump Start Your Meals
It’s 5 o’clock, you’re driving home from work, and then it hits you, “What am I going to make for dinner tonight?” You’ve had fast food twice this week already and you don’t think you can take another pizza. What are you gonna do? Well, if you had used Daily Cuisine, you wouldn’t have a thing to think about. Your complete meals would either be in the refrigerator or in the freezer waiting for you to just heat and eat! But if that’s not an option, I have a few helpful hints to enable you to jump start your dinner and make things a little easier when you get home from a long day.
By taking just a little time to plan ahead, you can avoid this dilemma. If you have the time to prepare your menu for the week, it’s always the best way to go. By looking over your recipes, you’ll know what ingredients are needed and what you may or may not need to buy. But it’s not always necessary. When I go grocery shopping, I don’t always have in mind what I’m going to make for dinner that week. I do like to make sure I have a variety of meats on hand so I’m not having chicken 5 nights in a row. (I really don’t mind but my husband isn’t crazy about it.) Everyone pretty much knows what veggies their family likes to eat and what vegetables they use in different recipes such as onions, peppers, garlic, celery, carrots and so on. So you will find a lot of times that your grocery shopping is somewhat standard.
Something I find very helpful is to do a little food prep after I get home from the grocery store. For instance, if I know I’m going to make Pepper Steak or Mongolian Beef, I’ll trim my beef and slice it in bite-size pieces, then freeze it. By labeling it, I can easily find it in the freezer and then use it when I’m ready to make that meal. I also like to trim up my chicken and place it in freezer bags rather than just putting it in the freezer right from the store. If I’m making Chicken Cordon Bleu, I’ll even take the time to flatten the chicken breasts before they go in the freezer. Anything you do on the day of your grocery shop will cut work and time when you get home from work to prepare it.
You can even slice and dice your vegetables in advance as long as you know you’ll be using them within a reasonable period of time. Onions and peppers can be sliced or diced a day or 2 ahead of the time you will use them. You can’t let them go for too long or they will go bad, but a couple of days is no problem. Having your meat trimmed, sliced and and having your vegetables sliced can make a meal like Pepper Steak be a breeze to make! You can have dinner ready in the time it takes to cook your rice! (about 20 minutes.)
By doing just a few simple things when you get home from the store, you can easily save yourself time and effort when it comes time for you to actually prepare your dinner that night. It can make the drive home thinking about what to make for dinner a little less stressful.
