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Planning Ahead: The secret to just about everything for a stress-free life:
Featuring your family mealtime

What else are Sundays good for anyway? You may as well spend half of your weekend slaving over a hot stove so that the remainder of your week may be a bit easier. Sounds like good times, doesn't it? Nope, to me either; but there is more to it than the fun I described above. The day or evening you choose to make ahead a few meals will benefit you and your family in more ways than you can even begin to imagine!

Imagine this scenario if you can (just pretend for a moment): You finally drag your tired feet into your foyer, you unload all of your encumbrances at the door; and then you hear those all-too-familiar words "Mom (or Dad) I'm starving, what's for dinner?" Before you can utter a tired "and hello to you too" you stumble into the kitchen to see what there is to make that is fast. Healthy? Sure, it counts, but right now you just want dinner to be over; there is a hot shower somewhere in you future after all!

If the above scenario has any familiarity to you it is because you are like most American families: Two-income, too tired and too involved. We are a very busy people. Now, imagine this scenario:

You drag your tired feet in the door, you unload all of your encumbrances, and you hear these all too familiar words hurled at you: "Mom (or Dad) I'm starving, what's for dinner?"

Instead of doing the mad dash and grab through cabinets, freezer, or fridge, you call out: "Chicken casserole, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. Be washed up and at the table in ten minutes!"

Now, doesn't that sound nice?

No, you have not opted to hire a personal chef, you prepared a few meals in advance, and all you have to do now is simply heat it up! How smart are you? Why, you are Mother (or Father) of the darn year here, that's how smart you are!
Not only does your family get to sit down in a timely fashion to a hot meal, it is a healthy meal, you prepared it and you did not have to make it up on the fly after your very own hard day!

I decided this was the way to go a few years back and it has been a huge success ever since. If I tell you where I got the idea, you must promise not to laugh; okay, you may chuckle, but no rolling on the floor with laughter: I was actually watching an old re-run of Hazel on television. Hazel had to take a trip for some odd reason and when she left her family, she had prepared three separate meals for them to eat in her absence with instructions for heating,

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