Busy Mom's Tip #1

Don't just cook dinner, cook 3.



That is right, if you are going to go through all the trouble of chopping, mixing and baking, might as well triple that recipe and save some for later. Most meals will freeze well, or parts of it will, and you can eat one later on in the week and the other next week. Trust me, if you do this 2 times a week or even just on the weekends you will save time. Not just the time it takes to prep the meal, but the time it takes to decide what is for dinner.

Tonight I made Meatloaf. 3 of them. We ate one for dinner and 2 for the freezer. This same meat mixture I also rolled into meatballs, 90 of them. That is 3 more meals for us. So tonight I actually made 6 dinners with one recipe. I used 8# of hamburger, 3 cups bread crumbs, 7 eggs, 1 onion (don't tell the boys about that), 2 cans of tomato sauce and some spices. I cooked the meat loaves first and while those were in the oven I scooped out all the meatballs with a cookie scoop. Meatballs go on a cookie sheet to get flash frozen and then into ziplock freezer baggies. The meatloaves got wrapped up and stuck in the freezer after they cooled. I do this alot and have various meals and meal "parts" in my freezer for dinner with very little effort.

So this is the first tip, and a most important one that I tell my friends and family when they ask how I keep it all together. I don't think I keep it all together all that well, but I try really hard to do a few key things right and this is one of them. More to come, I promise!