One of my personal priorities is getting dinner done.  It is a great time for communication, cooperation and role modeling for our families.  It all starts with setting a time for your family to gather and getting dinner on the table.  There are several short cuts that can help.

Planning dinner

Having  a plan is the biggest part of getting dinner done.   The success factor for dinner means you have a plan that works for you.   Gather your family together for your family meeting and brainstorm 10 meals everyone will eat.  These can be very simple, including dinner for breakfast, sandwiches or simple assembly with pre-cooked ingredients.   Moms sometimes like to throw in “surprise night” so that you have the opportunity once a week to be creative.

My colleague Susan Heid recently added her own cookbook for sale. With the discount code of CP20, you can purchase it online at her website.   Susan includes making your lists and conversation starters too!

http://www.theconfidentmom.com/mom-resources/got-dinner-quick-easy-recipes-from-the-confident-mom/

Susan enthusiastically wears the hat of mom, step-mom and foster mom to 4 awesome kids – ages 18, 14, 10 and 14 months; is married to her very own prince charming, loves coffee, cloudy days, and does think the bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle. You can find her at her other day job, The Confident Mom and get a FREE copy of her popular eBook “Getting Kids to Cooperate and Become Team Players.”

Online resources for creativity include www.e-mealz.com and www.thescramble.com.  All of these boost your meal planning organization in different ways.  Choose what works for you to get the plan going!

One amazing way to make your family and husband VERY happy is to post the meals of the week! You will receive not only amazing compliments, lots of hugs too!

Planning shopping

One of the trickiest shopping is for groceries.  Everyone’s ideal is different, but most agree that have a way to capture the list, and getting to the store regularly, make for the easiest organization. You can google your store and print out the list of groceries by aisle and keep this on a clipboard near the pantry.  Having two days that are the “regular” shopping days make sure there is always milk in your home.

Planning cooking

At 4:30 your kids become aliens who were raised by wolves! Having a plan on when to cook is the last step in dinner planning.  You can set aside time on Sunday to double batch, you can start your dinner early in the crock pot before you leave for work, or  you can entertain your kids in the kitchen with you while cooking dinner.  You can mix it up with partnering, where you and one child cook one night, and your partner and another child do the dishes that night.  Delegating and cooperating are fun parts to cooking dinner and everyone can have a job.   All of these are great ways to have preparation time.  Know what works for you and set up your time accordingly.   For me, even without kids at my feet, I love to cook on Sundays and adore my crock pot!  My husband and I share the clean up responsibilities too.

What are your best ways to get dinner done?