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AVIVA GOLDFARB, CEO OF THE SIX O'CLOCK SCRAMBLE (WWW.THESCRAMBLE.COM)
COOKS UP EASY WAYS TO KEEP |
School supplies purchased? Check! Backpacks emptied from last year? Check! Kids’ hair and nails trimmed and layer of summer grime scrubbed off their necks? Check! I guess we parents are almost ready to send our kids back to their routines, and get back to ours.
For many parents of school-aged children, the school year means a little more time for ourselves, or time to focus on our jobs during the day, but also many more afternoon and evening commitments and schedules to juggle.
If you’ve fallen off your dinnertime routine over the summer (I’ll admit I ordered a few extra pizzas and dined in restaurants a few too many times), this is a great time to get your meals back in order so you can shop for groceries just once a week and have everything you need to make easy, healthy meals every night.
And if you’ve never taken the time to plan ahead for your family’s meals each week, September is a super time to give meal planning a try. Most parents I talk to find that they easily save about five hours and $200 per month by getting more organized about family dinners.
I used to try to plan dinner on the fly, but I found that trying to figure out what to make every night was so stressful, and I was wasting so much food and money, that I’ve completely changed my ways. I’ve dedicated the past 12 years to helping busy parents make their lives easier, healthier and less stressful through my dinner-planning system, The Six O’Clock Scramble. And I can show you how to master your own “scramble,” too:
1. Keep a grocery list on your refrigerator and teach every family member who can write how to add things to the list as they finish them up so you can restock once a week.
2. Before going to the grocery store, pick a few easy and healthy recipes from your cookbooks or files, enough to have meals for each night that you’ll be home for dinner this week, and make a grocery list. (If you aren’t thrilled with the recipes you have on hand, you can use my weekly recipes and grocery lists by signing up at www.thescramble.com.)
3. Check your pantry and refrigerator to make sure you have enough of the staples you need for breakfasts, lunches and snacks, and any household items like paper towels and laundry detergent. Add anything you’re running low on to the list.
4. Okay, time to go grocery shopping. Be sure to get a few seasonal fruits and vegetables to serve as side dishes for each of the dinners (frozen vegetables are good, too), and a loaf or two of healthy bread (you can freeze one to keep it fresh). (If you have decided to use my weekly plans, don’t worry about this step, because the side dishes will all be planned for you.)
5. Take notice of how much easier your week was once you had a solid dinner plan. When 6 o’clock rolls around each day, you’ll feel so much more relaxed because you already know what you’re making for dinner, and you have all the ingredients on hand, so cooking is a breeze. (If your recipes are too complicated, please put them in a file for when your kids are grown up or toss them; use simple recipes that take 30 minutes or less and have 10 ingredients or fewer.)
It’s amazing how much smoother the weeks are for my family when I take a few minutes to plan our meals in advance and make a grocery list before heading to the store. If your back-to-school dinner routine needs a makeover, try weekly dinner planning to take all that time, waste, expense and stress out of your day!
Aviva Goldfarb is a mother of two and the author and founder of The Six O'Clock Scramble®, www.thescramble.com, an online weekly menu planner and cookbook (St. Martin's Press, 2006), and is author of the new cookbook SOS! The Six O’Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families (St. Martin’s Press, 2010).
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