You know it is a busy week ahead of you and whether you are a career woman/wife/mom or a stay at home mom, your days go a little crazy sometimes. Make life easy on yourself with these easy tips.
Buy your meat on sale and re-package it in ziplock bags with your favorite marinades and stick them in the freezer. Pull it and put it in the refrigerator 1-2 nights before you need it and dinner is that much easier. Yesterday morning I pulled a package of chicken breast (approximately 1#) that I had cut into stir fry pieces and froze in 1/2 bottle of Wegman’s Teriyaki marinade.
Keep rice, rice noodles and/or ramen noodles on hand. Another thing I like to do is stock Easy Rice.
Steam a bag of vegetables from the produce department. My favorite is Eat Smart’s Stir fry veggies and at $1 this week I had a very affordable meal.
I sautéed half an onion in a little bit of oil and added the meat and marinade. Once the chicken was almost cooked through I added the steamed (in the microwave) veggies and my rice noodles, which I had cooked in boiling water for about 10 minutes.
Dinner was ready in 30 minutes and we had a well-balanced meal with veggies, protein and the debatable starch.
Plus clean up isn’t too bad since one pan is non stick, the veggies came in a steamer bag, and the rice noodle pan is super easy to clean up.
How much did dinner for 5 cost?
Chicken – sale 1.49#
Wegman’s marinade – FREE with a coupon
Veggies – $1
Rice noodles – $0.45
One child is still hungry – have an apple or some baby carrots.
There are so many variations to this meal. You can use beef, pork, vegetarian. Use whatever vegetables you have on hand. In the past we have had stir fry made with frozen corn and peas. Authentic stir fry? No, but it is thrifty and tastes good. The best part is it doesn’t need a lot of meat – you just cut up a pound or less and it works. You could also go a little pricier and throw a handful of shrimp in. I just make sure whichever ingredient is my main ingredient – the vegetable, meat or starch – is the amount my family usually eats in a meal.
C00l!!!!!!