14 Tips for Quick Meals - Tending My Garden

About the only way I know of to eat healthfully and get away from all the unhealthy stuff offered in the stores is to prepare everything from scratch — or almost everything anyway. (I buy already prepared mustard and organic Mayonnaise.) I’ve being preparing meals from scratch for years. And yes, it does take some doing — but mostly it takes planning.

All of us have nights that we just can’t or don’t want to spend hours preparing a meal.

There are lots of simple tips we can use so that when such a night comes up (which is often in this household), we can put together a quick and easy meal that is healthful rather than using Hamburger Helper or Tuna Helper. (I’ve never eaten either of those products, but a friend and reader of TMG tells me that she use to keep Tuna Helper on hand for quick meals.)

Try to incorporate as many of the following tips into your life as possible. With practice it’ll become “old hat” and you’ll eventually find you’ll never be tempted to reach for unhealthy processed food again when you need a quick meal.

14 Tips to Help Plan for Quick Meals

Grow as many vegetables in your garden as you can handle and freeze some for winter use. (I find that peas and green beans really come in hand for a green vegetable to go with winter meals.)

Learn to keep fresh vegetables in your garden as long into the fall as you can. (TMG tells you a lot about that.)

When you make casseroles, soups, roasts, and such — freeze some so you’ll have an extra meal in the freezer, already prepared. A hot bowl of beef stew and a slice of fresh bread is about as easy as it comes. The stew can come right from the freezer and so can the bread if you don’t already have some in the frig.

When you make muffins, cakes, and breads — make enough to freeze some for later.

Have fresh tomato sauce and/or spaghetti sauce from your garden frozen in small amounts for use when you need it.

Buy organic whole wheat pasta in bulk (it’s cheaper) and have it on hand. Your frozen tomato sauce will make it a quick meal. A salad tops it off.

Keep organic potatoes, onions, and carrots and even butternut squash on hand for quick, easy, satisfying meals. Combine or use alone — the taste is great.

Nothing like a big salad for dinner. Add whatever you have time for.

Make up meatloaf-like meatballs ahead and freeze in quantity. Take out of the freezer and place in the refrigerator to thaw in the AM for dinner that evening. If you didn’t take them out of the freezer in the AM – place in oven at 200 degrees until thawed and then cook at regular temperature.

If you know you’re going to be in a hurry at dinner time, cut your vegetables ahead and put in a zip lock bag in the refrigerator so they’ll be ready. Get other ingredients together ahead of time.

If you’re going to make a quick bread for dinner, put all your dry ingredients together in a plastic container in the refrigerator. Put all the other ingredients close by. It’ll be just as quick as a mix.

Get your kids or your mate to help you cut up vegetables, etc. Two people gets the job done in half the time.

Learn to eat simply. (The flavor of fresh from the garden vegetables makes this really easy to do.)

Have several quick and easy recipes in your repertoire of meals. Spend an hour or so from time to time looking for such recipes. It’s easy with the internet.

Final Thought

Any food you eat should nourish your body, not harm you. With a little planning and practice you can always have something quick on hand without using any unhealthy processed foods.

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Gravy Recipe that’s good with almost anything.

Oven Fried Potatoes – with zip!

A Quick and Delicious Tomato Sauce Homemade, Easy, and Fast

Theresa’s Salad Dressing

Soup – Make A Mental Note

Lettuce – Delicious as a Cooked Green

The Basic Knowledge of Feeding Yourself Well

GMO – GE food – GM food – what are they; why they’re dangerous; how you can protect yourself

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Organic Gardening is easy, efficient and effective. And its a lot healthier.

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