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5 Easy Meal Planning Tips for Back to School (Plus a Recipe for Easy Cashew Chicken!)

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Cashew Chicken

Meal planning has always been one of my favorite pastimes – mainly because I love to eat and often dream of my next meal. It wasn’t until I became a mother, living on a budget, that I realized how much meal planning was NECESSARY TO SURVIVAL.

Busy schedules and hungry kids often collide, especially at Back to School time, the convergence resulting in expensive take-out or mom feeling crazy. Or both.

Let’s just say NO, shall we? Consider these meal planning strategies to help you keep your cool without busting your budget.

Plan for theme nights.

Theme nights are not just for savvy marketing executives. Taco Tuesday and Meatless Monday can bring ease and simplicity to your dinnertimes. They add fun as well as rhythm. You don’t really need to think too hard to plan, just go along with the theme. (Consider also: Sunday Supper, Wacky Wednesday, French Fridays, Pancake Saturday and Pizza Night.)

Let the kids choose!

Secure your place as Mom of the Year by letting the kids plan dinner. Every once in a while, I veto a time-consuming suggestion, but more often than not, my kids select easy dinners. Pancakes? Pizza? Tacos? You bet! Kid’s choice is usually easy and one that everyone will eat without complaint.

Chill out, Mom.

Have you tried make-ahead meals? You need to! Whether you make dinner in the morning and set it in the fridge until later, or you do a little batch cooking for the freezer, make-ahead meals just might make your school year. You can do the meal prep work when it’s convenient for you, not when you’re trying to get one kid to finish his homework while the other needs to be at ballet class five minutes ago. Come home to a meal that’s all ready to go.

Good Cheap Eats

Go for the quick fix.

Quick fix dinners, like the ones in my new cookbook, are the ones that I gravitate for. They use all fresh ingredients and come together in 30 minutes or less. Sesame Noodles, Guac O’Clock Tostadas, and Hands-Free Cashew Chicken come together in lightening speed, and the kids gobble them down.

Just plan something.

Remember that your meal plan doesn’t have to be crazy complicated. It can be mac and cheese or a chicken sauté over rice. Soup night can be super comforting as the weather turns cool.

And there’s nothing wrong with picking up a Costco pizza on the way home from work. But, do it because you want to, not because you don’t have any better options. Planned take-out and restaurant fare can be an instrumental part of easing the strain of busy school nights.

Meal planning isn’t rocket science. Choose five meals to make for school nights this week, using the tricks outlined above. You’ll know what to make, and you’ll save money in the process because you’re not flying by the seat of your pants. Somehow that always costs more than coach.

Jessica Fisher loves to cook, but she loves eating more. The quicker it gets on the table, the better! Check out her new book, Good Cheap Eats: Dinner in 30 Minutes or Less, so that you can eat real cheap, real quick, and real good.


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