How to Cook Easy, Healthy, and Quick Meals

Do you ever feel like the lone employee in "Mom's Diner?"

Sarah Moore shares how to end that, and enlist help to make meals fun again.

Today Sarah Moore discussed:

• When it comes to meal planning - "simplify, simplify, simplify."
• Google meal plans so you don't have to come up with your own. Simple, easy, and healthy.
• Assign themes to each day: Pasta Monday, Taco Tuesday, burger day, pizza day, British food day, Indian food day, etc.
• Make the same theme each Monday, Tuesday, etc so you don't have to think about what you're making.
• Use the "bar" approach: salad bar, potato bar, taco bar, etc.
• You can buy all meals out on Saturday, then eat leftovers on Sunday and have no cooking at all!
• Give yourself permission to make the same thing twice a week if that's what works.

Breakfast:

• Try making a "Chunky Monkey Bowl." You'll find the recipe on Sarah's website Urban Earth Mom.
• Don't make different things for every meal, or you'll feel like it's "Mom's Diner."
• Making the same thing for breakfast every day Monday through Friday to make things easier.
• Kids can make their own breakfast. Plan ahead and make it simple.
• On weekends she makes pancakes, Eggs Benedict, etc. and turns it into a family activity.

Lunch:

• Eating leftovers from dinner is a simple way to cut down your cooking time.
• Sit down with each child and make a list of pre-approved lunch box options that can be mad quickly. Entrees, sides, and dessert are already decided, so it's easy for you to plan, and you know it's food they'll eat.

Dinner:

• Always have dry pasta and frozen vegetables on hand for quick and health dinners. Use a no-cook sauce made from pantry and fridge staples, and add fish or meat.
• Rice can be cooked ahead and stored ahead in the freezer so it's instant.
• Quinoa cooks quickly
• Use dip and keep it in the fridge, like pesto, tapenade, or hummus. Use it for a sauce for your pasta, quinoa, or rice. Add veggies and meat and you're done!
• Make enough each evening to have enough for everyone to have lunch the next day. or make 3-4 times the normal amount of dinner and have the same thing the next day for lunch and dinner the night after that. Or freeze it for dinner another night.

A word from Sarah:

"Hi, I'm Sarah Moore. I've been eliminating chaos since 1989! My left brain discovered a long time ago that it has the mind of a Lego master builder when it comes to filtering out all the busy work and time wasters of a process or project leaving only what is necessary to achieve the desired result.

My right brain is a little woo and I believe that everything is energy. My left brain is OK with that because Einstein thought so too. Your thoughts are energy - they are electrical impulses traveling down neurons. Food is energy: plants fix the energy of the sun. But it's really easy to get that energy stuck. Ever had the same song playing over and over in your head all day? Exactly, Stuck energy.

When you combine the two halves of my brain you get a project manager who has a laser focus on the critical path: the only bits of a project that actually need to get done to achieve the desired result. Whether that critical path is the a to z of a huge corporate project, a small entrepreneur's project or the pathway to getting dinner on the table with no fuss...I have the ability to cut through the fluff and leave only what truly matters.

These days I prefer to work with overwhelmed women who have too much on their plates and piles of stuff threatening to take over their homes. I bring you discipline and simplicity to help you find balance. With a big helping of no excuses tough love too."

 

You can find Sarah Moore:

Website: https://www.urbanearthmom.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urbanearthmom/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/UrbanEarthMom/

FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/UrbanEarthMom

Want to connect? You can find me at HardyMom.com

Thank you for joining me, Jen

p.s. Like the show? It would be great if you could help out by subscribing on your favorite podcast app.

Our music is "A New Day," by Scott Holmes

This episode is sponsored by the book, "The Sick Mom's Guide to Having Fun Again: If I can do it, you can too!" available on Amazon.