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Plan Ahead With Stephanie O'Dea's Cooking Tips
Master slow cooker Stephanie O'Dea helps you get organized.
April 6, 2011— -- I am a meal planner. I wish I wasn't sometimes, because having a meal plan attached to the fridge makes me feel like an obsessive control freak.
Except. It works.
Having this meal plan ensures that I'm not thinking up meal and snack ideas five to six times a day, every day. It also keeps the kids from rummaging through the cupboards multiple times an hour and keeps me from mindlessly snacking my way through a bag of chocolate chips.
I also appreciate how easy it is to stick to a budget when I do all my shopping once a week (or if I'm feeling really spunky, twice a month) instead of wandering the aisles a few times each week to pick up odds and ends. I don't know about you, but I'll often pop into a store only to pick up a bunch of bananas and some orange juice and come out $50 later with an unneeded US Weekly and a bag of potato chips.
Oops.
Since I use my slow cooker so much, I usually can get away with only cooking dinner 3 to 4 times a week—we eat leftovers on the days in between. If your family refuses to eat leftovers, don't serve the same food two days in a row. Instead, package up half of it and freeze the leftover portion to pull out later in the month.
The most dreaded question at the end of the day will always be "what's for dinner?" If you have a slow cooker plugged in, congratulations! You are already ahead of the game.Slow cooking forces you to plan ahead, because you're not going to be able to rush out to the store at 5 p.m. to pick up ingredients. This is a good thing.
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