Dinner time is supposed to be a relaxing meal shared with your family – or at least that’s what we strive for in this house despite the chaos of every day life. It helps that we have two cooks in the house as my husband and I both share a passion for it and are able to work side by side to get a meal prepared fast and easy. But not everyone has that option so what I am proposing are some 7 simple tips / tricks to help you make a meal not only quick and easy… but delicious as well!

Tip #1

Be organized. Sounds easy right? Well all moms know it’s not. You’ve got kids and all of their crazy schedules – basketball, soccer, tuba lessons, dance recitals. Who on earth has time to be organized about dinner!? Well now you do. Keep a note pad handy and jot down dinner ideas for the week in it a little bit each day. By the end of the week, you’ll have managed to plan out the meals for the rest of the week!

If you have a plan in mind, there will be no last minute “what on earth am I going to feed these kids!?” moments (I’m all for saving a little sanity where I can).

Tip #2

Stock up on cans of soup. Not only are they fairly cheap, but they can add a great depth of flavor to your cooking and cut your cooking time by half!

I like to buy creamy soups – Cream of Chicken / Mushroom / Celery / whatever else that they’ve got. It goes fantastic with chicken, beef or pork dishes. You can even use the soup as a base for gravy. It cheap. It’s quick. It’s absolutely delicious. Plus it can stretch a buck and if you buy the low sodium versions you can really pay attention to the amount of salt you’re putting in your body.

Tip #3

Assign jobs to your kids! One of the more stressful parts to making dinner is that you have kids running around the house getting into trouble while you’re trying to cook a meal. Get them involved. Let your daughter dig her hands into that meatloaf and mix the ingredients or allow your son measure out some ingredients for you. Sure, it might take a little longer but it’s fun and food tastes so much better with a little love in it!

Tip #4

Never underestimate the power of Rachael Ray’s 30 minute meals (or less in some cases!). Not only are they really that fast, but they are really good. I find most of her recipes are affordable and easy enough for people without much cooking skill to make. So check out the Food Network website and pick out some meals you would like to try.

Tip #5

Do all of your grocery shopping ahead of time. If you do the shopping once a week and buy everything you’ll need, you won’t have to stress out about picking up something for dinner. This means you have everything available at home and ready to go when it’s time to start dinner.

Tip #6

Wash all of your produce when you get home from grocery shopping and store it in proper containers. If you wash everything ahead of time, you won’t need to when it’s time to cook!

Tip #7

My favorite tip. Chop up onion, carrot, celery and green bell pepper in small dices. Mix them well in a bowl and transfer them to an air tight container of some kind (tupperware will do but if you have containers that air can be sucked out of, it’s even better). Store them in the freezer. They freeze well and when you need those ingredients to start a dish, you just take it out of the freezer and break off a piece.

Hope these tips are useful to my readers. We practice these in our own home and they work out great!

This blog is happily written in hopes of winning a French Door Refridgerator thanks to TwitterMoms.com and Samsung Appliances. For more information on how you too can enter, please check out this link.

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