It’s four o’clock, the baby is fussy, you haven’t had more than a three hour stretch of sleep in the last day and a half and time is ticking down to the dreaded task at hand—cooking dinner.  There may be some readers who relish the idea of whipping up a multicourse meal while entertaining a small child and trying to stay awake, but many of us struggle with the evening meal. 

Since takeout is expensive and wasteful, fast food is usually unhealthy, and both of these options require leaving the house, it’s important to have a few tricks on hand for tackling dinner preparation. These are a few of  my humble discoveries, but I’m sure our readers will contribute more!

Think like a prep chef:  Even if you just have fifteen minutes in the morning available, use them to chop up veggies or grate cheese.  Better yet, delegate these tasks to your partner or a helpful family member so that when you’re cooking you can just toss prepped ingredients into the dish.

Keep it simple: Dinner pretty much never looks like this picture on a weeknight at our house.  We often just eat lasagna or stir fry for dinner and forget the side dishes.   I might plunk some frozen veggies into a microwaveable bowl to accompany a meal of baked potatoes, but generally I try to make the produce a part of the meal. 

Be creative: Some of our strangest dinner meals have included French toast and applesauce, scrambled eggs and pear slices and sliced turkey on crackers with hummus.   My son loves breaking the dinner rules and I usually find it pretty exciting too!

Share the load:  The only reason I’m in charge of cooking at my house is that I hate doing dishes and my husband loves it.  Couples can create a meal schedule where duties alternate and single parents can enlist the help of friends and family.

Next week we’ll explore a few more tricks for getting dinner on the table without losing sleep or sanity.  Please feel free to share your mealtime tricks with us!