I mentioned briefly in the menu planning post that breakfast for dinner is a good option for nights where you’re short on time. Breakfast for dinner used to be a rarity, but now it happens more like once every two weeks. In addition to being on the table quickly, most breakfast options are also very budget-friendly. Win-win.

Now, normally, I’m a savory breakfast kinda girl. I prefer things like omelets, chilaquiles, hash, and the like. I do like pancakes and waffles, though (who doesn’t?). Truth be told, if I could have it my way, every breakfast you eat at a restaurant would come with 1 pancake instead of toast. That way, you get to have something sweet at the end, but you still get your savory breakfast. Are you listening to me, diners across America?

But, I digress. We have occasionally been having sweeter options for dinners. They’re just quicker, and I always have the ingredients on hand.  Plus, I feel a little better about the homemade version to their restaurant counterparts, since they tend to be a little healthier and we balance them with some turkey sausage for protein. (OK, or bacon.) And Zachary? Well, he’s certainly never going to complain about pancakes or waffles any time of day, especially when they are served with fruit (his second favorite food group, after peanut butter, which is definitely a food group to him).

These waffles use honey for sweetener and a fair amount of whole wheat flour. I actually switched the ratio so the whole wheat proportion was higher than the enriched, and it worked beautifully. In fact, I’ll probably increase it even more the next time around. These waffles are a bit softer than most (due to the yogurt, I’m guessing) but we didn’t mind. I threw a leftover one in the toaster the following morning, and it crisped up just like any other waffle would.

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(Yikes, someone needs to take a few minutes next weekend to bust out the Bar Keepers Friend on her pans!)

I was sifting through food pictures the other day when I came across this meal. I thought to myself…wait, did I ever blog this? I checked to make sure. Nope. Forehead slap.

Finding this picture was like (a very toned down and pretty lame) Christmas morning. Not only did I have something new to post, I remembered a good, easy meal we had! The reason this didn’t get posted when I made it was because I had just posted a pork tenderloin recipe and wanted to stick a few other recipes in between. But, I have the memory of someone three times my age, so that didn’t really work out for me too well.

This recipe is so easy, but I really liked the way it turned out. I generally tend to roast pork tenderloin and, while there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s nice to occasionally switch the preparation up a bit and cook something that takes even less time. The original recipe calls for mashed anchovy fillets, but I didn’t have any, so I finely chopped some kalamata olives instead. These lent the briny, salty goodness the anchovies would have added.

I liked the rosemary both with the olives and the pork, and balsamic vinegar goes well on everything. Truth. This meal only takes about 15 minutes to make, so it’s perfect for a weeknight.

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I’ve been meal planning for quite some time. I do it for many reasons, including saving money on groceries, saving my sanity by not having to make repeat trips to the grocery store, and lessening food waste.

Over the years, I’ve gone from pen and paper meal planning and ripping recipes out of magazines to “getting with the times” so to speak, and I thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts and strategies on the process. Plus, as the working mom of a toddler (who gets home 30 minutes before dinner is eaten), I’ve learned a few new tips myself for getting dinner on the table quickly.

This is a long post, but I hope you find it useful. It’s broken into two sections: meal planning, and tips for quick dinners.

Meal Planning and Grocery Lists

My first tip when it comes to making sure you stick to cooking meals at home as frequently as you planned is to have a fully stocked pantry. This ensures that you aren’t spending a ton of money buying ingredients for every meal each week, but it also means that if something doesn’t sound good on a particular night, or you forgot to thaw something or whatever, you can likely whip up something with what you have on hand.

Plus, while I encourage coming up with side dishes to each main course you plan, that doesn’t always happen. In those events, it’s good to have things that can turn into quick and easy side dishes.

Below is an outline of my meal planning process.

Step 1: What do I already have on hand that needs to get used up?

Do you have some buttermilk or sour cream leftover from last week? A head of romaine that’s not looking so great? Half a brick of cheddar or half a can of beans to use up? Add a meal that has those ingredients to your menu. Less stuff to buy, less food to waste.

Tip: Keep a list of items in your freezer. You can keep this online, or simply just post a list on your freezer door, and add or scratch off items as they change. That way, you know what you already have available for meals, but also make sure you don’t forget about the 10 individual containers of pesto you have in the depths of your freezer (guilty).

Step 2: What do I want to make? 

Okay, so you’ve made sure to include a recipe or two that will use your perishable ingredients. Not what? Well, what sounds good to you?

Inspiration and saving recipes

I get ideas from other blogs, magazines, cookbooks, Pinterest, or just an idea in my head. But, the place I save the large majority of recipes I want to try is Google Reader. In addition to following several food blogs in my Reader, I also get daily updates from various food publications like Cooking Light and Epicurious, which makes keeping most saved recipes in one place very easy.

Any time a recipe sounds good to me, it gets the star treatment. Boom.

When I’m being good, I also tag the recipe with a main category like chicken, beef, vegetarian, side dish, etc. Many times I’m too lazy to do that but thankfully you can search starred items only in your Reader, so I can quickly find that asparagus pasta I remember starring a few weeks back, even if I never tagged it as “pasta.” (And might I suggest if you’re new to tagging, that you tag by season, too? This is something I really wish I had done from the start.)

Any recipes I come across that may not be in my reader might get added to Pinterest, or simply to my Internet bookmarks folder, inside a subfolder with categories similar to those in my reader. If I come across a recipe in a publication, I try to find it online and save it that way rather than keeping paper around.

I have cookbooks, but not as many as most bloggers. Unless I am craving something in particular, I tend to only flip through these every couple months, vs. every week and note any recipes I want to try in the coming weeks.

Variety

I try to keep our week relatively balanced in terms of the protein – generally 1-2 vegetarian meals, 1-2 chicken, 1 beef, 1 shrimp, etc. You can also balance in terms of cuisine (though we all know I could easily eat 7 days of Greek and Mexican food).

Do I care about sales?

As far as sales go, a lot of grocery stores now keep their circulars online. You may want to browse that first, and make your meals based on items that are on sale. This is a good way to save a little money, or ensure you stock up on things that are on sale that you might otherwise miss because you’re only buying things on your grocery list.

I’m not a big couponer, because I find that they usually don’t apply to the types of things we eat, but I keep Organic Deals and Saving Naturally in my reader, and often find printable coupons through those sites.

What’s in season?

I try to buy produce when it’s in season whenever I can (that doesn’t mean I always do; I make a conscious effort, but sometimes I need to eat tomatoes in December). It tastes better, and it’s usually cheaper. You can also check Local Harvest for farmers markets in your area.

Step 3: Make a complete list of your meals. 

If you want to cook 5 days next week, you obviously need to think of 5 meals (or 3 meals and 2 leftovers, or any combination you prefer). Typically, I add things to my menu haphazardly throughout the week, but Friday nights are when I really sit down and make a list of meals and groceries (I know, I’m a party animal). In addition to all your  main dishes, you’ll want to think of sides (when necessary).

Evernote

I like to use Evernote both for meal planning and for grocery lists (and for lists of restaurants I want to try, stuff I want, random recipes, the list goes on).  There are many reasons for this. For starters, it’s online (duh) and I am online, almost always. So, if I think of a random dinner idea I want to make next week while I’m on the train, I can just throw it on the list so I don’t forget. Sometimes I already have a week planned out, but I might think something sounds good for the following week, in which case I just throw it on the bottom of this week’s list because, let’s face it, I won’t remember what it was when Friday comes around. Plus, any time I add a meal to my list, I can just toggle over and add the groceries for that meal to the other list.

Whenever I’m making a recipe from a blog or website (whether it’s my own or someone else’s) I can also link to it, which saves me time from trying to find it later on.

You don’t necessarily have to assign days to your meals, of course. As long as you plan accordingly (whether it means thawing meat or what have you), you can just make the list. I like to assign days, because I try to keep my heartier produce for later in the week, but I also will swap a couple days here and there. No biggie.

I know a lot of people use Google Calendar, so that’s another option you can try, too!

Step 4: Make a grocery list (and stick to it!)

The other reason I really like Evernote is that—though this may surprise you—Tom (and Zachary) do the actual grocery shopping at our main store (I tend to do the meat shopping at the butcher shop). With Evernote, I can just email Tom the list directly (or share it to his Evernote), which eliminates paper and the potential for forgetting the list at home. Plus, there are staple foods (milk, eggs, garlic) that are basically always on the list and I can just modify last week’s list without having to re-add things. I also sort the list by aisle, because I’m cool like that.

Tom gets whatever is on the list, and that’s it. No random or unplanned items. Usually.

Here are a few other helpful posts on meal planning from other bloggers:

Annie’s Eats
The Dainty Chef
It’s All Happening! 

Quick Meals and Tips for Getting Dinner on the Table

I used to have close to an hour between getting home and eating dinner, but since I now work a little further from home, I have less time. I get home at about 5:50. We used to eat dinner pretty promptly at 6:00 but now we eat closer to 6:15-6:30 most nights.

It took me a few weeks of returning to work to get into my new groove. At first, I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, and having SUCH a hard time coming up with meal ideas, but now I’ve gotten into a good routine and it’s not nearly as difficult.

My first few weeks of the new job went something like this, and this helped a lot because I was only cooking 2 out of the 5 weeknights. I sometimes still follow this schedule but generally I’m cooking from scratch about 4 nights during the week and the 5th day might be something from the freezer, crockpot, going out, etc.

Sample plan for cooking “twice” and eating a homemade meal 5 times:

Sunday:  While making Sunday’s dinner, also make Monday’s. Meals that prep really well include baked pasta dishes, enchiladas, casseroles, soups and stews. Make the meal in its entirety, or up to the baking stage.

Monday: Bake/heat up whatever you made Sunday (Tom and Zachary get home about 15 minutes before me, so Tom will throw the dish in the oven, heat it on the stove, etc.). When I get home I might have to make a salad, and that’s it.

Tuesday: Cook a quick and easy dinner

Wednesday: Crockpot meal (freeze some if it makes a ton)

Thursday: Cook a quick and easy dinner

Friday: Pull a meal out of the freezer

Quick and Easy Meals

For a while, I’d been considering adding a “quick and easy” category to my blog but the thought of poring over hundreds of posts to categorize things seemed daunting. Well, about 2 weeks into my new job, I went ahead and did that because the time spent doing that was more than saved by having an easy place to find meals I can make in the short amount of time I have during the week.

So, definitely sift through that category. I hope it’s as helpful to  you as it is to me.

Some other meals that always come together quickly are burgers (and you don’t have to be boring with them, the possibilities are endless), chicken breasts and paillards (a max of 12 minutes to cook on the stovetop), stir fries, pasta dishes (there are plenty where the meal comes together while the pasta cooks), breakfast for dinner, and hearty salads.

More resources for fast meals:

Cooking Light Super Fast Recipes
Food & Wine Fast Recipes
Epicurious Quick and Easy Recipes

How and what to prep ahead

You can do as much or as little prep as  you want and have the time for. Obviously if you are making a meal that’s easy to put together in 20-30 minutes, you may not need to do any. But, you can always do things like slice vegetables, peel and cut potatoes (store them in water in the fridge), pound or marinate meats, make sauces, etc.

There are obviously countless things you can make ahead and what you want to make will obviously depend on what you like to eat. We eat a fair amount of  brown rice in this house, and I simply don’t have time to cook it during the week any more. So, rather than relegate it to weekends only, I make big batches of it, and then freeze it in meal-sized portions. You can just microwave it whenever you want.

A good rule of thumb is that you’ve seen something prepared and frozen in a store, you can do it yourself for a fraction of the price. Seriously, browse Trader Joe’s frozen foods and you will get plenty of ideas, I guarantee it.

Freezing meals

I don’t go out of my way to make freezer meals, and I know I don’t have them as often as other people do. That said, a lot of times there is no more effort put into making 2 of the same meal than one, and you can just freeze the second one. Or, simply freezing a half batch of something. This works particularly well with casserole type dishes, baked ziti, enchiladas, etc.

Several slowcooker meals also make a lot, and I just freeze the leftovers. You can eat them the same way or repurpose them.  Recently I froze some of this Tex-Mex chicken stew and we were able to eat it a few weeks later. I love to freeze this pulled chicken because it makes a ton. I froze leftovers of this Cuban pork and repurposed it into Cuban quesadillas. Sometimes you may need to cook a little something on “frozen meal” nights but it should never be as time consuming as making a whole meal.

It’s great to have some pizza dough in the freezer, as well as some pesto or pasta/pizza sauce. Tortillas and pitas freeze great and are good for quesadillas or mock pizzas, too. I always keep shrimp in my freezer because even on a night where nothing is planned, cooking some shrimp in a pan and adding it to pasta is pretty much always a possibility.

So, there you have it. A very lengthy version of my weekly routine. Do you have any tips for meal planning and quick dinners? Any other questions/things you’d like to hear about?

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I’ve come to realize that I should probably rename my crockpot the “shredded meat maker.” If there is one thing I always feel comfortable cooking in there, and that always turns out well no matter how long I’m gone, it’s shredded meat of some sort, be it for tacos, sandwiches, or Asian dishes.

When I first saw this recipe, I immediately knew it was going to get the crockpot treatment. I really liked the sound of the pork – nice and citrusy with just a small touch of heat (and a little more if you choose to make the chipotle cream).  Plus, I love a nice crunchy counterpart to a crockpot meal, which is obviously not going to have a whole lot of texture. Between the crunchy slaw and citrus flavors in this pork, this is a nice, bright meal, which is not always easy to achieve in a slowcooker.

Plus, the meat is pretty versatile. The first night, we had the pork in a similar way to the original blogger – as tacos, with a crunchy slaw. I froze some of the leftovers and we had the pork a couple weeks later in Cuban quesadilla form – all the ingredients in a Cuban sandwich (yellow mustard, pork, ham, pickles, Swiss cheese) but in a tortilla instead of a roll. I’m not sure which I liked more!

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I keep a lot of random lists in Evernote, one of which includes things I want to cook (typically, ideas I have for original recipes). One of the items I have on that list is “stuffed sweet potatoes (black beans, queso fresco, chipotle, etc.)” So clearly when I came across Nikki’s post for Southwestern stuffed sweet potatoes and realized someone had already done all the work for me, I added these to our menu.

I had high hopes for these, because I love all the ingredients. And despite those high hopes, these stuffed sweet potatoes actually surpassed my expectations. Even as recently as a couple of years ago, if you would have told me that sweet potatoes and black beans were a great combo, I probably would have given you the side eye. But, I’ve definitely come to find out it’s true.

These sweet potatoes are packed full of our favorite things – black beans, chipotles, spices, corn, and lots of cheese. I’ve come to adore sweet potatoes and butternut squash with some heat from peppers (forget that marshmallow and sugar nonsense), and the sweet and heat work so well in this dish. Plus, the beans provide protein and make these very filling.

I made the entire meal, from start to finish in the cast iron skillet (baked the potatoes, sauteed the corn and onions, put the stuffed potatoes back in there and stuck it under the broiler).  About 30 seconds after I stuck these under the broiler, Zachary was running around, fell, and bit his lip. Of course, as I was tending to  him, I kind of forgot about the potatoes so mine were a little….well done. Caramelized, if you will. Thankfully, they still tasted fabulous.

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Whenever I meal plan, I make sure to include meals that use the same ingredient, so I don’t have food waste. You’ve probably figured out by now that we have at least one Mexican-inspired dish per week, but what you may or may not know is that I am incapable of enjoying Mexican food without a dollop of sour cream. Since I had to buy sour cream for the 2 Tbsp. I was going to use, I knew I needed to use the rest for something, and I decided on stroganoff. (Sidebar: I have a post all about meal planning coming soon.)

Like many people who grew up in the 80s, I’ve had Hamburger Helper. Like, a lot of times. Although it was pretty much “forbidden” when I was young, when I got to the age where I could stay home alone and make myself dinner, it went (heavy) into the rotation. And when I was in college and moved into my first apartment, it probably made an appearance more often than I cared to admit. My favorite flavor was the stroganoff. Dude, I freaking loved that stuff. Of course, as soon as I had “real” stroganoff, I realized what I was missing.

I’ve made a few versions of stroganoff, including one with a fancy cut of beef, and one without. This time, though, I was yearning for the nostalgia of one-skillet-ground-beef-stuff-you-eat-in-college. For whatever reason, it sounded more comforting than the others (not to mention cheaper and quicker). This version most certainly did not disappoint. I increased pretty much everything but decreased the beef so this isn’t as meaty as the original recipe, but it was perfect for us. Creamy, comforting, delicious, awesome for leftovers, and flavored without the use of an envelope. :) Also, why are egg noodles so much more awesome than regular noodles? I may never know.

When Tom’s brother asked what we had for dinner later that night, he said “Hamburger Helper.” And, though that may not sound like a compliment to you, I’m going to take it as one. :)

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I’m generally not one for posting a lot of round ups in my blog, but I didn’t think I could let Cinco de Mayo go by without mentioning it and listing some of my favorite Mexican recipes. And well, I certainly have a lot of those. In fact, despite its moniker, this blog has 1 more Mexican recipe posted than it does Greek.

The list below does not even begin to exhaust the recipes posted (head to the Mexican/Tex-Mex tag for all of them) but includes many of my most favorites. (I have to say “most” favorites, because whittling it down was sort of tough, since I like all the recipes I post!)

Enjoy your Cinco de Mayo (hopefully with a margarita in hand)!

(P.S. Does anyone else just think Liz Phair when they hear “Cinco de Mayo”? :))

Appetizers

Guacamole
Chipole Salsa withPan-Roasted Tomatillos
Queso Fundido

Soups and Salads

Guacamole Salad
Jicama Slaw with Roasted Poblano Dressing
Pozole
Chicken Chili with Black Beans and Corn
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Roasted Corn and Green Chile Bisque

Sides

Butternut Squash and Poblano Gratin (since butternut is out of season, this could also be made with sweet potatoes)
“World Famous” Black Beans
Mashed Pinto Beans with Bacon and Manchego Cheese

Main Courses (meat)

Short Ribs in Chipole and Green Chile Sauce
Slowcooker Shredded Beef for Tacos/Burritos
Queso Fundido Burgers
Red Chile Chicken with Rice and Black Beans
Red Chile Enchiladas with Chicken and Cheese
Green Chile Hominy Casserole with Chorizo
Baked Bean and Beef Burritos with Sour Cream-Poblano Sauce
Smoky Pork Tinga Tacos with Avocado and Cheese
Chicken Fajitas

Main Courses (vegetarian)

Chipotle and Tomatillo-Sauced Black Bean and Spinach Enchiladas
Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas with Creamy Tomatillo Sauce
Black Bean Patties with Corn Relish and Avocado Cream
Tortilla and Black Bean Pie 

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There are some nights I’m especially excited about dinner, and the night we ate this meal was one of them. I’d mixed up the marinade early that morning, and I knew the whole family would love it (anything fairly heavy on allspice is definitely a favorite around these parts). Plus, we got to eat our first green beans of the season, and plantains, which I adore. I sliced the plantains and dusted them with chili powder, cumin, and brown sugar, then cooked them in a skillet with a little canola oil until they became nice and caramelized. Yum. (Had I not realized after taking 3 pictures of the chicken that my memory stick was full, I would have blogged the plantains, too.)

So, back to the chicken. It’s no secret that I adore chicken thighs, so I won’t blather on about that. I will go on about the marinade, which could not be simpler and probably utilizes things you already have on hand. It’s actually not meant to be a marinade in the original recipe, but I knew that letting the chicken sit in all these fabulous flavors all day could only make this more delicious.

The chicken has a little bit of heat from the jalapeno and the cayenne, but it’s not overtly spicy in my opinion. The heat is balanced nicely by the honey and cider vinegar, which add a bit of sweetness. And there’s really not much I can say about allspice other than I love it in both sweet and savory dishes, and this one was no different. This chicken is quick, healthy, and incredibly flavorful. I can never really ask for anything more from a meal.

The chicken thighs can also be grilled. We don’t really have time to grill during the week, so I just cooked the chicken until it was slightly undercooked in a cast iron skillet, and then finished it up under the broiler. You can cook them entirely under the broiler without the addition of any extra oil. I often prefer to do this but I have a finicky broiler (top rack is too close to the element, second rack is too far = annoying), so I tend to not use it for as long a time period as I used to with my old one.

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Since starting a new job, I’ve been doing a fair amount of dinner prep on Sunday night for Monday (and sometimes Tuesday). Whenever possible, I like to prep pretty much all of Monday’s meal while I’m making Sunday’s dinner, so that Tom just needs to pop it in the oven or heat it on the stove when he gets home (about 15 minutes before me).

The nice thing is most of these dishes tend to be baked pastas, chicken casseroles, etc. and make for lunch leftovers, too. The bad thing is most of these dishes tend to be baked pastas, chicken casseroles, etc. and I don’t want to make the same thing every week.

This meal definitely started as the idea of a baked pasta in my mind, but it utilizes quinoa instead of pasta and chicken, where most baked pasta dishes either lack a protein or use something like ground beef or sausage. The result is a meal that is tasty, healthy, packs a crazy protein punch, and can be made in advance. All good by me.

I made a really simple sauce for this, but if you’re not feeling it, you can always use the jarred stuff. I meant to add spinach to this to make it a full meal, but of course I didn’t see the spinach  until I was putting this into the fridge, fully assembled. So, we just had spinach salads instead. :)

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I told you I was getting pretty excited for warmer weather produce, and making this fruit salsa for Zachary’s party is yet another indication. Z surely would not complain, considering he could eat “strawbabies” all day long. Of course, you could make this with any number of different seasonal fruits and it would work just fine.

This salsa obviously requires a fair amount of chopping, but is still extremely easy to throw together. Plus, you can make it advance. I didn’t make mine too far in advance because I was worried about the texture, but I must say that we had some leftover, and it was fine the next day and day after that (though it will become a bit softer and more syrupy). Even without chips, Zachary did not have an issue eating this on its own with a spoon, and we both enjoyed it added to our plain yogurt, too.

I added an extra kiwi to the recipe (as indicated below). The amount of sugar you add will be based on how sweet your fruit already is and really, you may not need any at all. I used less sugar than the original, and also used a jelly with no sugar added (which is different than sugar-free jelly). I haven’t tried it personally, but if you want to keep refined sugars out of this completely but still want a little sweetness, I have no doubt that a little honey would work in place of the sugar.

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