Dinners as easy as 1 2 3

One of my joys is cooking! I love trying new things and experimenting when making dinners. Some of my friends said they struggle with making dinner and they get discouraged. So, I decided to share my love by giving you 21 helpful tips on meal planning, grocery shopping, prepping food and making the dish. I hope this will encourage you to cook and enjoy it more.

1. Deciding the meals for the week. - Pinterest is awesome for this. You can enter a type of meal or main ingredient or type of equipment you plan to use for that meal.

2. Know the staples you already have. Look in your pantry and fridge and see what you have and see what needs to be used before it goes bad.

3. Do not waste food - If you find an ingredient in a meal that you will not use the whole thing, look for another meal with that ingredient in it. For example, green onions or lettuce

4. Plan for five dinners- Life gets busy so you need to be flexible. I keep two days open: one day for eating out and one day for leftovers.

5. Look at your work/activity schedule to determine the meals- If you have a late workday or a busy night with activities, find simple meals. I make sandwich dinners, crockpot meals, or breakfast for dinner. It needs to be something that does not take long to prepare or that you can take with you in the car.

6. Theme week- Have fun with your meals. Have a Mexican dish week or Italian, or a waffle week (using a waffle maker for your meals) Pinterest will be your best friend for this! Once a month I do a pantry/fridge challenge- using only the food I already have to make the meals for the week.

7. Look for easy, limited ingredients and quick meals. - You want a meal that takes 30 minutes or less to cook. Do not use odd ingredients like oyster sauce. It's too expensive to be used a few times.

8. Make a grocery list- Always check to see if you already have some of the ingredients. I think our biggest mistake in grocery shopping is we forget what we have, and we buy” just in case”.

9. Stick to your budget- If you only have $100 to spend then keep your meals within the budget. I like to keep my meals under budget so if I find good deals, I can grab them (meat on sale or can goods mark down).

10. For meats and pasta noodles - Buy in bulk allowing you to make more meals. When you prep the meat, make 10 oz packages.

11. Fruit and veggies soak in vinegar water - While unloading the car and putting groceries away, let the produce soak. (2 tbsp in a large bowl of water) It will not make the food taste like vinegar.

12. Prep the food - 1) Cut up the veggies and throw them in the freezer. I make dice bags and bags for fajitas. 2) Portion the meat into 10 oz in each bag and put them in the freezer. Put the date on the bags. Labeling it will show you a couple of things; 1) if you need to use the meat soon 2) you will use the oldest package first.

13. What to do in the morning - I plan my days. I choose the meal that best fits my daily schedule. Say you need to go to the store after work you might do something with ground beef (less cook time). Get all non-fridge items out and put them by your oven (so when you get home there is less prep time).

14. What if you forget to thaw out meat- a great cooking hack is to let the crockpot do it for you (except ground meats). I usually throw everything into the crockpot except rice and pasta and let it cook during the day. Then add the cooked pasta or rice when I get home

15. In a hurry- If you don’t have time to bake the casserole, you can always serve it from the stove (unless it has corn tortillas/ which then you can substitute for corn tortilla chips)

16. Substitutions- I always google if I don't have something for a great substitute.

17. A quick way to cook or toast is the air fryer. I love this instead of the oven when it comes to cooking chicken, fish, garlic bread, tater tots/ French fries

18. Prep the oven quicker- Put it on broil for a few minutes the oven will heat up quicker than if you preheat).

19. Don’t have time to cook the noodles? - you can always add them to the dish by adding water or more sauce for it to cook in. I don't do spaghetti noodles since they clump together

20. Cooking bacon- place the bacon on a cookie sheet and let it bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Avoids the splatter

21. Meat/vegetables/casseroles - You can always freeze them in their raw state. Once you put them in the fridge you have 7 days to use it. If you cook the food, it changes their state and you can refreeze it