Dinner Co-ops
This is a fun easy way to share the work of getting a homeade meal on the table every night. Get together with 4 or 5 friends. Have each person pick a nite to cook dinner. When it is your turn, you make something simple and healthy to feed each family. Prior to the dinner hour, you can drop off meals at each house or they can pick them up. It helps to coordinate each month what each family will be cooking so there are no repeats. This is a great way to cook only once a week. It may seem overwhelming the first time but it really is not that much more work to make the same meal for more people.
Cook Twice as Much
When you are making lasagna, enchiladas, casseroles or other items that freeze well – cook an extra pan and freeze it. You only have to make the mess once and then you have something to pull out of the freezer on a night you don’t want to cook. Pair it with a fresh salad or vegetable and voila, instant dinner.
Don’t forget to check our friend’s site www.snap-saver.com
Entertaining
Once you have children, it can seem overwhelming to have other families over for dinner. If you have a playgroup or group of friends you would like to see on a regular basis, start a dinner group.
Meet once a month. Have each family pick a night to host. Keep the meal simple for the kids and then have an art activity or video ready for the kids while the adults eat. The host can do the whole meal or plan a menu and have everyone bring a dish. One month, you may even decide to order take-out from a fun restaurant.
During the summer when nobody feels like cooking, have everyone prepare a dish or bring a picnic or takeout and meet at the beach, park or botanical gardens for an early dinner. The kids can run around and burn off some energy before dinner and nobody has to worry about clean-up.
Mom’s Cooking Group
It can be stressful as a mom to come up with 7 dinners a week when you have children underfoot, carpools, volunteer duties or work. Don’t cook by yourself, get a small group of women and set a date to meet once every 2 weeks and cook together. This will give you a couple meals that are ready to go each week. Choose other moms that will be as committed to this group.
You can rotate kitchens or meet at the same house every time. Decide on several dishes so that you can freeze a couple of them. Choose main dishes that can be modified for each family so that it includes things that each family likes.
Shop the day before either as a group or have this person rotate and then everyone can split the cost. Make sure to get enough ingredients to cover the number of families you are feeding.
On cooking day, turn on fun music, pour a glass of wine, and have fun. Each person can take a dish to prepare or you can work as a group with each person doing a step until that dish is completed. Then you can move on to the next one. Purchase disposable tin pans and ziploc bags for transporting the meals back home. You will go home with something for dinner and several others that can be frozen and pulled out as you need them.
Cooking Parties
Find the latest rage in your town… These are commercial kitchens set up with everything you need to prepare up to 12 meals that serve 4-6 people. You freeze them and pull them out as you need them.
Go from station to station and assemble the the pre-cut ingredients for your entrées and put them into pans or Ziploc bags.
The best part of this is that you can have fun with your friends at the same time. You can even set-up parties and baby showers. You don’t have to worry about any clean up and the prices are reasonable.
After you get home, you stick it all in the freezer and each container has directions on how to cook it and you just pull it out on the nights you don’t want to cook.
I have done the Dream Dinnes, located in Solana Beach several times now! It is a great place to go with a group of gal pals, and if you are interested in fundraising for your childrens school – they also have a PTA program that your school board can sign up for… the Solana Beach store will also be opening a Carlsbad location later this year!
