Getting More Organized for the New Year.....

I love my crock pot for busy days! I can put all the ingredients together in minutes, slap the lid on, and go do what I need to do and know that I have dinner ready to go! Betty Crocker for the iPhone has some great recipes that take 10 minutes to put together and taste wonderful!! I even put stuff in the crock pot kettle the night before and just pop it in the cooker base in the morning. You can make roasts, chicken, soups and stews, even cake in a crock pot and most today are dishwasher safe.

We do Dream Dinners every month (food prep place, put together 12 meals and freeze) and that has helped tremendously. We get a nice variety of meals (not the same old recipes every week) and we save money in the end because we don't go out or do take out. Plus, it's much healthier than going out or other "fast" options.
Best part is less work and fewer dishes at night, key for us since we both work. When one of my step-daughters was around 11-12, she started prepping them at night since it was easy enough for her to "cook" dinner.

Can't help with your food question, although my crock pot is my friend.

But with laundry, I found, at my busiest, that doing a load or two every day or every other day wasn't as bad for me as spending an entire flipping day!
*I also kept track once and I think I did something like 45-50 loads a week at my height. Of course no one cared but it made me feel better that I wasn't crazy and that we had a lot of laundry. As the kids got older they took over some of their own and now our son has moved out so that helps too.

Good luck!

for laundry, I do at least one load first thing in the morning and one at night. That helps me stay on top of things without feeling like I'm constantly behind on laundry. I have 5 kids but two of them are teens and do their own laundry.

As far as meals, I don't freeze meals but I heard that if you prepare things ahead of time for the freezer, don't cook your noodles too much or else they'll be mushy when you heat it up.

LAUNDRY - I do it once a week. I put the first load in the minute I get up and set the kitchen timer so I can put it straight into the dryer and start the next load as soon as it is done. Then I set the timer for when the dryer will be done. I ride that timer all day! I sort each load as it comes out of the dryer and when all loads are done, I put each person's stuff away. It's sort of an assembly line concept. I can get 6 loads washed, dried and put away before the kids get out of school. Then I'm laundry free for a week! I am never stressed about laundry.

MEALS - I LOVE to freeze meals. We are on a tight budget so any time I can pull something out of the freezer on a busy day instead of doing fast food or ordering in, I'm a happy girl. My favorite casserole type dishes to freeze are Chicken Divan (I have an incredible recipe, let me know if you want it), Mexican Lasagna, Shepherd's Pie and Italian Lasagna. We also love soups in the crock pot. I freeze individual servings of Wedding Soup, Baked Potato Soup, Vegetable Soup and Beef Stew. On a busy day, I can thaw the soup and make grilled cheese & salad to go with it. Takes 15 minutes!

If I have nothing in the freezer, my old standby is breakfast for dinner. Takes no prep time, and only 10 minutes to cook up some eggs, bacon and toast. When my daughter was 7, I taught her how to make pancakes. Now she's 9 and whenever we have breakfast for dinner she makes her "famous pancakes" while I cook up the rest. My kids LOVE it!!

Best of luck to you and your family!!

Also have a household of 5 laundry gets done on some days like the last few it has piled up washed dried folded into the basket just not put away yet that is next,I sort all of it,it all gets washed seperatley that way I fold it then go into the room where it belongs & put it all away where it goes of course.Dinners I hate cooking so I never cook just to freeze meals the only frozen items I let my kids eat are chicken nuggets a few times a week for the lunch or lasagna it would cost more if I bought everything & made it from scratch Taquitos every so often they are good a mess to cook & fry so it is easier to prepare frozen so for I can make other things to go with them.Love the crock pot my rump roats come out so much better than the oven,BBQ ribs.I feel cooking is keeping me in the kitchen & i'd rather be anywhere else but in there but my jobs do get done. I think I would love my kitchen if I had a new stove that was gas hopefully this New Year will be good to me so for I can get one:)

First, as far as laundry. We do a load a night (sometimes skipping a night or doing 2 in a day.) I start it after dinner and move it to the dryer before bed (our laundry is in our kitchen/family room so it does get a little loud sometimes). The next day I fold the clean stuff while the next load is washing.

Food - lasagna can be made ahead and frozen uncooked (except the meat) and then cooked. You can also make big pots of hearty soup or chili and freeze it in smaller containers and only defrost what you need. Quiche should be cooked ahead and reheated in oven straight from the freezer.

As for dinners....
I find that ham freezes well. So you can cook a large one and slice it up and freeze it.
Soups and stews also freeze well.

The never ending laundry...
Typically Saturday is the day, but during the summer (I hang it out to dry) I'll try to do a load in the morning and hang it up before I go to work and take it down when I get home. This time of year, I try to do a load or two one night during the week.

Hi G., great questions! I LOVE parents who know when what they are doing isn't the best for their kids and they want help. Thanks for knowing that fast food restaurants are unhealthy and actually a HUGE problem with our kids.

FOOD - I have a wonderful FREE resource available to you (any anyone else reading this) - go to www.HeyYouGetReal.com/now and download my eBook called FOOD RULES! You will get tips and ideas how to keep food real and simple in your home. Week 3 talks about HEALTHY fast food options AT HOME! FRESH meals in under 15 mins. It can be done!

LAUNDRY- It is never ending - just like meal time. It happens because we are a living part of it every day...we have to wear clothes! We have a family of 4 (girls aged 15 and 11) and we have "laundry day". We usually have 4-5 loads a week (yes,I have taught the girls that they can wear the same shirt 2 or even 3 times if they don't get it "dirty". If they do get a "spot" on it, they just hand wash the spot out. Jeans can be worn 3-4 times at least. They have "school clothes" and home clothes. They change from their school clothes when they get home. They change into their "home clothes and THOSE get washed more often. Not only does it save on laundry time, it saves the school clothes, they last longer - not so much wear and tear in the wash. It really is a matter of what is "dirty" and what can be worn again. My clothing bill and my water bill are quite low with this system. When they were younger, we had a bit more laundry, but again, we had the "outside clothes" and the "inside clothes".

Please let me know if the tips in the eBook are helpful!

B.
Family Success Coach

Hi G.,
Can't help with the laundry question, but you've had some good repsonses. As for dinner, just remember that almost anything you put together at home is better than fast food. Keep a lowfat jar of alfredo sauce in the cupboard and toss it with some broccoli and pasta (or whatever veggie you have). Eggs for dinner, tacos/burritos come together really quickly with almost any meat/beans/eggs. Grilled cheese, ham and cheese, turkey and cheese. Deli roast beef or ham and you can make philly cheese steaks. Just saute some onions/mushrooms/pepper or not and add some provolone. Good Luck!

M.

Hi there,

Laundry: I do all my laundry on one day, and all my ironing the next. I have my "chores" all listed out and how much time they take...then I spread them out throughout the week. On my laundry day, I do nothing else (except cooking) so that I can focus on it. I usually sort and start my first load the night before. I do this for clothes, and if I have time I also do towels and other linens - otherwise, those are done on a separate day since they are less delicate timewise (like, it doesn't matter if they sit in the dryer for an hour because they don't wrinkle). My mom always did this way and there were 6 of us...it worked the best for her, but just figure out what system works for you and stick with it. :)

Meals - there's a cookbook out there called "Once a Month cooking" I've never done the whole month plan, but at least you'd have a tried and true recipe source fore freezer meals. :) The things I've had from there are good, and it isn't all casseroles, either. :)

Take care!
R.

Hi G.-

Im not sure about the laundry since I only have 1 son... but for freezing food...I do it all the time!!
I make a big pot of spaghetti sauce, eat it fresh for dinner and freeze the rest. I freeze split pea soup, beans, curry chicken,enchiladas, lasagna sometimes they are cooked, if they are left overs, if not I make a seperate batch to freeze. Chicken soup. Costco and Trader Joes sells frozen veggies, and we will take fish or chicken breast out that morning and leave in the fridge, make a quick rice and veggies. We use the costco frozen chicken breast alot... than I can make chicken strips, add to a salad, as a dinner with sides. Fish we will buy the Salmon and MahiMahi and make fish tacos, put in broiler and cook on high for 7 min, no flipping necessary.
once you start you will get creative...
Good Luck and cheers to a healtier 2011

As I answer this, I actually have two containers of two different types of bean dishes in the freezer. One is Southern style red beans, the other is a Filipino dish called mung bean soup (although its not very soupy), both eaten with white rice. I've also frozen homemade eggrolls, but that's a Filipino thing. One thing I've done lately is get the frozen, pre-seasoned items at Costco (one favorite is the pre-seasoned salmon), cook them for dinner, and top them with lightly seasoned spinach and tomatoes sauteed in olive oil. Its so faux gourmet!

As for laundry, a load every other day or so keeps me from going crazy. As much as I can, I fold while watching TV, so its like I'm multitasking while relaxing and spending time with my husband! Its also a good way to rope him into helping me out without me actually having to say, "help me with the laundry."

If you freeze lasagna or enchiladas, I think you don't have to cook them before freezing, except for the meat inside. You can freeze homemade soups and then serve them with bread and salad. Costco has some decent frozen foods. I like their frozen spinach ravioli.

I only do laundry one day a week. I have really nice high efficiency washer/dryer. It takes like 1/2 hour often to do a load in the washer and a little bit longer in the dryer. So to do 4 or 5 loads, I am finished in about 3 hours, then the folding and putting away.

I don't freeze or do crock pot. A friend I know who LOVES to cook gets it done in the morning, so that's an idea. EVERYDAY FOOD MAGAZINE is a little magazine with very simple, yummy recipes too.

As for laundry, I did a search on this site for ideas and the suggestions were extremely helpful. Basically the ladies on this site followed FLY LADY's advice for laundry and I've been doing that and it seems easier on me. Basically, the rule is do a complete load at a time. Do not start another load unless the last load is completely folded and put away. That way you don't get overwhelmed. So basically it means 1-2-3 loads a day or every couple of days, which I'm actually enjoying.

I love doing laundry, I hate actually folding it and putting it away. So I always had clean clothes piled up in baskets. Now that I've forced myself to get it done, I feel a lot better about it.

With my family of 4, I am always amazed at how much laundry we have! I do one load per day. I don't know the ages of your children, mine are 9 & 11, and I have them put away their clothes each day. I am really trying to let them fold their own clothes each day, too. It depends on how busy they are with homework & dance. As for food, we spend a lot of time at our dance studio, have very irregular eating schedules, and we really struggle with meals. There are a few moms at the dance studio who use 30-minutes meals and books like that. They use books that help you plan your meals for 2 weeks at a time! The moms plan their menus, shop for everything all at once, spend one day a week cooking it all up, and freezing it. They freeze it in individual servings, so each child can pop something into the microwave whenever they want. It works great for them! I am going to try it starting this weekend! Good luck to you. If you don't find any of the books by doing a general search, let me know & I will ask those moms for the titles when we go back to the studio in January. B.