Four tips for dinner in a flash

I really thought that by retirement age,  life would be more simple and slow down a little. Not so. If anything, it has gotten more complicated because of the wide variety of ages and interests our family members have.  (I am not admitting to slowing down personally). (More - click on title) Now, we try to get in a work-out three times a week, but my husband has a wierd work schedule, going in early and staying an hour later every other week. We try to get together with our daughter, son-in-law and their baby at least one evening a week for dinner. Their baby spends every other Wednesday with me and our younger son's children spend every other weekend with us. Our older son comes to visit at least twice a month and occasionally my oldest grandson, his wife and their two kids make the one hour trip to see us. Yeah, great-grandkids... and they really are GREAT.

This does not even take in to consideration the complicated tastes and eating habits of the various family members. The teen girls only eat salad, yogurt and fruit... unless there is pizza around. One of the boys will not eat vegetables or fruit in any form except pie and forget about casseroles. Our daughter insists on "healthy" foods  while her husband lists meat as a hobby on his Facebook page. One son gets physically ill if any artificial sweetener is added to his beverages or food.


You can see why we are always looking for new ways to get a healthy, tasty meal on the table with a minimum of fuss. And it would really help to have a big new Samsung French Door refigerator to store the groceries in. I saw a chance to win on in a Sweepstakes on TwitterMoms and decided to enter the contest for the best hints for getting dinner ready in a flash.

Here are a few pointers you might  find helpful:

1. Try the supermarket samples, they usually have a neatly written recipe card and ingredients are usually  close by the demo cart so  you can quickly grab up the idea and all supplies.
2. Before heading to the grocery store, make a list of what you have on hand that will make a meal and jot down which day you plan to serve it on the list. That's one less thing to worry about.
3. Shop around the perimeter of the supermarket first to get the basic meal ingredients in your cart, then make strategic aisle strikes to fill in the side dishes and grab supplies.
4. Take the kids along and don't let them go to the toy aisle until they give you one usable idea for a meal you can all enjoy. My grandkids like most anything they can assemble themselves so tacos, pizza and subs are popular here.

Don't discount eating out. Just watch for coupons and "kids eat free" specials around town.