Organising the evening meal in the morning

Bowl of cooked pasta – note my Nanna’s old colander

 

This is the only thing that has been my ‘saving grace’ in trying to get an evening meal on the table and avoiding takeaways on the nights I work. I’m looking forward to cooler weather as it’s so much easier to organise ‘one pot dinners’ using my crock pot but those kind of meals are just too hot to eat in our warmer weather.

Even if I can ‘prep’ dinner in the morning, I feel like I’m ahead of the game. Things like tossing a salad (and adding dressing just before serving), prepping the vegetables and then cooking the meat just before dinner time, helps a lot.

What’s for dinner?

Tonight’s dinner is a Chicken & Bacon Pasta Bake. It’s baked and ready to be served with a salad tonight. Not much to it. Chop and fry a chicken breast and bacon, add grated vegies, tinned tomatoes, chopped onion, garlic, salt & pepper, chicken stock and herbs. Boil pasta. Combine the cooked chicken mixture with the pasta, top with a simple white sauce then grated cheese and cook in the oven for about 20 minutes. Freezes really well. We’ll probably get 3 or 4 meals out of this.

In the cooler months, I like to do stews, casseroles, a meatloaf, pasta sauces or curries in my slow cooker. One dish, one cooking process and one dish to wash up. That’s the way, ah hah, ah hah, I like it, ah hah. Prepping dinner this way also means less washing up at night time, a time when I like to relax after a busy day.

 

Not sure what the kids are having. (*wink wink*)