turkey pie

The cute quote of the day today goes to my four year old. As she was eating her supper, quietly to herself, but thankfully loud enough for mom ears to hear, I overheard this, "I love you turkey pie, but now it's time for you to go in my tummy," followed by a gigantic chomp!
I feel like someone should give me a gold star for making a wholesome supper that is on my child's top five list, yup, even beating out Mac and Cheese.
I thought I'd share some tips for not having to stair into the fridge, blankly, wondering what you are going to have for supper, because we've all done it.

1. Meal plan.  I can't stress enough how much this has helped us. I make a list, Monday to Sunday, and come up with 14 different suppers. Even if I'm not prepped, I know what we're having, and I know I have the ingredients for it because I grocery shop according to the list.

2. We always cook either a whole chicken, turkey or roast early in the week, and use the leftover meat for future meals. For example this week I cooked a roast, and used leftovers for a beef and broccoli stir fry. I also had leftover turkey in the freezer from last week, which became, said, "turkey pie".

3. Prep as much ahead of time as you can, and use all "waiting" time. If I'm waiting for lunch noodles to boil, that's 7 minutes I have to chop my carrots, celery and onion for later, just chop and put in in the fridge for when you're ready to cook supper. 

4. Use a slow cooker!! I think we almost have one slow cooker meal a week. It's a whole day that I don't have to have anything ready, it's just ready at supper time, hooray!

5. One boring thing we do for lunch is have the same thing every Monday, and the same thing every Tuesday, etc. The kids actually like this because they each have their favorite days..."is it quasadilla Tuesday yet??" 

Basically anything I can do in a day that takes away from having to think is great! I don't want to think about what to make, I just want to know what to make, and the above helps with that. Then I can just focus on playing school, or in the doll house, or chasing babies to pinch their bums. What a glamorous life, I know.