Back to School – What’s for Dinner?

The best part of summer, in my opinion, is the lack of schedule. This goes for meal time. Often, we have “Make your own dinner” – lots of foods, laid out on the counter, and you take what grabs your eye. It’s a fantastic way to clean out the refrigerator as well as make dinner easier on you as a parent. We also do a lot of grilling out, picnicing and eating dinner poolside or at the beach.

But when school starts up, and you return to activity schedules and sports practices, dinner time becomes a focused, necessary evil. You’ve got a schedule to keep, homework to get done, bedtimes on which to crack – and you need dinner to be done, already, and in those bellies. What’s a busy mom to do?

• Create a routine – When your children are at school, they have a routine. It helps them to know what is coming next. In the same way, having a routine helps you. Make a dinner time plan and stick with it.
• Plan a meal rotation – Every family has favorites. Does your husband rave about your pot roast? Do you make a special pasta sauce that is so good it makes people cry? Get a notebook and jot down as many meals that you can think of that are family favorites. Figure out how many of them you can make and plan a rotation. It may work to make Monday a pasta night, Tuesday chicken, Wednesday Mexican, and so on.
• Master Grocery Lists can be your friend – It sounds like a lot of work, but take the time to create a master grocery list. You can always find one online to copy, but I have noticed that they don’t have the foods that we purchase most often. Maybe you can modify an existing list. Post that list where the entire family has easy access, and jot down foods that need to be replenished as soon as you notice. This way, you will have the items that you need when it comes time to prepare your meals.
• Post a Plan - Place a chalk board or dry erase board in a prominent location in your kitchen. Take into account the reality that Monday is a late night and you need to have a quick meal ready for a fast turnaround. Write down all of the meals for the week, including side dishes and desserts, if you like. This way, your family knows what to expect and you have already decided what’s for dinner, often the most excruciating part of the dinner dilemma.
• Make use of your crock pot – Often as easy as a dump and go, your crock pot can help you make a fabulous meal with very little effort. It’s even easier to use your crock pot if you assemble the foods in the crock the night before, maybe while you are cleaning the kitchen, and place it in the refrigerator. The next morning, you merely need to pop the crock pot into its base and plug it in. I’ve posted one of our family favorites below.
• Advance Preparation Works – You may laugh, but I often make dinner at lunch time. Then I put the prepared foods into the refrigerator, and I merely need to heat it up at dinner time. Many families have success with Once a Month cooking, or cooking large batches of easy to freeze meals on the weekends. I’ve even known families who put all of the necessary ingredients for a crock pot meal into a freezer bag, making several batches, and freezing them. There are many great websites with crock pot recipes – one very good one is A Year of Slow Cooking.
• For back to school, try this chicken recipe that my family loves:

Cream Cheese Chicken

Into your crock pot, place a pound of chicken for every 4 people. Add one stick of butter, one packet of dry Good Seasons Italian salad dressing, and one can of condensed cream of chicken soup (low fat is fine). Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Thirty minutes before you want to serve, open the crock pot and shred the chicken. Add one block of cream cheese (low fat is fine), replace the lid and allow it to melt. Stir together and serve over brown rice or pasta.