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My house needs a complete overhaul of our eating habits.
I love to workout but when it comes to cooking, I am downright LAZY!
I hate the entire process and more often than not we either eat take out or cheerios for dinner. (no, I’m not kidding) So, I need some tips on menu planning and easy meals. (crockpot recipes would be ideal!)
Either that, or I need a meal delivery service! Maybe Freshology or Jenny Craig would be interested in having me review their programs? 
We need help gang! What is your best advice when it comes to planning and cooking EASY yet healthy meals? Any recipes that you can share?
{ 22 comments }
I work FT and try to feed the family each night. I usually rely on basic chicken and veggies. Often breaded and baked chicken, potatoes sliced and baked (healthy fries), and frozen veggies. I think the dishes take longer than the meal! Also, throwing frozen veggies and sliced chicken together makes a quick stirfry to be served with rice
Good luck! I’m lucky that my husband and daughter aren’t very picky!
One thing that has worked for me is cooking a few different dishes one night per week, then putting them in storage containers to be eaten each day. It may take a couple of hours on say, a Sunday, but then you won’t have to worry about meals the rest of the week.
.-= Irene aka FitHungryGurl´s last blog ..Where My Girls At? =-.
I work FT and I also teach Jazzercise 4x’s a week. I cook big meals on Sunday’s with 2 meats and I just have to make a side or two. It also helps that I have a teenage daughter who can make rice or steam some veggies to go with the meat. Other things I’ve done is when I finish grocery shopping I clean & season all of my meat and put into freezer bags enough for meals.. take out prior to leaving for work and I can easily pop it in the oven to bake or on the foreman and we have a quick meal.
the biggest thing i am learning is that prepping is the most important. i try to make a crockpot meal and that always has leftovers, turkey chili is a big one i do, i can even freeze some of it and have that for another night. i also like to make a turkey bolgnese again crock pot. i like to make a stir fry one night (easy with rice/quinoa and lots of veggies) – i also make a pizza on some nights and some chicken cutlet …..i have found that it doesn’t take that long IF i am prepared that i am doing it.
.-= trifitmom´s last blog ..Momtrends ….. =-.
Attack changing your meal planning like exercise, go slowly! Try to plan a few meals a week at first so it isn’t overwhelming. And they don’t have to be gourmet meals, either.
Go to Wegmans, get the value pack of chicken. Get a few marinades that look good. Buy some fresh veggies to have on the side. Add a grain (cous cous is super easy) and dinner is served! Also, have pasta night. Or breakfast for dinner! Mexican (tacos/fajitas/quesadillas) is easy, too!
Once you get the hang of that, then start making more of your meals at home. Or making your own marinades/pasta sauce.
I use a lot of Sweet Pea Chef’s recipe…they are good, healthy, kid friendly, and easy to boot! Her site is: http://sweetpeasandpumpkins.blogspot.com/
Her Chicken Taco Soup and Pulled Carolina BBQ are crock-pot recipes and get raves at my house.
.-= Slacker Mama´s last blog ..2009: the year in review =-.
Oh! Two more things!
I prep a lot of my ingredients at once. After I shop on Sunday, I chop onions for all my recipes for during the week, slice red peppers for snacking, and prep my veggie sides. It’s more efficient and less stressful when cooking.
AND…I also have a few recipes that I double and freeze half. It’s nice to freezer dive and have a good meal.
.-= Slacker Mama´s last blog ..2009: the year in review =-.
Lisa, PLEASE check out Saving Dinner (http://savingdinner.com/). I have subscribed to the Low Carb menu twice and fully recommend it. You get 6 meals a week, with sides and nutritional breakdown… the woman who prepares the menus is a nutritionist. Now I have about a year of menus printed and some of them are regulars in our diet.
.-= Kristianna´s last blog ..They say to savor time… =-.
Hey Lisa, I love your blog. I don’t have any kids (yet), but I know that if you can make exercise a priority so can I! I actually blog about food on my site and have tons of quick recipes, many are healthy or can be made that way! Also, I love my slow cooker! It is a God-send. I have a super easy pork loin recipe that will feed the family for at least two days. First buy the pork tenderloin at the store, you can usually wait for a buy one get one deal or splurge on a really big one! Then you turn your slow cooker on high and add 1/4 cup white wine or other liquid, then close the lid to let the cooker get nice and hot. In the meantime, heavily salt the pork loins (you get two in each pack) and sear the sides in a hot pan with a little bit of oil. Place them in the slow cooker. Then cover the pork loins with 5 cloves chopped garlic, 2 tsps of oregano, and 1 bay leaf. Cover and let cook for 4 hours on high. It is lean and super flavorful! Also, leftovers can be chopped up for pork sandwiches the next day. Enjoy!!
.-= Carmen´s last blog ..Bananas and Brie =-.
My recommendation is to take a little extra time on the weekend or one night during the week and prep some meals. I make a few meals that I freeze in containers that are microwavable or oven ready. In the microwave they take 15-20 mins to heat up or about 1 1/2hrs from frozen in the oven at 350degrees.
Chicken Shepards Pie
2 lbs uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 cup Heinz fat-free chicken gravy
4 cups Stove Top stuffing (chicken, cornbread, cranberry – all yummy!!)
½ cup dried cranberries (if desired)
14oz can whole kernel corn
4 cups mashed potatoes
Cook chicken thoroughly in skillet, we use onion and garlic powder, and salt and pepper prior to cooking the chicken. Rough chop the chicken and spread it on the bottom of a lightly sprayed 9×13 inch baking dish.
Then layer ingredients evenly:
Chicken, prepared gravy, prepared stuffing with cranberries mixed in, corn, then potatoes… Enjoy!
Lasagna… Make a meat sauce, use whatever cheese you have. Whatever pasta… it all tastes the same. BUT make a BUNCH of sauce and freeze the extra in ziploc bags. Defrost and serve on pasta. You can add chicken, ground beef, sausage… whatever protein you have. Super quick and easy!! Good luck!
.-= Tee´s last blog ..Achieving the goals =-.
Hi there! I caught your post on Twitter. I have a couple menu planning services that I run. Here are some free samples! http://www.dinewithoutwhine.com/sample & http://www.menuplanningcentral.com/samples.htmlI hope that helps!
Funny you should ask! I just wrote a post on this exact topic over at Work It Mom!
http://www.workitmom.com/bloggers/problemsolved/?p=308
.-= Trenches of Mommyhood´s last blog ..PPD and Me (Part Two) =-.
For main courses, I really love the South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook. Lots of good recipes in there.
My strategy is that I do a big grocery trip once a week without my kids (I do it when my husband can watch them), and before I go, I plan out the meals for the week and add to the shopping list that’s been running since the last store trip. This has worked really well for us–my husband lost 75 pounds and I lost 100+ pounds in 2009!
Suppers for us are usually a healthy main course of protein and sometimes a whole grain with a BIG side of veggies. Roasted vegetables are our favorite and are really easy. I chop up brussels sprouts, 2 carrots, celery, 2 onions, 2 zucchini, and 2 bell peppers, toss with a little olive oil (maybe 2Tbsps for a BIG roasting pan full), a little salt, and a lot of no-salt seasoning, put in a foil-lined roating pan and roast for 30 minutes or so at 425 degrees, stirring halfway through. This makes 4 BIG portions of veggies (or more small ones), and everyone in our family (including my 18-month-old) LOVES it. And the leftovers are delicious served cold.
We love the whole wheat tortelloni from Costco, and Kashi pizzas are another easy main dish.
Good luck!
Maybe it’s me but I love planning menus. I actually over plan, buy too much and then bottom out with the actual follow through — not because I am lazy but because between working FT and the twins, well, the dinner hour is a bitch. Plain and simple.
Some hints. Take it slow. You really only need to plan three solid meals a week — and maybe a big dinner on the weekends. Add in a quick and easy breakfast for dinner, leftovers and some easy throw together meals, and you are all set. I love to make baked ziti — recipe on back of San Gorgio box — with turkey and we honestly take a week to eat it all — or freeze half for another night. Still, there are leftovers.
I also love my crockpot and have done some very successful meals: rotisserie chicken is my absolute fave. http://www.recipezaar.com/Whole-Chicken-Crock-Pot-Recipe-33671
Warning about that recipe — be careful not to go overboard with picking at it while it sits there after dinner is over. My mouth is now watering for it. : )
Anyway, two other tips — write down everything you need for a meal and then throw it on a list. Including the sides and desserts. And, go for meals with less than 5 ingredients — more likely to do them.
It takes time but eventually, you’ll find yourself pulling the best ones out all the time and then slowly adding in new ones for trial runs. Then, at that point, picking stuff for a week is so easy that you’ll be planning for two weeks — or even a month!
Now, how about talking about portion control??????? I need help for this.
.-= Shawn´s last blog ..Word of the year: JOY =-.
I have a form on my site where readers can contribute recipes ’cause I can’t cook worth a bean either. Here’s a link to the recpes they’ve shared: http://fitnesscheerleader.com/recipes/
ahhhh
I
Got
NOTHIN
here
Im the queen of easy and bagged salads and precooked chicken.
.-= MizFit´s last blog ..A Detour From The Skinny Goal (guest post). =-.
My favourite slow cooked meal is meat & veg (carrots, potatoes, broccoli, frozen peas & corn) cooked with 500ml beef stock, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, 2 tablespoons of Tuscan seasoning. I thicken it with some cornflour mixed with the juice towards the end & it’s delicious & easy. I’m pretty lazy so I cut the potatoes & carrots in half (not much chopping). Sometimes I don’t even bother to peel them.
Another really easy one is a packet of french onion soup mix combined with an 800gm tin of diced/chopped tomatoes. Any meat and vegies that you want.
Fish from a box with home made baked fries & frozen veg is also really easy.
I had 3 pre-schoolers too and the best thing I ever did (I should have done it years earlier) was to start writing out a shopping list and getting my husband to do it on his way home from work.
We also have a 4 week dinner menu plan that we reuse. So much easier than writing a new one each week & we don’t really care about trying new meals all the time.
What I used to have time to do was once I bought all the meats, I would take a couple of hours to separate and marinade or season, and freeze the meats. So I would make the uncooked meatloaf, marinade a whole chicken, marinade drumsticks, etc.
When I was a kid, my mom and I would sit in front of the TV and peel a million cloves of garlic because she suffered from high blood pressure and cholesterol and was advised that garlic would reduce those symptoms. We would refrigerate a large jar of garlic cloves. Our trusty blender would mince the garlic in oil. I still have it 22 years later.
Prepping things in advance seems to work very well.
I bought my father the Real Simple cookbook for Christmas but decided to keep it. The recipes are tasty and …real simple.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Simple-Best-Recipes-Delicious/dp/1603201025/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263618850&sr=8-1
It contains an assortment of veggie, appetizers, dinner, and meat recipes..The only thing missing is breakfast.
For breakfast recipes check out:
http://www.mrbreakfast.com./
.-= Wellversedlife´s last blog ..#1 Food Critic =-.
Some cookbooks I’ve found to be very helpful are “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” “Fix It and Forget it Lightly,” and “The One-Armed Cook.” (One-armed because you’re holding a baby or toddler in the other arm, not because you’ve cut it off, lol!)
There are also cookbooks by Ellie Krieger from Food Network with healthy, quick recipes, and Hungry Girl cookbooks. (She has a website, hungrygirl.com.) Oh, and Eating Well, which is a magazine, as well as cookbooks and a website.
I just came across blogs a couple days ago and they rock!! Here are a couple that I have found http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ She has great ideas and recipes for everything!
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/ Her recipes are mostly for South beach diet but I have looked at a few and they seem pretty good considering I have no intentions of being on that kind of diet plan. She also has quite a few slow cooker recipes
I just posted a recipe for kale chips on my blog! They are healthy, delicious and SOO easy to make. I think they taste sort of like real potato chips too! Trust me, they are awesome!!
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