Seeking Advice on Healthy Meal Planning

I'm afraid that healthy food just means more time in the kitchen. But here are a few short cuts I've found: Costco sells precooked frozen brown rice. I use it constantly in everything and my two year old loves it. I'm no fan of frozen vegetables but the costco brand frozen stir fry is reasonably crisp. Combine those with a bottled teriaki sauce and its as healthy as it gets with almost no time and few dishes.

Barilla makes a brand of pasta called Barrilla Plus. Its whole grain and has Omega-3's. You'd never know by the taste. So Spaghetti can be healthy and thats always easy.

the other day I made a baked elbow pasta it was a great way to sneak vegetables in and I had leftovers! I sauted onion, mushroom, spinach with a can of stewed tomatoes and combined it with cooked macaroni. I added cubed mozzarella to it and again some Parmesan and bread crumb topping and baked. It wasn't super fast but my daughter ate vegetables and I had luchnes for two days!

Good luck

This will probably seem off kilter, but check out the Biggest Loser cookbooks. They are healthy meals without junk in them. Real food... yes it was designed for people to lose weight, but it doesn't have to be that way. I also have a cookbook that is for children, but to be honest my son didn't like most of the meals. He will eat stuff I make from the Biggest Loser cookbooks.
One staple here had become chicken strips. I make a bunch of them and bake them so that all I have to do is reheat them later. This way I know what's in them. Same with Macaroni and Cheese. I make a pot of it from scratch every so often. I can freeze extras in small containers. Whatever i do make... I make little containers of it so that when I'm in a rush which I often am... I can just pop one in the microwave and viola! Lunch/dinner is ready for him.

when you make meals, make more than enough and freeze them in serving sizes. So on a day your not feeling it, you tkae a day off of cooking, but you know that your kids are getting a good healthy home cooked meal. There are so many things we freeze, speghetti sauce, split pea soup, chicken curry, chili, beans, chicken soup. I just make a big pot and freeze our left overs.
Good luck!

Check out Cooking Light magazine and Cookinglight.com...they are both huge helps for me! The recipes are simple, often very quick and healthy. We've gotten a lot of great new meals from them. They also have a recipe a day thing you can subscribe to and get by e-mail. I love it and being a working mom don't have a lot of time, but want to feed my family well!

Good luck.
-M

I'd look up some slow cooker meals. These meals can be prepared pretty quickly and then put on to cook in the morning and ready to eat by dinner time. Less stress and worry. I love them.

saving dinner and savingdinner.com, LeAnn is great. It is her mission to get familys to enjoy real food, quickly that is super nutritious. Its yummy too!

I totally feel for you. It's really challenging to make 3 meals and 2 snacks a day AND keep your sanity. On weelicious, we post a new kid friendly, kid tested recipe every day that's easy, fast and healthy. Most of the recipes can be prepared in less then 20 mins, so you can spend as much time with your kids as possible. I also always suggest getting them involved. By giving them little jobs to do, they will be more excited about eating the food and having some ownership over it. Good luck! - www.weelicious.com

My friend sells Wildtree. Check out www.wildtree.com. Let me know if I can refer you to my friend. I love their stuff because I'm a busy mom and I'm not a creative cook. They sell blends and spices that are natural and healthy.

Are you using tools to help you? Slow cookers and food processors? Try chopping/slicing things like onion, carrots and peppers ahead of time and then freezing them. You can also freeze your ripe tomatoes and core them and toss them in a roast, chicken dish, or soup later, chop it or toss the whole thing in. The skin will peel easily if you run it under water because the core will be frozen and the skin thaws first. Do your prep work when they are sleeping.

I recently found this web site www.sparkpeople.com it not only helps you plan meals, but gives you a shopping list for the week. You can change the number of people you cook for as well and it will update the shopping list automatically. There is also a cookbook I really like called "A Dinner A Day" it plans out weekday dinners all year long and gives you weekly shopping lists as well.