Timing is everything.

I've always looked forward to a grand family get together so that we could all share a traditional meal. What is that, you ask? Turkey at Thanksgiving, prime rib at Christmas, ham at Easter. Mind you, none of these meals were traditional holiday meals where I grew up.
This is what we ate at Easter: a slow cooked stuffed rabbit or stuffed leg of lamb. The rabbit was easier to cook because of its size. Mother could easily stuff it in her big sauce pan and set it on a slow fire in a savory tomato stew that perfumed the house for hours.

Nowadays, if I do get a crowd for a holiday, or any occasion, I try to prepare food that can be cooked in advance:

1. Eggplant parmigiana
2. Mushrooms and spinach strudel
3. Roasted leg of lamb
4. Roasted root vegetables

The timeline is easy: Cook the lamb and the root vegetables ahead, even a day ahead. Prepare the strudel and the eggplant ahead of time as well,  but bake it the day of the meal. Before your guests arrive, an hour ahead, slip the eggplant and the strudel in the oven and cook as recommended. Make a gravy for your lamb and slip the sliced lamb and root vegetables back in the oven for fifteen minutes or so after you pull out the eggplant and strudel. Turn the oven off and let the food rest and wait for the time when you are all hungry.

All of these dishes can be prepared and cooked ahead. You can serve them cold if you want, or slightly warmed. Add a salad of mixed greens, and a dessert, and your celebration dinner is ready. Notice that you have lots of veggies, enough for a vegetarian to feel full.

p.s. search for recipes on the sidebar or use your own recipes

Feeding the family

Stuffed peppers for a busy night! I can prepare these the night before and bake for 30' right after work. The family would be ready to sit down together, and eat. Crusty bread, and fruit, would round up the meal.

That didn't happen that often, especially as my schedule and my husband's took us late into the evening for our  busy jobs.  Our children, home and settled for hours, might have snacked on cereal and milk before we got home with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yes, I confess.

You're tired. And busy!
Everyone wants to eat something else.
So, you stop at a drive-in and you pick up dinner.
Does that happen to you often?

You only need a few things and one weekend to get ahead, I found out. Oh, and extra money! To stock the pantry and the freezer you need to shop in quantity. Hope you can get ahead really soon!

Stock your fridge and pantry with these ingredients:
Pasta/rice
beans
canned tomatoes
bouillon cubes.
Cheeses
Eggs
Veggies
Rolls,wraps,
Salad dressings
Vinegars
Oils


Too tired to cook? Scramble eggs, cook some  veggies, pour a T of dressing over them, add a roll and you have dinner. Don't even think of stopping off and picking up fish and chips. Once you do, your habits form, and you become a slave to others' cooking. All that extra fat and sugar will add up over the years!

Have time once a week? : Bake a meatloaf,  a whole chicken,  a pork roast.  Now, you have food for dinners and lunches. Meatloaf sands, chicken wraps, pork stir fry.  The trick is to have a couple of things on hand for those nights when nobody has the willingness to prepare a meal from scratch. 

I always made my meaty spaghetti-sauce over the weekend and made enough extra sauce to use  the rest of the week, or freeze for a night when I had nothing to cook.

You don't make your own spaghetti sauce? Nothing will taste as good as a homemade sauce. (I promise, it will come up soon in a new post!)

Let your kids help. They will throw an extra ingredient that they like in the sauce, and just that addition would let them like the dish.

Make meal planning family learning times.  The kids can download a recipe, collect and get everything on the counter, and will assist you in whipping up the meal.  When you do cook together, you'll discover all kinds of things going on in their lives.

As my children got older, their job was to put something I had assembled right in the oven and have it cooked by the time I got home. We had lots of casseroles like the one above.

Feeding your family doesn't have to consume you or your pocketbook.